"Again, Hezbollah is growing in strength before our eyes and we're standing idly by," one official told Ynet, explaining that he and others recently learned that Syria has shipped large quantities of advanced anti-tank missiles to the Lebanese terror group to replace those used against Israeli forces during last summer's war.

Other officials told Ynet that Hezbollah continues to stockpile Katyusha rockets and medium- and long-range missiles. More than 4,000 missiles were fired into northern Israel by Hezbollah during the conflict.

In addition to regaining its military strength, Hezbollah is also trying to again make its presence felt among the public in southern Lebanon.

On Tuesday, groups of motorcycle-riding, bearded Hezbollah activists paraded along the Israel-Lebanon border carrying the flag of their movement and huge photographs of their leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and of Hezbollah fighters killed in the recent war with Israel.

While the activists are believed to have been unarmed, their message was clear: Hezbollah has returned to the area in defiance of Israeli demands and a U.N.-brokered truce along the border.

As the war raged between Israel and Hezbollah last July, Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed that the Lebanese militants would never again be permitted to raise their banners over the border.

When Olmert testified before an investigatory commission into the execution of the war last week, he insisted that Israel's major achievement had been the removal of Hezbollah as a fighting force in southern Lebanon and the insertion of additional international peacekeepers who would act as a buffer.

A series of public opinion polls conducted since last summer indicate that the vast majority of Israelis are not buying Olmert's assertions, and want him to step down for failing to lead the nation to a decisive victory over a militia far inferior in strength to Israel's own military.