TEL AVIV, Israel -- Six months after the attacks against Lebanon, Syria, Hezbollah and Israel are all beefing up their forces, preparing for another round of hostilities though none seem imminent.

The Ha’aretz newspaper reported Thursday that the Syrian armed forces "are being strengthened in an unprecedented way in recent memory." The emphasis is on bolstering its missile and long-range rocket capability, the newspaper said.

The Syrians recently test-fired two Scud-D ballistic missiles whose range would reach most of Israel. Syria has also shorter-range rockets and supplied many of them to the Lebanese Hezbollah (that fired 4,000 rockets during the war).

"The missiles and rockets are part of an effort to compensate for the obvious weakness of the Syrian air force. This way Syrians could strike Israeli cities and also carry out accurate attacks against military targets inside the country," Ha’aretz' defense expert Zeev Schiff wrote.

"Information received in Israel recently" says that Damascus is about to conclude a deal under which it would buy thousands of advanced Russian anti-tank missiles, Ha’aretz added.

Earlier shipments of Kornet AT-14 and Metis AT-13 anti tank missiles to Syria were passed on to Hezbollah and some penetrated the armor of Israel's most advanced tanks, the Markava Mark IV. Schiff did not identify his sources. However his report, and another on Hezbollah's buildup by Yediot Aharonot's military commentator Alex Fishman, immediately followed a military intelligence briefing to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

According to intelligence leaked to Yediot Aharonot, Hezbollah has more than 10,000 short-range rockets in southern Lebanon and more are being smuggled from Syria. The Lebanon war proved that a continuous barrage of such rockets has a strategic impact. According to Yediot Aharonot's sources, Hezbollah realized that its daily barrage of 250 rockets was insufficient and it would like to double or treble that number.

Some weapons reach Hezbollah from Iran via Syria. The shipments are flown to Syria through Turkish airspace and the Israelis suspect some are transported by trucks, also via Turkey.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert raised the matter in his talks in Ankara last week and his interlocutors maintained they were not aware of it, a senior official on Olmert's plane told United Press International. Olmert intends to pursue the matter.

Retired Maj. Gen. Yaakov Amidror, who headed a team that investigated the military intelligence performance before and after the war, told UPI the weapons reach Hezbollah, "Slowly so as not to worsen the atmosphere." The shipments violate the United Nations' Security Council's resolution, he noted.