JERUSALEM -Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Tuesday the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon has more rockets than it did before a war with Israel last year.

The rockets are located far from the border with Israel, north of the Litani river, Barak told the parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, according to participants in the closed meeting. It wasn't immediately clear whether this would put their arsenal out of striking range.

Hezbollah fired almost 4,000 rockets at northern Israel during the 34-day war in 2006, and Israeli land and air assaults caused heavy damage to Lebanese towns and neighborhoods. The war was sparked by a Hezbollah attack on an Israeli border patrol in which three soldiers were killed and two taken captive. The fate of the captured soldiers remains unknown. More than 1,000 Lebanese and 158 Israelis died in the fighting.

The U.N.-brokered ceasefire that ended the war expanded UNIFIL, the international peacekeeping force in south Lebanon, to 13,000 troops, entrusting it with ensuring Hezbollah isn't rearming near the Israeli border. -AP