The IDF put soldiers along the Lebanese border on high alert Wednesday following the acknowledged bombing of Hezbollah terrorists and a weapons convoy near the Syrian-Lebanese border earlier this week.

Farmers have been told to stay away from their land that in some cases is adjacent to the border.

Hezbollah admitted on Wednesday that the Israeli Air Force successfully staged the bombing raid, it insisted there were no casualties, but other reports from Lebanon said that a major Hezbollah army officer and up to three others were killed.

The Beirut Daily Star reported that the aerial strike hit two trucks smuggling a missile and a missile launcher to a Hezbollah facility in Lebanon.

An Israeli airstrike hit a site in Lebanon known for its arms smuggling and recruitment for Hezbollah, according to the Lebanese media.

The Daily Star on Monday quoted a Lebanese security source as saying that the Israeli Air Force strike targeted a “qualitative” weapons shipment in the area of Janta on the Israel-Syrian border. Other Lebanese media also reported an attack.

The Israeli army had no immediate comment.

Israel has said it will not allow Hezbollah to receive high-quality weapons from its allies in the Syrian government.

Israeli Air Force war planes launched two bombing raids on Hezbollah posts in near the Syrian border eastern Lebanon Monday, the Beirut Daily Star reported.

Quoting “security sources,” the newspaper said that four missiles were dropped in a mountainous area where Hezbollah recruits and trains its soldiers and near a known route for smuggling arms from Syria into Lebanon.

Islamic law forbids a one-way trip to Mars, a “fatwa” Muslim religious committee has ruled in the UAE (United Arab Emirates), the Khaleej Times reported Wednesday.

“Such a one-way journey poses a real risk to life, and that can never be justified in Islam,” the committee said. “There is a possibility that an individual who travels to planet Mars may not be able to remain alive there, and is more vulnerable to death.”

The fatwa committee is under the jurisdiction of the General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowment in the UAE. Even worse than dying after a move to the red planet, the Muslim would meet his Maker for no “righteous reason” and therefore would be subject to “punishment similar to that of suicide in the Hereafter,” the committee warned.

Committee chairman Professor Dr. Farooq Hamada was quoted by the newspaper as saying, “Protecting life against all possible dangers and keeping it safe is an issue agreed upon by all religions and is clearly stipulated in verse 4/29 of the Holy Quran: Do not kill yourselves or one another. Indeed, Allah is to you ever Merciful.”

Really?

Does that mean that the Quran forbids Muslims to be suicide bombers? After all, the professor did say that the Muslim holy book says one should not kill himself.

I am not an expert in the Quran. In fact, I never have opened the book. But it seems to me that lots of holy Muslims say that suicide missions are not only not forbidden but also are a mitzvah, pardon the expression. There probably is a large footnote somewhere in the Quran that advises that suicide missions are forbidden – unless they blow up Jews.

But let’s get back to an expert such as Prof. Hamada.

His fatwa was in response to a plan by a Dutch company called Mars One to invite volunteers to fly and live on Mars while taking into account it would be a one-way ticket since there is no technology on the market for bringing them back to Earth.

Thousands of volunteers have signed up to pay $38 for the journey, including 500 Saudis and other Arabs, the Khaleej newspaper stated.

The professor declared, “This is an absolutely baseless and unacceptable belief because not even an atom falls outside the purview of Allah, the Creator of everything. This has also been clearly underscored in verse 19&20/93 of the Holy Quran in which Allah says, “There is no one in the heavens and earth but that he comes to the Most Merciful as a servant. (Indeed) He has enumerated them and counted them a (full) counting.”

Islamic researcher Dr. Shaikh Mohammed Al Ashmawy added to the religious discourse on the verse and concluded that “Almighty Allah said in verse 2/195 in the Holy Quran: Do not throw yourselves with your own hands into destruction.”

Sheikh Mohammed Yusuf, Imam of the Amena mosque, said: “Man’s life is not his or her own property; it is God’s creation, and therefore suicide is prohibited in all religions, and of course by law.”

Where were these guys when Palestinian Authority terrorists were blowing up, and still are trying to blow up Jews, and Hezbollah terrorists were blowing up and still are blowing up Sunni Muslims?

Where were these leading religious figures on Sept. 10, 2011, or even the day after 9/11?

And if Mahmoud Abbas really wants to control terror, why doesn’t he ask Prof. Hamada to make an exception and allow suicide bombers to take a one-way trip to Mars.

I am more than willing to put up the 38 bucks.

The IDF has released an exclusive video that offers a rare glimpse into advanced combat training to defend Israel against Hezbollah.

The footage shows the elite Combat Engineering Battalion 601 in a simulated takeover of a Hezbollah position. The simulation prepared soldiers for the moment of truth against Hezbollah, simulating the takeover of a terrorist stronghold and an attempt to kidnap Israeli soldiers.

Hezbollah continues to arm itself with long-range missiles and other weapons capable of striking any part of Israel. The terrorist army in southern Lebanon, armed by Syria and Iran and financed by Tehran, has an estimated 80,000-100,000 missiles.

The Israeli Air Force has carried out pre-emptive bombings of several convoys of advanced Soviet-made missiles that were destined for Hezbollah from Syria.

The IDF has developed sophisticated methods to stop Hezbollah, whose size and strength have grown dramatically since the 34-day Second Lebanon War in 2006.

“The best way to maintain our readiness and remain sharp is to train,” said the battalion’s commander, Lt. Col. Yanai Manor. “We try as much as possible to simulate events that could occur in reality.”

The head of IDF Intelligence said on Wednesday that enemy countries have 170,000 missiles ready to be fired on Israel, a threat that is worse than the Iranian nuclear program.

The numbers have been known before the sum total was announced by Intelligence Director Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi. It has been reported dozens of times that Hezbollah has anywhere between 60,000 and 100,000 missiles It also is a given that Syria, Hamas and Sinai terrorists have an arsenal in the tens of thousands.

Kochavi, speaking at a security conference in Tel Aviv, also said that cyber warfare is the greatest revolution in warfare since the invention of gunpowder and that Israel.

Israeli spokesman said “no comment” on reports from Lebanon that the Israeli Air Force bombed Syrian missiles destined for Hezbollah.

Explosions were reported in the Syrian port city of Latakia, which previously has been targeted and presumably by Israel to prevent “game-changing” weapons from being smuggled into Lebaon for Hezbollah.

Several Lebanese new sources as well as the Lebanese army reported that Israeli planes entered Lebanese airspace at low altitudes and remained in the air for more than one hour.

A suicide bomb attack on a Hezbollah neighborhood in Beirut and more clashes between anti and pro-Assad forces in Tripoli have left 12 dead and scores wounded as Lebanon continues on the path to the resumption of the 15-year old civil war that ended in 1990 with Syrian domination.

The bomb blast in the Hezbollah neighborhood of Haret Herek killed at least five people and wounded more than 45 others. It was the second attack in almost the same spot in the past week, and one retired Lebanese general told Al Jazeera, “We have to expect more and more operations against the public. Why are the public a target? Because they want to put direct pressure on Hezbollah to withdraw from Lebanon.”

An Al Qaeda linked terrorist group took responsibility for the suicide car bomb blast shortly before noon Tuesday. Witnesses said they saw a man deriving his KIA vehicle, with a stolen license plate, at high speed and “honking his horn like a mad man” seconds before it blew up.

Hezbollah is getting a taste of its own poison, facing suicide attacks that have been one of its favorite methods of terrorizing Lebanon, such as the savage attack that killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Harari and 21 others. Syria has been blamed for involvement in the car bomb explosion

In Tripoli, one person died and several others were wounded in gunfire on Tuesday, bring to seven the death since the most recent eruption of violence on Friday. Alawites, who back Syrian President Bassar al-Assad, and anti-Assad Sunni Muslim gangs fired mortar shells, rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns in fighting that raged through the early morning hours. At least six have been killed and more than 55 others wounded since Friday.

The United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon Derek Plumbly, commenting on the suicide bombing in Beirut, said  the explosion presents “a further deeply disturbing act of indiscriminate terror” and that “such acts cannot be justified and are contrary to the interests of all the Lebanese.”

The U.S. Embassy in Beirut, for what it’s worth, denounced the attack and offered its condolences to the victims and their families via Twitter.

It is nice that officials in the Obama administration know how to use social media, but they have been unaware of their failure to understand that the axis of evil has to be fought and not “engaged.”

The result now is the spread of civil war across Israel’s northern border, from the Golan Heights to the east and westward to the Mediterranean Sea.

The instability keeps the locals busy killing each other, which is fine as long as they don’t realize they could simply join forces and take out their anger on Israel.