'Plans to Avenge Mughniyeh Not Abandoned'

"Most probably they will harm us abroad," the director of Israel's Military Intelligence, Major-General Amos Yadlin, told the Israeli parliament's foreign affairs and defense committee on Wednesday.

Mughniyeh was killed in a February 2008 car bombing in Damascus. While Israel denies any involvement in the attack, Hezbollah says it has evidence of Israel's role in the assassination.

Turning to Iran, Yadlin claimed that Tehran will have the capacity to build a nuclear bomb within a year but is not rushing into production.

"The Iranian strategy is not to get a nuclear bomb as soon as they can so as not to give the world a reason to act against them," he said.

Yaldin's comment comes as Israel, the US and their European allies -- Britain, France and Germany -- accuse Iran of pursuing military nuclear objectives. Tehran says the only aim of its nuclear program is to make use of the civilian applications of the technology.

The Islamic Republic denies the allegation that it is seeking to build a nuclear bomb and argues that the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) -- to which it is a signatory - grants it the right to a domestic, civilian nuclear industry.

The Israeli general spoke further about Hamas, and said the Islamic movement had not given up on its ideology of resistance and was preparing itself for another round of fighting.

Tel Aviv launched Operation Cast Lead on the Gaza Strip on December 27 with the declared goal of 'self-defense' and to topple the Hamas government. Three weeks of ensuing airstrikes and a ground incursion killed around 1,350 Palestinians and injured nearly 5,450 people - mostly civilians.

The carnage also inflicted more than $1.6 billion in damages on the Gazan economy.