Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday said that Israel's entire defense establishment had been placed on highest alert in anticipation of a Hizballah attack on Israelis either in the Jewish state or traveling abroad.

Mr. Barak said that intelligence suggests both Syria and Iran will assist Hizballah in striking the Jewish state after the Lebanese terror group accused Israel of being behind last week's assassination in Damascus of its co-founder and operational commander Imad Mughniyah.

Barak said that Mughniyah had over the course of decades been behind the deaths of hundreds of people in many nations, but maintained the official line that Israel had nothing to do with his demise.

However, according to "informed Israel sources" cited by London's Sunday Times, Israel's Mossad spy agency did carry out the car bombing that killed Mughniyah.

The sources told the newspaper that Mughniyah had been cooperating with the Syrians in planning a major terrorist attack against Israel in retaliation for a September 2007 Israeli air strike against a suspected nuclear facility deep inside Syria.