JERUSALEM -- Syria has sent nearly 25 percent of its long- and medium-range missile arsenal to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, Kuwaiti newspaper Al Jarida quoted security sources in Jerusalem Thursday.

The sources said the missiles have the capability to reach all parts of Israel.

The report describes the assessment by Israeli military leaders that Syria is using Hezbollah as a proxy to provoke Israel, since Damascus has no interest in going directly to war with the Jewish state.

Israel's defense echelon believes that officers from both Syria and Iran are teaching Hezbollah fighters how to launch the missiles and how to activate early warning radar systems in Lebanon produced by Russia and China.

The report was published just three days after an explosion at the home of a Hezbollah member in southern Lebanon indicated a possible weapons cache was stored there.

Israel has demanded that the United Nations, which has nearly 13,000 peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, investigate the incident.  

Missile and other military transfers to Hezbollah are a direct violation of U.N. Resolution 1701, the agreement that ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.

Sources:  Ha'aretz, The Jerusalem Post