Israellycool

Liveblogging the War: Friday July 28th

Aussie Dave

The IAF struck 130 targets overnight, including 57 building used by Hizbullah, 6 rocket launchers, a Hizbullah base in the Lebanon valley, and homes of terrorists (after warning residents to leave their homes in order to escape injury).

Earlier, the IAF took out Hizbullah’s missile command center deployed in Tyre - located on the 12th floor of a building - which had been primarily responsible for targeting Haifa and surrounding areas. The command center (one of many) controlled a large number of Syrian-manufactured rockets, which had caused most of the Israeli civilian fatalities. The full impact of this important strike on Hizbullah’s capabilities is still unknown, although it has not affected Hizbullah’s ability to launch short-range rockets against northern Israel, which they have continued to do this morning.

Meanwhile, the wife of a Canadian peacekeeper killed

when the IAF hit the UNIFIL post, has demanded answers, and invoked her

inner Kofi Annan by stating she thought the attack was deliberate. I

guess she never read her husband’s emails.

On the southern front, the IDF troops and tanks reportedly pulled out of northern Gaza, after a two-day sweep in which a dozen terrorists and several weapons depots were hit., and the IAF hit a weapons storehouse and a rocket manufacturing shop. For their part, the terrorists fired more Kassams at Sderot. And in the West Bank, palestinian sources in Ramallah reported that a large IDF force, apparently searching for a wanted person, was surrounding a number of buildings.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

Saturday updates here.

5:15PM: That does it from me today. The Sabbath is approaching, and I need to start getting prepared.

Here’s to a peaceful Sabbath.

4:50PM: The Jerusalem Post reports that 5 missiles of a new and as yet unidentified type landed in and around Afula.

4:40PM: Here is a really amusing parody of Israel’s Channel 2. Warning: Only people familiar with Channel 2, and able to understand Hebrew, will find it amusing.

4:32PM: It has been remiss of me to have not posted this already: part of a transcript from CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees. But many other bloggers already have. In case you have’t seen it yet, here is an account that suggests that Hizbullah are very much controlling the images coming out of Lebanon, and are exaggerating the extent of damage there.

(On camera): We’re not allowed to enter Hezbollah territory really without their permission. They control this whole area, even after the sustained Israeli bombing campaign. We’ve arranged with a Hezbollah representative to get permission to come here. We’ve been told to pull over to the side of the road and just wait.

(Voice-over): We’d come to get a look at the damage and had hoped to talk with a Hezbollah representative. Instead, we found ourselves with other foreign reporters taken on a guided tour by Hezbollah.

Young men on motor scooters followed our every movement. They only allowed us to videotape certain streets, certain buildings. Once, when they thought we’d videotaped them, they asked us to erase the tape.

These men are called al-Shabab, Hezbollah volunteers who are the organization’s eyes and ears.

(On camera): You still see their CD’s on the wall still.

Hezbollah representatives are with us now, but don’t want to be photographed. We’ll say — we’ll point to something like that and they’ll say, well, look, this is a store. The civilians lived in this building. This is a residential complex. And while that may be true, what the Israelis will say is that Hezbollah has their offices, their leadership has offices and bunkers even in residential neighborhoods. And if you’re trying to knock out the Hezbollah leadership with air strikes, it’s very difficult to do that without killing civilians.

As bad as this damage is, it certainly could have been much worse in terms of civilian casualties. Before they started heavily bombing this area, Israeli warplanes did drop leaflets in this area, telling people to get out.

The civilian death toll, though, has angered many Lebanese. Even those who do not support Hezbollah are outraged by the pictures they’ve seen on television of civilian casualties. (Voice-over): Civilian casualties are clearly what Hezbollah wants foreign reporters to focus on. It keeps the attention off them. And questions about why Hezbollah should still be allowed to have weapons when all the other militias in Lebanon have already disarmed.

After letting us take pictures of a few damaged buildings, they take us to another location, where there are ambulances waiting.

(On camera): This is a heavily orchestrated Hezbollah media event. When we got here, all the ambulances were lined up. We were allowed a few minutes to talk to the ambulance drivers. Then one by one, they’ve been told to turn on their sirens and zoom off so that all the photographers here can get shots of ambulances rushing off to treat civilians. That’s the story — that’s the story that Hezbollah wants people to know about.

(Voice-over): These ambulances aren’t responding to any new bombings. The sirens are strictly for effect.

When a man in a nearby building is prompted to play Hezbollah resistance songs on his stereo, we decide it’s time to go.

Hezbollah may not be terribly subtle about spinning a story, but it is telling perhaps that they try. Even after all this bombing, Hezbollah is still organized enough to have a public relations strategy, still in control enough to try and get its message out.

4:20PM: The Katusha tally for today so far: Over 60 rockets.

4:12PM: Hizbullah have fired rockets at our northern communities, including Kiryat Shmona, Safed, Tiberias, Afula, and Nazareth. So far, 2 people have been wounded.

4:02PM: Ha’aretz has now changed the headline:

3:52PM: Ha’aretz shows that when it comes to moral obfuscation, they can match it with many of the international mainstream media.

3:00PM: Another must-read piece, this time from Charles Krauthammer.

Life in an Orwellian universe

What other country, when attacked in an unprovoked aggression across a recognized international frontier, is then put on a countdown clock by the world, given a limited time window in which to fight back, regardless of whether it has restored its own security?

What other country sustains 1,500 indiscriminate rocket attacks into its cities ‚Äî every one designed to kill, maim and terrorize civilians ‚Äî and is then vilified by the world when it tries to destroy the enemy’s infrastructure and strongholds with precision-guided munitions that sometimes have the unintended but unavoidable consequence of collateral civilian death and suffering?

Hearing the world pass judgment on the Israel-Hezbollah war as it unfolds is to live in an Orwellian moral universe. With a few significant exceptions (the leadership of the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and a very few others), the world — governments, the media, U.N. bureaucrats — has completely lost its moral bearings.

The word that obviates all thinking and magically inverts victim into aggressor is “disproportionate,” as in the universally decried “disproportionate Israeli response.”

When the United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor, it did not respond with a parallel “proportionate” attack on a Japanese naval base. It launched a four-year campaign that killed millions of Japanese, reduced Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki to a cinder, and turned the Japanese home islands to rubble and ruin. Disproportionate? No. When one is wantonly attacked by an aggressor, one has every right ‚Äî legal and moral ‚Äî to carry the fight until the aggressor is disarmed and so disabled that it cannot threaten one’s security again. That’s what it took with Japan.

Britain was never invaded by Germany in World War II. Did it respond to the blitz and V-1 and V-2 rockets with “proportionate” aerial bombardment of Germany? Of course not. Churchill orchestrated the greatest land invasion in history that flattened and utterly destroyed Germany, killing untold innocent German women and children in the process.

The perversity of today’s international outcry lies in the fact that there is indeed a disproportion in this war, a radical moral asymmetry between Hezbollah and Israel: Hezbollah is deliberately trying to create civilian casualties on both sides while Israel is deliberately trying to minimize civilian casualties, also on both sides.

In perhaps the most blatant terror campaign from the air since the London blitz, Hezbollah is raining rockets on Israeli cities and villages. These rockets are packed with ball bearings that can penetrate automobiles and shred human flesh. They are meant to kill and maim. And they do.

But it is a dual campaign. Israeli innocents must die in order for Israel to be terrorized. But Lebanese innocents must also die in order for Israel to be demonized, which is why Hezbollah hides its fighters, its rockets, its launchers, its entire infrastructure among civilians. Creating human shields is a war crime. It is also a Hezbollah specialty.

On Wednesday, CNN cameras showed destruction in Tyre. What does Israel have against Tyre and its inhabitants? Nothing. But the long-range Hezbollah rockets that have been raining terror on Haifa are based in Tyre. What is Israel to do? Leave untouched the launch sites that are deliberately placed in built-up areas?

Had Israel wanted to destroy Lebanese civilian infrastructure, it would have turned out the lights in Beirut in the first hour of the war, destroying the billion-dollar power grid and setting back Lebanon 20 years. It did not do that. Instead, it attacked dual-use infrastructure ‚Äî bridges, roads, airport runways ‚Äî and blockaded Lebanon’s ports to prevent the reinforcement and resupply of Hezbollah. Ten-thousand Katyusha rockets are enough. Israel was not going to allow Hezbollah 10,000 more.

Israel’s response to Hezbollah has been to use the most precise weaponry and targeting it can. It has no interest, no desire to kill Lebanese civilians. Does anyone imagine that it could not have leveled south Lebanon, to say nothing of Beirut? Instead, in the bitter fight against Hezbollah in south Lebanon, it has repeatedly dropped leaflets, issued warnings, sent messages by radio and even phone text to Lebanese villagers to evacuate so that they would not be harmed.

Israel knows that these leaflets and warnings give the Hezbollah fighters time to escape and regroup. The advance notification as to where the next attack is coming has allowed Hezbollah to set up elaborate ambushes. The result? Unexpectedly high Israeli infantry casualties. Moral scrupulousness paid in blood. Israeli soldiers die so that Lebanese civilians will not, and who does the international community condemn for disregarding civilian life?

(hat tip: Dave).

1:02PM: The IAF has fired 30 missiles at suspected Hizbullah hideouts in southeast Lebanon.

12:57PM: Dan Gillerman, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, has ruled out UN involvement in any potential international force in Lebanon, as well as in any investigation of the IAF strike that killed some UN observers.

And if you are wondering why I think he is probably Israel’s best spokesperson at the moment (it’s a close call between him and Bibi Netanyahu), read the following:

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations ruled out Thursday major UN involvement in any potential international force in Lebanon, saying more professional and better-trained troops were needed for such a volatile situation.

Dan Gillerman also said Israel would not allow the United Nations to join in an investigation of an Israeli air strike that demolished a post belonging to the current UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon. Four UN observers were killed in the Tuesday strike.

“Israel has never agreed to a joint investigation, and I don’t think that if anything happened in this country, or in Britain or in Italy or in France, the government of that country would agree to a joint investigation,” Gillerman said.

He apologized for the strike that killed the four UN observers, but said the conflict was a war and that accidents happen.

“This is a war which is going on,” he told reporters. “War is an ugly thing and during war, mistakes and tragedies do happen.”

—-

Gillerman was highly critical of the current UN peacekeeping force, deployed in a buffer zone between Israel and Lebanon since 1978, saying its facilities had sometimes been used for cover by Hezbollah militants and that it had not done its job.

“It has never been able to prevent any shelling of Israel, any terrorist attack, any kidnappings,” he said. “They either didn’t see or didn’t know or didn’t want to see, but they have been hopeless.”

Gillerman even mocked the name of the force - the UN Interim Force in Lebanon.

“Interim in UN jargon is 28 years,” he said.

The flaws with the UN force make it imperative that any UN force come from somewhere else, though it could have a mandate from the United Nations, he said.

“So obviously it cannot be a United Nations force,” Gillerman said. “It will have to be an international force, a professional one, with soldiers from countries who have the training and capabilities to be effective.”

That’s what I’m talking about.

12:40PM: An IDF official has stated that at least 200 Hizbullah terrorists have been killed so far.

12:30PM: Lebanon’s Druze leader Walid Jumblatt believes that Iran is using Hizbullah’s confrontation with Israel to test the abilities of Iranian weapons and to observe Israeli military capabilities, and fears Syria will take advantage of the situation to reassert its influence in Lebanon and convince the international community that Syrian domination of Lebanon is crucial to the stability of the Middle East.

I think he makes some valid points.

12:23PM: Palestinians have attacked an Israeli truck driver who entered their village. he managed to escape, but they stole his truck.

I think my fellow Israelis who think it is a good idea to enter palestinian-controlled areas should think again.

12:20PM: Terrorists have fired a Kassam rocket next to a kindergarten in a community south of Ashkelon. 2 children have been lightly wounded, and 8 more people have suffered shock. The kindergarten building was also damaged.

11:28AM: Dr. Danny Yaakovi, a 59-year-old father of 4 children and grandfather of 12, was murdered last night, apparently due to nationalistic motives (i.e. terrorism). His burned body was found in the trunk of his car, near the West Bank village of Abos, between the cities of Qalqilya and Nablus.

It seems as though Danny went to the palestinian village of Funduk yesterday afternoon to have his car fixed. It is suspected that he was then attacked and murdered, and his body was burned very shortly thereafter.

So far, no palestinian terrorist organization has taken responsibility.

11:13AM: From the Two Jews/Three Opinions Department: Mossad and IDF disagree over damage to Hezbollah

The Mossad intelligence agency says Hezbollah will be able to continue fighting at the current level for a long time to come, Mossad head Meir Dagan said.

However, Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin disagrees, seeing Hezbollah as having been severely damaged.

Both intelligence chiefs agree that Hezbollah remains capable of command and control and still holds long-range missiles in its arsenal, they said at a security cabinet meeting Thursday.

11:05AM: A bit of humor to brighten things up: Hizbullah Video Dating Service.

10:58AM: The Australian has a couple of great editorials today.

First up is this editorial from Frank Devine:

Israel, that oasis of modernism in a region often driven by remnant medievalism, has been a nation for 58 years. When it is in danger from its enemies, this relatively brief span tempts the weak-willed to think of Israel as only a blip on history’s screen.

Thus the tears (conclusively DNA-tested as crocodile) shed by a commentator here in Australia for the great cities of Byblos, Sidon and Tyre, at the civilised centre of the world 3000 years ago and now under threat from Israeli bombers.

In the first place, the civilised centre of the world was, by modern standards, pretty uncivilised 3000 years ago. It was economically dependent on slavery, for instance. A lot of change occurs over 30 centuries, including the relocation of civilisation’s centre.

Byblos, Sidon and Tyre (and much else of ancient civilisation) were wrapped up by the Byzantine empire as the province of Syria, which French and English mapping pens disassembled and remade into Lebanon, the present Syria, Jordan and Palestine in the 1920s: League of Nations-mandated territories rather than independent states. At 58, Israel is older than or roughly contemporaneous with more than 40 per cent of the world’s 190 nations, many of them the outcome of the withdrawal of European colonialism from the Third World, the collapse of the Soviet Union and partition following civil war.

Since 1990, 27 new nations have arrived. This year Montenegro supplanted East Timor as the newest.

Israel is a thoroughly modern state in every sense. Votes by the almost brand-new UN, partitioning Palestine and ending British occupation, brought it into being. Western guilt over the Holocaust helped enable Israel’s creation.

Such guilt is difficult to avoid. When I learned of the Holocaust at the age of 13 or 14, before rational self-interest got a grip, I worried that it might not have been so bad if I’d been the prayerful boy Sister Aidan tried to turn me into. Guilt and the desire to make reparation mark a civilised condition more advanced than Tyre’s and Sidon’s.

Four times Israel has established its borders with counter-offensives against attacks by Arab alliances attempting to destroy it. It has been as resolute as Spain, Ireland and Sri Lanka (not to mention Russia and the US) in maintaining its national integrity against terrorist attacks within these borders.

Israel is an accommodating and credentialled member of modern global society, as demonstrated by the repeated (and invariably betrayed) withdrawals it has made from buffer territories, prompted by the desire to live in peace with its neighbours.

The acceptance it has won internationally is reflected by the now suddenly notorious UN Security Council Resolution 1559, passed by a 9-0 vote in 2004 and calling, in the third of its seven clauses, for “the disbanding and disarmament of all” militia on Lebanese territory, which includes Hezbollah, Israel’s declared enemy and present attacker.

The resolution contains the oddly phrased but forceful undertaking by the UN to “remain actively seized of this matter”.

When non-disbanded, non-disarmed Hezbollah started its present assault, you would have expected at least the nine nations who voted in favour of 1559 - Angola, Benin, Chile, France, Germany, Romania, Spain, Britain and the US - to declare immediate and unanimous support for Israel, and the six who abstained - Algeria, Brazil, China, Pakistan, The Philippines and Russia - now to back the majority decision.

The last thing you’d have expected is for the UN Secretary-General to accuse Israel of using “disproportionate” force against Hezbollah, the Muslim equivalent of Sinn Fein, the Irish political party dominated by its gangster/terrorist wing, the IRA.

What is the right proportion of force to use against an antagonist who crosses your border to seize hostages, indiscriminately bombards you with explosive rockets from an arsenal of 13,000 or so and maintains an underground network of bunkers and arms depots whose existence reveals years of planning your destruction?

In step with the Secretary-General’s ingenuous (or contemptibly disingenuous) words, there’s been a reappearance of that meaningless cliche “mounting international pressure”, often a euphemism for anti-Israel propaganda. This “international pressure”, actually coterie urging, always mounts, never subsides, but only the appeasement-inclined feel pressed.

William Kristol, in Washington’s The Weekly Standard, characterises present hostilities as “Islamists versus Israel” rather than the “Arabs versus Israel” conflicts of the past: a plausible diagnosis, given Iran’s creation of Hezbollah in 1982 and support of it ever since.

If it is the case, Iran and Islamists take a risk by bringing war so openly to the gates of Jerusalem, rather than relying on their usual lies, vague bloodthirsty threats and furtive surrogacy.

Sunni Arabs, alarmed by Iran’s reckless ambition, have withheld denunciation of Israel, vituperatively expressed in previous crises. Modern civilised values make intervention by the West acceptable only if it includes keeping Hezbollah at bay and neutralising it militarily.

Next up is this editorial:

At first glance, no one seems to be distinguishing themselves much

in the present conflict in the Middle East. Not the UN, who in

deploying a largely useless peacekeeping mission alongside Hezbollah

installations in southern Lebanon made their own soldiers the

accidental targets of an Israeli missile and created the strong

impression that the international body has taken sides. Not Hezbollah

or its backers in Tehran and Damascus, who, in touching off the present

conflict and deliberately stationing military assets in civilian areas,

reveal the true value they place on the lives of those they aspire to

lead. Even Israel, with its historic restraint and willingness to make

peace in the face of several hundred million Arabs and Iranians who

would happily push the Jewish state into the sea tomorrow, is now seen

by many as the bad guy. But the outrage over Israel’s recent conduct in

Lebanon ignores the twin messages Jerusalem is sending, first to

Lebanon and second to Iran and its progressive cheer squad in the West.

While Israel’s attacks on Lebanon have sparked the usual outcry from

those who are appalled whenever the Jewish state has the gall to fight

back, from the perspective of Jerusalem they make perfect strategic

sense. Since withdrawing from southern Lebanon in 2000, Israel has been

at the receiving end of countless attacks from Hezbollah. In quitting

Lebanese territory, Israel unwittingly delivered a propaganda coup to

Hezbollah’s Iranian backers, who trumpeted their “first victory of

Islam over the Zionist crusader camp”. And there is no mistake to be

made about Iran’s role in Hezbollah or its strategy of using the Shia

militia to pursue its aims around the Middle East. Former Iranian

intelligence minister Ali Yunesi put it best when he said: “Iran is

Hezbollah and Hezbollah is Iran.” Although last year’s Cedar Revolution

in Lebanon was a great precedent for the non-Israeli Middle East,

ultimately Lebanon will not be a viable country if it cannot meet the

definition of a nation-state that is controlling the territory within

its borders. It only makes sense for Israel to pressure the Government

in Beirut to do what it should have been doing all along – kick

Hezbollah and its Syrian and Iranian masters out of the country – if

you accept the legitimacy of that Government.

If the first part of the message is a blunt one delivered at the

pointy end of Israeli artillery, the second part is more subtle and has

at its roots competing visions for the Middle East. In the militia’s

kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers a fortnight ago, Iran used Hezbollah

to leverage what it perceived as Western weakness stemming from the

Bush administration’s concessions over Tehran’s nuclear program. Iran

is actively trying to promote a radical Shia takeover of the Middle

East and sees fighting Israel as the way to attract support among Sunni

Arabs who are also being courted by an American program of

democratisation and liberalisation. Thus Israel’s response is as much

directed at Iran as it is to Lebanon and its resident Hezbollah

supporters, including 8000 active and 30,000 reservist militants. This

is not 1967, and Israel’s real enemy is not massed across the border

but, rather, 1500km away in Tehran. There, President Mahmoud

Ahmadinejad regularly declares his desire to destroy Israel while

pursuing a nuclear weapons program that many Western leftists –

especially in Europe – see as a useful moral and military

counterbalance to the Jewish state. This is the second part of Israel’s

message: Iran’s twin ambitions of obtaining nuclear weapons and

dominating the region will not be allowed to proceed. Morally, there is

no doubt that Israel had a right to respond to what was the latest in a

long string of provocations by Hezbollah since Israel pulled out of

southern Lebanon. Strategically, a heavy response was warranted to

re-establish Israel’s deterrent credibility. And it is natural that

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert would want to signal his willingness to use

force despite his lack of military experience.

In responding to Hezbollah, Israel is doing something constructive

to solve a problem the rest of the world has indicated it cannot or

will not. UN Security Council Resolution 1559 calls for Hezbollah’s

eviction from southern Lebanon. The biggest danger for Israel is that

it could go too far and further alienate an otherwise sympathetic and

anti-Hezbollah Lebanese population through its actions. In relying so

heavily on missiles and air power, Israel weakens its case. If Israel

felt truly in danger, its citizen-soldiers would be quickly sent into

the maw; so far Mr Olmert’s strategy appears focused on minimising

Israeli Defence Force casualties, even as nine Israeli soldiers –

including one raised in Australia – were killed in a Hezbollah ambush

on Wednesday. In the meantime, an international force to keep the peace

seems unlikely. Yesterday, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer

characterised any UN mission without an existing and lasting ceasefire

as a “suicide mission”. And were one called immediately, a ceasefire

would leave behind an even worse mess than existed before. Even if a

negotiated ceasefire included a disarming of Hezbollah, it would be

very difficult to prevent Iran from waiting for world attention to

focus itself elsewhere before sending another few boatloads of weapons

and missiles to its clients in southern Lebanon. In the meantime,

Israel must make sure that even as it attacks Hezbollah it does not

alienate other foes of the organisation. It would be a terrible thing

if Israel’s security and the containment of Tehran were compromised by

a misinformed military strategy.

But it’s not all good from The Australian today. Greg Sheridan just doesn’t “get it,” and cartoonist Bill Leak is exploiting the infamous photo of the Israeli girls writing messages on artillery shells to make a dubious point.

10:30AM: Meanwhile, the Sydney Morning Herald has a report on Australians in the IDF.

Up to 100 Australians could be in active service with the Israeli army but that number could grow as Israel steps up its offensive against Hizbollah guerrillas.

—-

Guy Spigelman, who left Australia 12 years ago to serve in the Israeli army for which he is now a spokesman, told Southern Cross Broadcasting the number of Australians in active service could grow after Israel decided to boost its attack.

“There’d be several dozen, if not 100 (Australians) in active service and probably several hundred, 200, 300, in reserve duty,” said Captain Spigelman, son of the Chief Justice of the NSW Supreme Court, Jim Spigelman.

10:25AM: The Age has more on fallen IDF soldier Assaf Namer, who held dual Israeli-Australian citizenship. As does The Australian, who interviewed his mother.

10:10AM: Yesterday, I posted (9:50AM update) about MrModchips, a company that voided an Israeli customer’s order and wrote a very nasty justification for their actions. A reader of Brian’s blog wrote to them, and received this even nastier reply:

“From: MrModchips To: Scott Sent: Friday, July 28, 2006 9:58 AM Subject: Re: Transaction VOID - What’s your problem?

This is an automated reply
Your email has been gassed and burned.
Please use the online helpdesk to enter your enquiry.
http://www.mrmodchips.co.uk/catalog/helpdesk.php
Thank You
MrModchips”

Their email is sales@mrmodchips.co.uk.

10:04AM: Ynetnews reports that the IDF is setting up a special security area in the northern Gaza Strip, aimed at curbing attempts by terror groups to dig tunnels into Israel.

10:02AM: The IAF has struck approximately 10 Hizbullah targets in southern Lebanon.

An Australian immigrant to Israel, Aussie Dave has been blogging since early 2003.