The Israeli political-security cabinet voted early this morning to expand Israel’s ground operations in south Lebanon. The plan entails IDF forces mounting raids on villages that have served as Hizbullah bases, similar to last week’s operation carried out in Bint Jbail. These areas are known to be loaded with Katusha rocket launchers, weapons warehouses and Hizbullah headquarters. With expectations that the UN Security Council will call for a cease-fire beginning Saturday, the aim of the widened offensive is to weaken Hizbullah, and push them back as far north as the Litani River in central Lebanon, before the window of opportunity closes.Although Israel suspended most air strikes on south Lebanon for 48 hours, the IAF struck targets this morning, including Hermel in eastern Lebanon (a Hizbullah stronghold), 2 rocket launchers, 2 terror cells, Hizbullah command posts and buildings, routes in the Lebanon valley (to prevent arms from being smuggled from Syria), and rocket launch sites. For their part, Hizbullah fired a number of mortar shells from south lebanon, hitting open areas in the Upper Galilee.
On the southern front, the IDF began operating in and around Dahiniye in the Gaza Strip overnight in an attempt to locate and destroy tunnels in the area, and 5 Kassam rockets fired from Gaza struck the western Negev.
Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called a special meeting to discuss the composition and mandate of a (French-led) international force to be stationed in southern Lebanon. Syria has expressed opposition to such a force, preferring to enlarge the size of the UNIFIL force already stationed in the area. If that’s not an indictment on UNIFIL, I don’t know what is.
Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)
Wednesday updates here.
11:07PM: 5 IDF soldiers have been lightly hurt by a mortar shell near the Lebanon border.
11:00PM: It has been released for publication that 3 IDF soldiers were killed, and 25 were wounded, in the village of Aita al-Shaab. At least 10 Hizbullah terrorists were killed in the clashes.
10:58PM: G-d bless Australia: The Australian government has donated $300,000 to Magen David Adom.
10:02PM: 28 corpses; what about the other 29? Perhaps they fell off the stretchers and walked away.
9:18PM: FU EU: This from the Ha’aretz news ticker:
EU will not brand Hezbollah a terrorist organization.
But we know from recent history that Europe has morality troubles.
9:15PM: Some Katushas have landed near Nahariya, bringing today’s tally to 9.
9:10PM: The Israeli media are reporting that the IDF have suffered an unspecified number of casualties during battles in Aita al-Shaab in south Lebanon. Hizbullah television has claimed that 35 Israeli soldiers have been killed or wounded in the battles.
9:05PM: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has rejected a UN resolution calling Iran to halt uranium enrichment. He also found time to wax lyrical about the Joooos:
“Are they humans? They are worse than the beasts. They are bloodthirsty savages.”
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy Douche-Bag was unavailable for comment.
9:00PM: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said that we are winning the battle, but the diplomatic process to create conditions for a cease-fire “under entirely different conditions than before”are underway.
6:50PM: Sandmonkey has this important post.
I had an interesting conversation yesterday with a co-worker, on the concept of the disporportinate Israeli attacks on Lebanon compared to Hezbollah attacks. He pointed to me his dismay at Hezbollah’s rockets ineffeciency at hitting targets. He said “If you noticed, they bomb each other almost equally in amounts of missiles shot, but 90% of Hezbollah’s rockets miss or hit nothing, while all of Israel’s rockets hit something. If Hezbollah had better rockets, the civillian death toll on the Israeli side would be huge, and they would be really hurting by now.”Impressed by this point of view that I haven’t considerd before, I asked him what he would’ve thought, if a Hezbollah rocket had attacked a building in Israel, killing 55 civillians, of which 30 were children. He responded immeidtely “I would’ve thought it was great! A7san!”.So I repeated the same question to 8 other co-workers, and the responses so far have been as follows: 7 said they would celebrate, and 2 said that such an attack would’ve been bad, but justified! Yeah! Not a single person said that the death of any civllian, on either side, is an equal tragedy. Civillians dead on our side is tragic, civillian deaths on their side cause for celebration. And if you think I am being unfair or demonizing arabs or whatever, do me a favor and try it at your work place and/or with members of your family. Conduct this little social experiment and see for yourself. The results are very interesting.This begs another question: If we were the ones who had the superior military machine, would we have shown them any mercy, or any regard to their civillian casualties? Would we have hesitated to wipe them all out? Armed forces, civillians, whatever? Would any of us have felt bad about it at all? Or would we be filled with the feelings of Pride, honor and dignity that we keep talking about day and night?I am just wondering!What do you think?
As I told Sandmonkey before our interview together (part 1; part 2), I may not always agree with him, but I always respect his honesty and forthrightness. And he’s showing those qualities in this post.
6:35PM: We all knew the mainstream media was biased, but Israellycool reader Yuval has sent me the following, which illustrates the extent of this bias.
Dear Jack,
You will never guess who called me today. A CNN reporter who left the following message on my voicemail: “I am doing a story on the debate within the Jewish community re: the conflict in the Middle East. We are looking for a different perspective. The majority of people (Jewish) we spoke to in the area are supportive of the role of Israel defending herself. We are looking for those who may want to take a more peaceful stance and still support Israel.”Do you believe the chutzpah? She is supposed to be a journalist and she “frames” the story before she goes out and works on it?
Yup, CNN does have their agenda alright.
I did not call her back.
Suzanne
6:27PM: The IDF have killed 6 Hizbullah terrorists today in in the Lebanese village of Aita al-Shaab.
The tally of dead Hizbullah terrorists for the 20 days of fighting stands at around 400.
6:23PM: More than 2000 palestinians have marched through Ramallah in support of Hizbullah (kind of rhymes, doesn’t it? – ed.). They called for Nasrallah to bomb Tel Aviv, and denounced the more “moderate” Arab leaders, calling Jordan’s King Abdullah a “collaborator of the Zionists and the Americans,” and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak a “pig.” (Which makes us relatives).
And speaking of “moderate” Arab leaders…
“These days are days of Arab resurrection and days of humiliation for the Israeli military, the military that couldn’t proceed (move ahead) into Lebanese land,” said Hani Hassan, a leading member of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah Party.
6:13PM: Despite the lull in rocket attacks on Israel, Defense Minister Amir Peretz tells Israelis wanting to head north “Not so fast….”
2:53PM: Understatement of the day:
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Tuesday criticized France’s policy stance on Israel, calling it “problematic.”
To borrow the words of someone else, I would prefer to think of French policy as “sh*tty.”
2:50PM: Ynetnews has taken notice of the great work done by those blogs that analyzed the pictures in the aftermath of the Qana attack, and exposed the fact that they were staged.
11:58AM: “To puke or walk out”: Here’s Gillerman, again showing why he is our number one spokesperson.
11:50AM: US President George Bush has told reporters that the US will not be part of any future international peacekeeping force in Lebanon.
11:36AM: Former PA Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath has claimed that Israel would free 700 palestinian prisoners as part of a framework being developed to free Gilad Shalit. He also claimed that officials are in the advanced stages of negotiation.
11:34AM: Heavy fighting between the IDF and Hizbullah is reportedly taking place in the village of Aita in southern Lebanon.
11:02PM: The IDF have stated that 20 Hizbullah terrorists were killed so far today.
11:00AM: Hizbullah have fired a number of Katushas at Nahraiya this morning.
10:53AM: An IDF Paratrooper has been lightly wounded in his neck in south Lebanon.
9:52AM: Israeli government and defense officials have said that Israel will release 2 Lebanese prisoners (Abu Amra Mamad, convicted of weapons possession, plus one illegal alien) in return for the 2 soldiers abducted by Hizbullah, as part of a cease-fire agreement.
8:56AM: I received this email, which although is almost certainly a hoax, still contains a classic quote:
In a recent interview, General Norman Schwartzkopf was asked if he thought there was room for forgiveness toward Hizbollah.The General said, “I believe that forgiving Hizbollah is God’s function. The Israeli’s job is to arrange the meeting.”
