troung

I had just been attempting to post news on the operations...

I guess I'll take this is a sign and back away from making a picture topic of Hezbollah members...

__________________
To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway

troung

Jul. 25, 2006 23:24 | Updated Jul. 26, 2006 0:04
Hizbullah: IDF onslaught was unexpected
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...cle%2FShowFull

A senior Hizbullah official said Tuesday the guerrillas did not expect Israel to react so strongly to its capture of two IDF soldiers this month.

Mahmoud Komati, the deputy chief of the Hezbollah politburo, also said that his group would not lay down arms.

His comments were the first time that a leader from the Islamic militant group has suggested it miscalculated the consequences of the July 12 cross-border raid that seized the two.
"The truth is - let me say this clearly - we didn't even expect (this) response.... that (Israel) would exploit this operation for this big war against us," said Komati.

He said Hizbullah had expected "the usual, limited response" from Israel.

In the past, he said, Israeli responses to Hizbullah actions included sending in commandos into Lebanon and kidnapping Hizbullah officials or briefly targeting specific Hizbullah strongholds in southern Lebanon.

He said his group had also anticipated negotiations to swap the soldiers with three Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails, with Germany acting as a mediator as it has in past prisoner exchanges.

Komati also gave higher casualty figures for the guerrillas than the 11 the group has reported so far in the 13-day-old conflict. He said that as of Monday 25 were killed, including 17 in ground fighting with IDF troops assaulting several south Lebanese border towns since the weekend.

Later Tuesday, Hezbollah announced the deaths of two more guerrillas in the border fighting, bringing the total toll to 27.

Israel has said Hizbullah is greatly underreporting its casualties. The IDF chief of staff, Brig. Gen. Udi Nehushtan, said Tuesday in Jerusalem that "some dozens" of Hezbollah fighters have been killed in past two weeks.

Despite Israel's and Hezbollah's claims over the number of guerrillas killed, it was not possible to independently determine the number or sometimes to distinguish between civilians and fighters.

The Health Ministry said Tuesday that 375 civilians had been killed in the campaign, in addition to 20 Lebanese soldiers. The Hezbollah claim on the death toll would bring the total to 422 dead in Lebanon. The number is an increase over the latest toll from security forces because the ministry counts those who die later in the hospital. On Tuesday, eight people were confirmed killed - six civilians and the two Hezbollah fighters.

At least 41 Israelis have been killed in the campaign, including 24 soldiers.

troung

Israel Widens Control of Southern Lebanon
By LEE KEATH , 07.26.2006, 01:54 AM

Israeli troops sealed off a Hezbollah stronghold Tuesday and widened their foothold in southern Lebanon, as Israeli bombs killed six people in a south Lebanon town and three U.N. observers in a border outpost with another feared dead.

On Wednesday, Hezbollah fighters battled Israeli troops attempting to advance on the border town of Bint Jbail and the guerrilla group's TV station reported one Israeli soldier killed and five wounded.

The Israeli army said several soldiers were wounded in heavy exchanges of fire but would not give a precise number. Israel Radio said six soldiers were wounded.

Meanwhile, two weeks into the war, a senior Hezbollah leader said the guerrillas had not expected such an Israeli onslaught when they snatched two Israeli soldiers July 12.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other key Mideast players gathered in Rome for a meeting Wednesday to discuss proposals for ending the fighting that has claimed more than 400 lives. Key issues were how to disarm Hezbollah and assemble an international peacekeeping force to enforce the peace along the Israel-Lebanon frontier.

Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said, meanwhile, that Israel would maintain a security zone in the south until either a multinational force "with enforcement capability" is deployed on the border or Hezbollah is pushed back in a cease-fire agreement that also cuts off the supply of its weapons.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the strike on a clearly marked U.N. border outpost was "apparently deliberate" and demanded Israel investigate. A bomb dropped by an Israel warplane scored a direct hit on the post in the town of Khiam, near the eastern sector of the border, U.N. officials said.

Annan said two observers were killed with two more feared dead. Later, a U.N. official confirmed that a third body had been recovered. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the issue.

One of the dead was identified as Chinese U.N. observer Du Zhaoyu, China's official Xinhua News Agency reported. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said Israel's ambassador to Beijing was summoned Wednesday morning and asked to convey China's request that Israel fully investigate the incident and issue an apology to the victim's relatives.

"We are deeply shocked by this incident and strongly condemn it," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said in the statement.

The other three observers were from Austria, Canada and Finland but it wasn't clear which two were confirmed killed, U.N. and Lebanese military officials said.

Israel's U.N. Ambassador Dan Gillerman expressed his "deep regret" for the deaths and denied Israel hit the post intentionally.

"I am shocked and deeply distressed by the hasty statement of the secretary-general, insinuating that Israel has deliberately targeted the U.N. post," he said, calling the assertions "premature and erroneous."

Israeli commanders said they would not push deep into Lebanon but were determined to stop Hezbollah missiles that have continued despite Israel's punishing raids on Hezbollah targets. A new volley of Hezbollah rockets hit northern Israel, killing a teenage girl, and Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, issued a taped television message saying guerrillas would now start firing rockets deeper into Israel.

Tuesday marked a month since the start of what is now a two-front war between Israel and Islamic militants. On June 25, an Israeli soldier was captured by Hamas militants in Gaza, prompting an Israeli offensive there. Two weeks into that flare-up, Hezbollah snatched the two other soldiers.

In that month, the crisis has spiraled far beyond anyone's imagining.

Mahmoud Komati, the deputy chief of the Hezbollah politburo, told The Associated Press here that the guerrilla's leadership had not expected a massive offensive when it snatched the two Israeli soldiers.

"The truth is - let me say this clearly - we didn't even expect (this) response ... that (Israel) would exploit this operation for this big war against us," he said.

Instead, he said Hezbollah had thought Israel would respond to the soldiers' capture by snatching Hezbollah leaders in commando raids and that negotiations for a swap would start, giving Hezbollah the chance to try to win the release of Lebanese prisoners held by Israel.

He called the Israeli assault "unjustified" and said Hezbollah would not lay down its weapons.

Israel and the United States say their ultimate aim is to fundamentally reshape Lebanon to end Hezbollah's presence by the border, strengthen democracy in the country and ensure lasting peace with Israel. In the process, Lebanon has been ravaged, with hundreds killed, nearly a half-million driven from their homes and vast damage to roads and bridges.

Israel is facing tougher than expected resistance as it makes it first small ground steps into hilltop villages across the border. Its troops sealed the town of Bint Jbail and battled for a second day Tuesday against around 200 guerrillas inside.

Troops also moved on the nearby village of Yaroun, fighting guerrillas there. Fifteen Americans fled Yaroun in a convoy of 80 cars carrying residents that reached the southern port of Tyre on Tuesday.

Hezbollah reported two guerrillas killed in the day's fighting, while Israel said three of its soldiers were wounded. The Israeli military said Hezbollah's commander for the central border sector, known as Abu Jafr, was killed.

So far the three villages that Israeli ground troops have advanced on - Bint Jbail, Yaroun and Maroun al-Ras, which was seized by soldiers over the weekend - are in a roughly 3-square-mile pocket. Israeli bombardment has also destroyed most Hezbollah observer posts all along the border, U.N. observers say.

Israel suggested that would grow - but the extent was unclear.

Israeli army commanders said Israeli ground troops would not push deep into Lebanon, but instead aim to kill as many Hezbollah fighters as possible and push others away from the border.

"We are very much dealing with the villages and towns close to the border," Brig. Gen. Ido Nehushtan said. "Our aim is not to occupy the territory."

Israeli warplanes bombed Beirut on Tuesday for the first time in nearly two days after pausing during Rice's stopover in the Lebanese capital. A string of huge explosions raised a pall of smoke from Beirut's southern districts, and Israel said it was hitting 10 Hezbollah residences.

In a pre-dawn raid, Israeli warplanes destroyed two neighboring houses in Nabatiyeh, which is 16 miles north of Bint Jbail and has been heavily bombarded in the past few days.

In one house, a man and his wife and their son were killed, said the couple's daughter, Shireen Hamza, who survived. Three men died in the other house, she said.

While buried under the rubble for 15 minutes, "I just kept screaming, telling my parents to stay alive until help comes," she said. "My father kept saying to me in a weak voice, 'Shireen, stay awake. Don't sleep.'"

Komati said 25 of his fighters had been killed as of Monday, and the group said two more died in ground fighting Tuesday - raising the previously announced toll of 11. Later in the day, Hezbollah announced the deaths of two more fighters, bringing the toll to at least 27.

Israel claims Hezbollah is greatly underreporting its casualties and says dozens have died.

Despite estimates of the number of Hezbollah militants that Israel claims were killed and the number that Hezbollah asserts were killed, there was no way to accurately determine the number or often distinguish between civilians and fighters.

Along with its daily press reports tracking major violence, the U.N. observers along the Israel-Lebanese border, known as the Blue Line, keep close track of individual incidents.

Those figures, which do not include attacks far to the north, give a rare snapshot into the intensity of the violence in southern Lebanon.

There were, for example, at least 73 acts of violence near the Blue Line between Israel and Lebanon on July 24 alone, including 45 air raids and artillery strikes by Israel and 12 missile launches from Hezbollah.

That was in addition to numerous clashes around the town of Bint Jbail, a town known for its intense support of Hezbollah.

AP correspondents Hamza Hendawi in Nabatiyeh and Sheherezade Faramarzi in Beirut contributed to this story.

Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

http://www.forbes.com/technology/fee...ap2904454.html



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Jul. 25, 2006 14:14
Army seals off Hizbullah stronghold of Bint Jbail
By YAAKOV KATZ

Col. Amnon Eshel Assulin, Commander of the IDF Armored Brigade, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday IDF troops operating in the village of Bint Jbeil, considered the "capital of terror" in southern Lebanon, had proven their ability to reach any location in Lebanon, and could even enter Beirut if the government decided on that course of action.

Assulin told the Post that that IDF had taken control over Bint Jbeil and had so far killed at least 40 Hizbullah guerrillas.

"The town is completely controlled by us," Asulin said, adding that dozens of Hizbullah guerrillas had been killed in clashes with Golani troops, paratroopers, and tanks.

Soldiers, Assulin said, took the guerrillas captive during the fighting. He said that there were still pockets of resistance on the outskirts of the village, and most of the Hizbullah guerrillas left inside, just under 100, were hiding in the Kasbah marketplace.

The IDF was still encountering Hizbullah guerrillas who were shooting form inside mosques, hospitals, and schools. They take advantage of the population, Assulin said, "But the IDF has high moral values and does its best to avoid harming anyone uninvolved."

The operation in Bint Jbeil, initially slated to take 48-72 hours, would last as long as necessary to kill all the Hizbullah terrorists and destroy the infrastructure there, Assulin said.

"Two tank battalions fought bravely, killed terrorists, and evacuated their wounded comrades from the battlefield," Assulin told the Post when describing the fighting in Bint Jbeil since early Monday. He said that infantry battalions were working cohesively with tanks, and that "one could not exist without the other."

Also on Tuesday, Lt.-Col. Avi Mano, commander of the Keren artillery battalion, told the Post Tuesday that his cannons have fired 3000 shells at Bint Jbeil since the beginning of operations there earlier this week.

Mano said artillery cannons are capable of making direct hits on houses and other targets, while causing more damage than Katyusha rockets cause in Israel.

The artillery battery is stationed along the northern border in conjunction with an artillery officer who accompanies infantry troops into Lebanon to provide coordinates for artillery fire.

"One of our significant accomplishments is that we are helping infantry troops in Lebanon fulfill their mission by providing them with artillery cover fire," Mano said.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...cle%2FShowFull

MIKEMUN

Did you hear that Jan Egeland accused Hizbullah of cowardice? Apparently they made a statement that they were happy that it was civilians that were being killed and not their fighters,or something to that effect. Heard it on BBC,but I haven't been able to verify it yet. Will keep digging,though..

__________________
"They want to test our feelings.They want to know whether Muslims are extremists or not. Death to them and their newspapers."

Protester

troung

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Friday, July 21, 2006

WASHINGTON — The U.S. defense community has been quietly disappointed by Israel's war in Lebanon.

Government analysts said the Israel Air Force has sought to erode Hizbullah capabilities rather than strike a blow that would shatter the militia's command and control.

"There's no shock and awe here," a senior government analyst, referring to the U.S. strategy in Iraq, said. "Hizbullah has been hurt but has managed to continue."

The analysts said Israel has adopted a bombing campaign that resembled the U.S.-led NATO bombardment of Serbia in 1999. For 78 days, NATO warplanes struck civilian and military targets in an effort to stop President Slobodan Milosovic from expelling Muslims from Kosovo. In the end, Milosevic agreed to a ceasefire after NATO threatened a ground invasion.

"I can't see this as a successful strategy," another analyst said. "In Yugoslavia, NATO had all the time in the world. Israel can't count on more than two weeks."

The analysts said Hizbullah's military capability surprised Israel and the United States. They said that despite the increase of Iranian arms deliveries to Hizbullah in 2006, Israel did not revise its assessment that the Shi'ite militia could not sustain more than a week of war.

The biggest surprise to the U.S. intelligence community, analysts said, was the Hizbullah launch of the C-802 cruise missile. On July 14, the Chinese-origin missile struck and damaged an Israeli missile boat.

"This was more than just a successful strike," a U.S. intelligence source said. "It was a clear signal by Iran of what it intends to do to us in the Gulf."

A congressional staffer who monitors militaries in the Middle East said he was impressed by the ease with which Hizbullah struck Israeli military bases. The staffer said Hizbullah rocket strikes forced Israel to remove planes and helicopters from bases as far as 40 kilometers south of the Lebanese border.

"It was disturbing to see the Israeli retreat," the staffer said. "It could have significant repercussions in future conflicts."

The analysts said the U.S. military was closely studying the Hizbullah war to prepare for any future conflict with Iran and its proxies. They said the results of the Israeli military campaign could influence the extent of advanced technology procurement for both the U.S. military as well as homeland security.

"The longer-term consequences will impact everything from the U.S. immigration debate — current proposals are dependent on high-tech sensors to stop illegal immigration — to the implementation of transformation programs around the world and especially the USA's Future Combat Systems and its plethora of UAVs and unmanned sensors," the Washington-based Defense Industry Daily said.


http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtri...109027778.html

troung

25 soldiers injured in Bint Jbeil
Probably a dozen killed.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...281683,00.html

(VIDEO) Battles rage since morning hours in Hizbullah’s south Lebanon ‘capital.’ Soldiers report short-range fire, face to face combat, setting off of explosives, and missile fire. Fire ceases during afternoon hours, and injured soldiers begin to arrive at northern hospitals
Efrat Weiss

VIDEO - Air force helicopters which cleared the injured from the intense battle raging in Bint Jbeil Wednesday began landing at the Rambam hospital in Haifa, and wounded soldiers have been taken to the trauma room.

At least 25 soldiers were injured in battles in the town dubbed as Hizbullah's ‘capital,’ in one of the most bitter battles the IDF has known in recent years; three soldiers sustained serious wounds, two others were moderately wounded while the rest were lightly hurt in the fighting.

Evacuating the wounded to Rambam hospital (Video: Orly Dayan)
IDF sources said an extremely difficult phase of the battle developed when soldiers encountered terrorists face to face, accompanied by the setting off of explosives and the firing of various missiles.
Many terrorists apparently operated in the area and launched a combined attack against IDF forces. In the course of fighting a number of terrorists were killed.
Missile launcher was found in mosque
Fire ceased during the afternoon hours.
The fighting in Bint Jbeil began when IDF forces, including Golani Brigade soldiers, began searching buildings suspected of being used to provide infrastructures for terrorists.

On Tuesday, many weapons in some of the homes were found, and rooms have been turned into war rooms for Hizbullah members.
On Tuesday morning, during early searches, fire was opened on forces, who returned fire. A number of terrorists fled into a mosque in the area and continued to fire from within the structure at soldiers.
Last week, a missile launcher was found in the mosque, IDF sources said.


"Hizbullah members don't discount any means to kill or injure, including the use of civilians as a holy human shields. If there will be no choice, we will hit every place from which they shoot at our forces," a military source told Ynet.

troung

Hezbollah kills up to 14 Israeli troops

There were conflicting reports about Israeli casualties in the heavy fighting at Bint Jbail, which Israeli forces have been trying to take for four days.

Hezbollah said its guerrillas ambushed an Israeli unit from three sides as it tried to advance from a ridge on the outskirts of the town. "The bodies of the soldiers remained on the ground amid the destroyed and burning vehicles," an announcer on Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV said.

The pan-Arab satellite station Al-Arabiya said at least 14 Israeli soldiers had been killed, while Al-Jazeera said 13 were killed and 12 wounded in the fighting. Hezbollah's chief spokesman Hussein Rahhal said 13 Israelis were killed.

The Israeli military said there were 20 Israeli casualties, but it would not say if any soldiers had been killed. If confirmed, it would be the largest death toll suffered by the Israeli military in a single attack since the offensive began two weeks ago.

Hezbollah said Israeli forces were trying to advance toward a hospital in Bint Jbail. Israeli forces had managed to seize a few points inside the town, but not yet its center, a senior Hezbollah official, Mahmoud Komati, told The Associated Press.

The Israeli army said several Hezbollah fighters took cover in a town mosque. Komati denied the allegation and suggested those in the mosque were civilians, while Rahhal said they could be fighters who were praying.

Bint Jbail, a town of at least 30,000 — though most are believed to have fled — has great symbolic importance for the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah guerrillas. It holds the largest Shiite community in the border area and was known as the "capital of the resistance" during Israel's 1982-90 occupation because of its support for Hezbollah.

An Israeli seizure of the town, about 2 1/2 miles from the border, would rob Hezbollah of a significant refuge overlooking northern Israel and force its fighters to operate from smaller, more vulnerable villages in the south.

The town is in a tiny pocket of about six square miles where significant Israeli ground forces have entered southern Lebanon — including the village of Maroun al-Ras seized over the weekend and the outskirts of the villages of Yaroun and Aitaroun.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060726/...NlYwMlJVRPUCUl

troung

Jul. 25, 2006 14:14 | Updated Jul. 27, 2006 1:21
8 Golani soldiers killed in fierce battle in Bint Jbail
By YAAKOV KATZ

A well-planned Hizbullah ambush on the outskirts of the southern Lebanese village of Bint Jbail Wednesday devastated Battalion 51 of the Golani Brigade, leaving eight soldiers, including three officers, dead and 22 wounded.

Later, a paratrooper officer was killed and three of his men were wounded, two seriously, in a separate firefight on the outskirts of nearby Maroun al-Ras.

Dozens of Hizbullah gunmen armed with antitank missiles and machine guns and geared up in night-vision goggles and bulletproof vests set a trap for a force of Golani infantrymen led by Lt.-Col. Yaniv Asor, commander of Battalion 51. At 5 a.m. Wednesday, Asor and his men asked the Golani command center for permission to enter an area of the outskirts of Bint Jbail. Col. Tamir Yidai, commander of the brigade, gave the green light for the operation.

Asor and his men moved quickly through approximately 15 one-story homes. But as the troops moved through the narrow alleyways, a strong Hizbullah force sent a wave of gunfire and missiles at the force, killing and wounding several soldiers in the first moments of the fight. As Asor and his men fought to regain control of the situation, other Hizbullah cells outflanked them and opened fire on the force as well as other IDF positions in the town.

The battle lasted for several hours during which Asor and his men sustained heavy casualties and killed at least 40 Hizbullah guerrillas, some in gunbattles at point-blank range. Then the evacuation of the wounded began, which lasted six hours due to incessant enemy fire. Four IAF helicopter pilots risked their lives by landing in enemy territory.

Men from the Golani's elite reconnaissance unit and from Battalion 51 carried stretchers with their wounded comrades for three kilometers to the helicopters, which landed for just under one minute at a time beneath a cover of smoke grenades and massive artillery fire before taking off to evacuate the wounded to Israeli hospitals.

Meanwhile at the Golani Brigade's command center, emotions ran high as word came in of the fierce gunbattle and the heavy casualties. Soldiers ran back and forth with maps and officers screamed into encrypted cellular phones coordinating the evacuation of the wounded.

At one point, Brig.-Gen. Gal Hirsh, commander of Division 91, stepped out of the command center to update Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz. "We can't land the helicopters," he said. "The fighting is too intense."

On Tuesday, things in the town had looked entirely different. The IDF, senior officers announced matter-of-factly, had it surrounded and were in control of the town. "The town is in our control," Hirsh said Tuesday. "The work is almost completed and the terrorists are fleeing." Some terrorists, however, seem to have remained, with deadly results.

The Golani's fight didn't end the combat Bint Jbail. Wednesday evening, after the IDF had once again declared it had secured the town, a Paratrooper force nearby was hit by a Sagger antitank missile.

One officer was killed and three soldiers were wounded in the attack and in the gunfight that ensued.

A high-ranking source in the Northern Command told The Jerusalem Post Wednesday that Bint Jbail could not be attacked by air since there were still several hundred civilians there. The officer said that the fighting in the town would continue at least for a day or two.

OC Northern Command Maj.-Gen. Udi Adam said that the war in Lebanon would continue for several more weeks.

"There will unfortunately be more days like this," Adam told reporters. "We need to achieve our goal to completely overcome Hizbullah."

Meanwhile Wednesday, IAF warplanes destroyed the offices of Hizbullah's south Lebanon commander in Tyre, security officials and witnesses said. The building was empty but 12 people nearby were wounded. The two explosions in the center of the city raised a giant pall of smoke over the port city and electricity was knocked out in some areas. The target was a seven-story building housing the office of Sheikh Nabil Kaouk, the Hizbullah commander in south Lebanon.

The building was heavily damaged with the top floors collapsing on each other. Witnesses and doctors said it was believed to be empty at the time.

Hizbullah said through its Al-Manar TV station Wednesday that its guerrillas had ambushed an Israeli unit on Massoud hill in Bint Jbail, causing many casualties whom the Israelis were unable to rescue because of heavy fire.

A senior Hizbullah official, Mahmoud Komati, told The Associated Press Wednesday that IDF forces had managed to seize a few points inside Bint Jbail, but had not yet taken the town center. The IDF said several Hizbullah fighters had taken cover in a mosque.

Komati denied fighters were taking cover in a mosque and suggested the people involved may be civilians. "Fighters don't take shelter in mosques. They fight on the battlefield. If they can't, they retreat, but not to mosques," said.

Rahhal, a Hizbullah spokesman, angrily responded to a question about the mosque refuge. "What's the Israelis business that our fighters were in the mosque? Maybe they were praying at the time!" he said.

Dozens of soldiers filled the halls and the waiting room at Haifa's Rambam Hospital, which was treating 24 men who were wounded in Lebanon on Wednesday.

Two of the 24 were in serious condition and six were moderately wounded. The remainder were lightly wounded.

Soldiers sat on the floor with their backs against a ledge, or on a small wall near the emergency room.

One soldier who sat outside smoking said that many members of his unit were inside, injured.

Liore Sharabi was among those who was lightly wounded. He sat up in bed wearing a kippa and glasses as another wounded soldier lay asleep in the bed along side his.

A student at the Hesder Yeshiva in Sderot, Sharabi left a city that had suffered barrages of Kassam rockets to help stop Hizbullah from launching rockets into northern cities and towns.

He dismissed the Kassams with a smile. "I've gotten used to them," he said.

What was new for him was facing such heavy fire. He said his unit was sent to Bint Jbail to rescue wounded soldiers.

As gunfire raged around them, his unit moved the wounded into a house. Sharabi himself was wounded by shrapnel in his leg.

He made his way into the home and was later evacuated.

"I never thought I would be in that kind of a situation," said Sharabi, who lives in Adam near Jerusalem. He turns 21 in August and is due to be released from the army next month.

As he spoke, his mother watched the news on a television screen above his head. She moved to make way for a third injured soldier who was wheeled into the room along with his mother, Yaffa Golan of Ashkelon.

Knowing that her son, 21, was serving in Lebanon, Golan has been glued to the news, either television or radio, for the last two weeks.

When she first heard that soldiers had been wounded Wednesday, she tried to call her son, but to her dismay there was no answer.

Instead she received a call from Rambam Hospital informing her that he was among those lightly wounded.

While he lay in the hospital bed joking with his friends who were visiting, she stood nervously at the edge of his bed.

"I'm calmer now," the mother said.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...ticle/ShowFull

troung

Hezbollah guerrillas battle Israeli troops trying to capture Lebanese town

Sam F. Ghattas
Canadian Press


Wednesday, July 26, 2006
http://www.canada.com/components/pri...cffe9d6&k=1693


A large plume of smoke billows in the town of Khiam, Lebanon, after Israeli air raids targeted it. An Israeli bombardment hit a UN observer post in the village of Khiam, killing four UN observers. (AP Photo/Lotfallah Daher)


A large plume of smoke billows in the town of Khiam, Lebanon, after Israeli air raids targeted it. (AP Photo/Lotfallah Daher)

BEIRUT (CP) - Hezbollah dealt Israel its heaviest losses in the Lebanon campaign Wednesday, killing nine soldiers in fierce firefights. With key Mideast players failing to agree on a formula for a ceasefire, an Israeli general said the operation could last weeks.

Israel said it intends to damage Hezbollah and establish a "security zone" that would be free of the guerrillas and extend two kilometres into Lebanon from the Israeli border. Such a zone would prevent Hezbollah from carrying out cross-border raids such as the one two weeks ago which triggered the Israeli military response.

Israel said it would maintain such a zone, with firepower or other means, until the arrival of an international force with muscle to be deployed in a wider swath of southern Lebanon - as opposed to the UN force already there that has failed to prevent the violence.

In Rome, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said participants at a daylong conference on the Mideast crisis agreed Wednesday on the need for a strong international force under a UN mandate. Italy, Turkey and Spain all said they might send troops.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and diplomats from European and moderate Arab countries also attended the meeting; Israel, Iran and Syria did not.

The Israeli bombardment has failed to stop guerrilla rocket fire, even while killing hundreds, driving up to 750,000 people from their homes and causing billion of dollars in damage. Hezbollah fired another large barrage into northern Israel on Wednesday - 151 rockets that wounded at least 31 people and damaged property from the suburbs of the port on Haifa on the Mediterranean Sea to the Hula Valley above the Sea of Galilee. Over the past two weeks, the guerrillas have fired 1,436 rockets into Israel.

Pushing Hezbollah back with ground troops was proving to be bloody. Several thousand troops are in Lebanon, Israeli military officials said - mainly in a roughly 15.5-square-kilometre pocket around the town of Bint Jbail, a Hezbollah stronghold just over three kilometres from the border.

The Hezbollah fighters are heavily outnumbered, with some 100 in Bint Jbail and several hundred more in surrounding fields, bunkers and cave, according to the officials. But they use classic guerrilla tactics, choosing when to strike in the hilly territory they know well. They are dug in with extensive tunnel networks and stockpiling weapons, including rockets with which they pelted Israeli forces Wednesday.

Violence was also increasing on the other front of Israel's fight on Islamic militants: Gaza, where Hamas-linked militants are holding an Israeli soldier seized a month ago. A force of 50 tanks and bulldozers entered the northern Gaza Strip to battle Hamas gunmen. Israeli air and artillery attacks killed 23 Palestinians, including at least 16 militants and three young girls.

Israel was feeling pressure on the international front - and anger over a bombing Tuesday night that directly hit a UN observation post on the border, killing four UN observers, including a Canadian.

At the Rome talks, Rice resisted pressure from allies for Washington to change its stance and call for an immediate halt to the violence.

Rice insisted any ceasefire must be "sustainable" and that there could be "no return to the status quo" - a reference to the U.S. and Israeli position that Hezbollah must first be pushed back from the border and the Lebanese army backed by international forces deployed in the south.

While the ground battle was intensifying, the bombardment in rest of Lebanon appeared to be easing. Israeli jets were heard repeatedly over Beirut in the evening, but the capital saw no strikes.

But early Thursday, local broadcasters said Israel hit an army base and an adjacent relay station belonging to Lebanese state radio at Aamchit, 48 kilometres north of Beirut, knocking down a transmission tower. It wasn't immediately clear if the attack was by air or shelling from ships. The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the reports.

About 24 air strikes were reported outside the immediate border region Wednesday, down from nearly 30 a day recently.

One hit in the centre of the southern port of Tyre, shortly after a Canadian-chartered ship set sail with about 360 foreigners, including 14 Canadians.

The air strike collapsed the top floor and ripped the facade off an empty seven-storey building where Hezbollah's top commander in the south has offices. The strike wounded 13 people - including six children - nearby.

Hundreds of Canadians were believed to be stranded in southern Lebanon, unable to get to Beirut because many roads have been heavily damaged by Israeli bombing.

Eight Israeli soldiers were killed and 22 wounded in the fighting, the army said. It later reported a ninth soldier killed and several other casualties in the nearby village of Maroun al-Ras.

At least 30 guerrillas were killed Wednesday, an Israeli military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information. Hezbollah announced no casualties; it has acknowledged 19 dead in four days of fighting around Bint Jbail.

Wednesday's deaths brought to 51 the number of Israelis killed in the campaign, including 32 members of the military, according to the military.

In Lebanon, at least 423 people have been killed - including 376 civilians reported by the Health Ministry and security officials, 20 Lebanese soldiers and 27 fighters Hezbollah has acknowledged were killed. Israel says more than 100 guerrillas have been killed.

© The Canadian Press 2006

troung

Israel’s combat losses Wednesday, July 26, climbed to 9 when an Israeli officer was killed by anti-tank fire in a clash with Hizballah between Bint Jubeil and Maroun er Ras

July 27, 2006, 6:36 AM (GMT+02:00)

Another 4 soldiers were injured, altogether 26, five seriously, on the deadliest day of the 15-day war in South Lebanon.

DEBKAfile reports the Olmert government is stunned by the IDF’s setbacks in South Lebanon and the rising casualty figures. Senior ministers cannot agree whether to send in more troops to reinforce the units battling the Hizballah.

Army chiefs complain that the government is hampering the military performance by setting impossible conditions: The war’s objectives have not been clearly set out to IDF leaders and the prime minister and defense minister are holding back permission to raise the level of fire power and troop numbers in line with campaign requirements. Hizballah, they say, organizes its deployment to meet Israeli government decisions that should be kept secret. The army informed the ministers that Wednesday, July 26, Tehran permitted Hassan Nasrallah to start shooting rockets at the area between Netanya and Tel Aviv.

DEBKAfile’s military sources add: The generals conducting the offensive in South Lebanon are also under fire. There are insistent calls for Chief of staff Lt. General Dan Halutz to draft Israel’s more experienced generals to appointments over the heads of the generals in the field. One name mentioned is that of Maj-Gen. (res.) Gaby Ashkenazi, former OC northern command, who has had long experience of Hizballah and its tactics.

In the Yom Kippur war of 1973, a former chief of staff, the late Haim Bar Lev, was took charge of the field command on the Sinai front.

The initial investigation of what went wrong in the Bin Jubeil battle that ended Wednesday night showed that the Israeli force did not take control of the small town of 20,000, as reported, but left the northern approaches open and unguarded. A Hizballah reconnaissance team discovered the gap and deduced that the Israeli force had decided not to advance further north to the Litani River. The Hizballah force waiting at Banduriya to block that advance was turned around and re-entered Bint Jubeil to mount a counter-attack on the scattered IDF positions. Reinforcements from the surrounding villages boosted the Shiite force to 500 men armed with Sagger anti-tank missiles and mortars.

They battled Israeli troops from early morning until late Wednesday night, concentrating their fire on Israeli tanks and APCs from a distance of 2-3 kilometers.

http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=2982

Parihaka

Hezbollah attack `came from all sides,' Israeli officer says
By Matthew Schofield
McClatchy Newspapers

* Special Package: A region in conflict
* Timeline
* Who is Hezbollah?
* Graphic | Israel and Lebanon: Decades of conflict
* Graphic | Weapons aimed at Israel
* Graphic | Tracking exchanges of prisoners
* Graphic | Profiling Katyusha rockets
* Contacting Americans in Lebanon & Israel

AVIVIM, Israel - The deadly fight began before dawn Wednesday, as Israel's famed Golani Brigade slipped among the apartment blocks on the edge of Bint Jbail.

Among the nation's most elite unit, the Golani had been chosen to clear out the last Hezbollah fighters from a deserted city of 20,000. Israeli forces had controlled the hills around the town for days, but their intelligence services believed that as many as 50 fighters remained, hiding in basements, waiting. Military spokesmen said they were thought to be preparing a final, glorious attack.

"They weren't looking to survive," said Israeli Capt. Doron Spielman.

Still, the Israelis weren't ready for what hit them. As they entered a manmade canyon, gunfire rained down from the ridge and from the upper stories of empty apartment buildings. Mortar rounds poured in. Closer to the ground, Hezbollah fighters launched rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank missiles. It would later be described as a hornets' nest.

"Overnight, the Hezbollah strength had at least doubled, and there were perhaps as many as 150," said Maj. Zvika Golan. "The attack came from all sides."

In the first minutes of the battle, at least eight Israeli soldiers were killed. Many more were wounded. Israeli officials said it was an hour before others were able to start evacuating the dead and wounded because the barrage was so fierce.

In fact, Golan said it was an hour before the brigade figured out where the fire was coming from and could return fire.

The deaths of the eight soldiers and that of another soldier in a town nearby made Wednesday the deadliest day of the two-week-old war for the Israeli military.

Israel Defense Forces spokesman Mitch Pilcer called the attack "highly coordinated. Rockets, gunfire, mortars, they all began at once."

He said Israeli soldiers had to move their dead and wounded about a mile away from the fighting so that helicopters could land safely and evacuate them.

"After that, it was house-to-house fighting, door to door," Pilcer said. "All day long."

Bint Jbail is nestled in the steep, rocky hills along the border. Smoke from the fighting spread above the valley as the day wore on.

Hezbollah fighters had been waiting in apartments, in basements, anywhere there was cover. On numerous recent occasions, Pilcer said, Israeli soldiers have found Hezbollah fighters firing from the second floor of a building while a family was still on the first floor, so the soldiers had to be cautious in counterattacking.

The fighting continued past dusk, a steady drum of Israeli artillery fire along with semi- and automatic weapons fire and what military officials described as Hezbollah mortar fire. Military officials estimated that 50 Hezbollah fighters were killed.

Bint Jbail is a 10-minute walk from the Israeli border. But Golan and others note that Israel isn't occupying Lebanon, so more fighters could filter in.

Maj. Gen. Udi Adam, head of Israel's northern command, which includes the Lebanese border, said Israelis understand this.

"It's a war, and in a war there are days like this," he said, from position in a small forest near the border. "I think that the population in Israel know what war is and that you have to expect casualties."

source

troung

Wounded troops describe Bint Jbail battle as 'hell on earth'

By Nir Hasson and Tomer Levi, Haaretz Correspondents

Wounded soldiers who took part in heavy combat Wednesday on the outskirts of the Hezbollah stronghold of Bint Jbail recounted their experiences from their hospital beds at Haifa's Rambam Medical Center, which received 22 of the wounded casualties of the battle.

"They suffer mostly from shrapnel and also from penetration of bullets," said Dr. Micky Hilbertal, who runs the emergency room where the soldiers are hospitalized. "Most of the injuries are in the limbs, a few of them are in the chest and stomach."

Hilbertal said the most similar experience he can recall when he was required to treat this many wounded was during the first Lebanon war. "[Back then], helicopters landed here almost non-stop," he said, noting that Rambam is working in full emergency mode.

The wounded soldiers described the battle as a bitter one which took place in a built-up setting, one where enemy forces had organized a well-planned ambush. Soldiers faced gunfire from any and all directions.

"They shot at us from 180 degrees," said one of the soldiers. Most of the dead and seriously wounded are those from the initial wave of ground troops which tried to enter one of the homes in Bint Jbail. The soldiers who suffered light wounds are primarily those who arrived on the scene to retrieve the bodies of the dead and wounded soldiers lying in the battlefield.

Some of the wounded were in an open field and others behind walls as well as inside homes. Sergeant Tzachi Duda suffered light injuries in his leg due to shrapnel.

"The battle began at 3:30 at night," he said. "Ten minutes after the first clash, we arrived to help. There was heavy fire from rocket launchers, missiles, rocket-propelled grenades. I provided cover fire for soldiers who tried to reach the wounded, and this went on for hours. Eventually, a missile hit the yard where I was standing. I was thrown back along with the wall which I was hiding behind. In my lifetime I never expected to see bodies and people with bullets in their chest."

Sergeant Ohed Shalom was wounded while attempting to recover a soldier's body which was lying behind a steel door.

"We tried to go in and break through the door but we didn't succeed," he said. "When I shot at the door, they saw me and shot in my direction."

Shalom, who sustained shrapnel wounds to his leg, said the soldiers did all in their power to prevent Hezbollah gunmen from reaching their comrades' bodies.

The soldiers also recounted feats of heroism displayed by their friends. "They carried soldiers on stretchers while simultaneously shooting at terrorists," Shalom said.

"It was hell on earth," Corporal Lior Sharabi said. "People risked their lives not only for the wounded but also for the dead bodies."

Sharabi added that Hezbollah fighters demonstrated impressive combat capabilities. "They are strong fighters, not like us, but better than Hamas," he said.

One of Hezbollah's most troublesome position from which it fired upon soldiers was the towering mosque in the village.

"There were maybe 30 terrorists [in the mosque]," Shalom said.

Staff Sergeant Avraham Dajan was hit in his arm by shrapnel. "They fired from all directions, we tried to get to the wounded," he said. "As I was about to throw a grenade, I got hit by shrapnel. After I was hurt, I couldn't do anything. I saved myself."

Some of the wounded soldiers spoke of face-to-face clashes with Hezbollah operatives. However, none of the soldiers gave first-hand accounts of such incidents. The soldiers, who serve in the 51st battalion of the Golani infantry brigades, said their stay in Lebanon extended to three consecutive days, during which they managed very little sleep.

"We lived in one of the houses and about every hour or so we would wake up out of fear that someone had entered the house," Shalom said. "Every once in a while, we would move from house to house."

"Even after a day like this, the morale is higher," said Ram Boneh, a 20-year-old resident of Hadera who was lightly wounded by shrapnel. "I want to go out and return to active duty."

"At 12:30, [Boneh] called and told us he was in Rambam and that we shouldn't worry," Boneh's mother, Heska, said. "We came here immediately from Hadera. It's very hard for me [to deal] with what is happening. I'm Dutch and I wasn't educated on the army, and it's very difficult for me to deal with the fact that he's a fighter. But I am with him and I trust him as well as the entire army."

troung

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Sto...832930,00.html
As the shells fall around them, Hizbullah men await the Israelis

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, south of Tyre
Saturday July 29, 2006
The Guardian

Inside a well-furnished apartment in a village on the outskirts of Tyre, with shelves of books piled from floor to ceiling, a black turbaned cleric and three men sit sipping bitter coffee. By the door is a pile of Kalashnikovs and ammunition boxes; handguns are tucked into the men's trousers. The four are Hizbullah fighters, waiting for the Israelis.

"Patience is our main virtue, we can wait for days, weeks, months before we attack. The Israelis are always impatient in battle and in strategy," says the cleric, Sayed Ali, who claims to be a descendant of the prophet. "I know them very well."

As if to make his point, the sound of Israeli shells blasting the surrounding hills shakes the door and shutters every few minutes. Ali does know the Israelis. He started fighting them at the age of 17 when they invaded Lebanon in 1982. Three years later he was arrested with two of his comrades and spent a few months in an Israeli prison. Within weeks of his release he was fighting them again.That's what he did for the next six years.

For the last five years he has been finishing his theology studies in Tehran. A month ago, he was asked by Hizbullah to return to southern Lebanon. He arrived a week before the fighting began.

Standing at the window, he points to the banana plantations between us and the blue Mediterranean. "I have fought for years in these groves. We used to sit and wait for them [the Israelis] to make a move and then we would hit. They always moved too quickly, too soon."

All over the hills of south Lebanon hundreds of men like Sayed Ali and his comrades are waiting - some in bunkers, some in farm houses - for the Israeli troops to arrive. Sayed Ali and his men spend most of their time in the building where his apartment is, moving only at night.

"We stay put and we don't move till we get our orders, and this is why we are not like any other militia. A militiaman will fire whenever he likes at whatever he likes," explains one of the men, who says he has been involved in firing Katyusha rockets into northern Israel. "We have specific orders. Even when we fire rockets we know when and where [to fire] and each of the men manning the launchers runs to a specific hiding place after firing the rockets."
He says Hizbullah fighters expect the site of a rocket launch to be hit by an Israeli airstrike or shell within 10 to 15 minutes.

Another of the men, who says he is Sayed Ali's brother, explains how Hizbullah teaches its fighters patience: "During our training we spend days in empty buildings without talking to anyone or doing anything. They tell me go and sit in that building, and I go and sit there and wait."

According to Ali, Hizbullah operates as "a state within the state", with its own hospitals, social organisations and social security system. "But we are also an Islamic resistance movement, an indoctrinated army," he adds. "I would go and knock the door at someone and say we need $50,000, he would give me [that] because they trust us."

The fighting force of the organisation is divided into two: the "active" group, whose task is to serve in Hizbullah, and the reserve, or Ta'abi'a, as it is known in Arabic. The active fighters get monthly pay. The reserves are called on only in time of war, and receive bonuses but no regular pay. A third section, the Ansar, comprises people who support or are supported by the organisation.

Ali, the commander of Hizbullah in his village, and his men are part of the active force, and their orders