Israel gathers forces to move into Lebanon
Posted on Saturday, July 22, 2006
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/National/161177/
ON THE ISRAEL-LEBANON BORDER — Israel massed tanks and troops on the border Friday hours after calling up reserves, as the army announced plans for a ground operation to destroy Hezbollah’s tunnels, hide-outs and weapons stashes.
On Friday, the Israeli army confirmed that small units have been operating in Lebanon for days.
An official from the U. N. monitoring force in south Lebanon said 300 to 500 Israeli troops were believed to be in the western sector of the border, backed by as many as 30 tanks — a likely precursor to a larger ground force that Israel could use to sweep Hezbollah out of the area.
Israel’s goal is not to create a buffer zone as it did during its occupation of southern Lebanon from 1982 to 2000, said a senior military official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
ON THE ISRAEL-LEBANON BORDER — Israel massed tanks and troops on the border Friday hours after calling up reserves, as the army announced plans for a ground operation to destroy Hezbollah’s tunnels, hide-outs and weapons stashes.
On Friday, the Israeli army confirmed that small units have been operating in Lebanon for days.
An official from the U. N. monitoring force in south Lebanon said 300 to 500 Israeli troops were believed to be in the western sector of the border, backed by as many as 30 tanks — a likely precursor to a larger ground force that Israel could use to sweep Hezbollah out of the area.
Israel’s goal is not to create a
zone as during occupation of southern Lebanon from 1982 to 2000, said a senior military official, speaking on condition of anonymity. Rather, Israel wants to weaken Hezbollah with a limited ground operation to make it easier for the Lebanese army to move into areas previously controlled by the guerrillas, possibly with the aid of a beefed-up international peacekeeping force, the official said. Israel hopes the operation will end in the neutralization of Hezbollah. But the operation carries great risks for the country and the region. If Lebanon’s weak central government is undermined, it could immerse the country again in disorder and ignite fresh passions many Israel and the United States.
The Israeli air force on Friday blasted targets throughout Lebanon and, for a second day, dropped leaflets in the south warning residents to move north of the Litani River.
Many already have fled and more are leaving daily, but Israel’s earlier bombardment of roads and bridges has made the voyage treacherous and painstaking.
On Friday, Israel knocked out a key bridge on the road to Syria and pummeled Hezbollah positions in the south as long lines of tanks and armored personnel carriers lined up at the border, in some places close enough to see Lebanese houses on the other side.
A barrage of 11 Hezbollah rockets rained down again on Israel’s -, of Haifa, wounding at least five people, two seriously. The army said rockets also hit Rosh Pina, Safed and communities near the Sea of Galilee. Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets at northern Israeli towns from north of the Lebanese border, killing 16 civilians and forcing hundreds of thousands of Israelis to run repeatedly into bunkers.
DEATH TOLL The Lebanese Health Ministry reported 362 deaths in Lebanon so far in the onslaught, an increase of 55 since it released figures on Thursday. Thirty-four Israelis also
, - diers and an air force officer who died Friday in the collision of two helicopters. Al-Arabiyah television reported that Israeli troops found the body of a fellow soldier in south Lebanon who was killed in clashes the day before in which four other soldiers died. The count of 362 includes six Hezbollah fighters that the group has confirmed were killed, three of whom died Friday. Israel’s army chief of staff said Friday that nearly 100 Hezbollah guerrillas have been killed in the offensive in Lebanon. The Lebanese toll was expected to rise with heavy Israeli strikes Friday in Shiite regions of
’s. southern towns of Nabatiyeh and Aytaroun, buildings were leveled, killing at least one person. But rescue crews were too afraid of the continuing waves of strikes to search for more dead or wounded trapped in the rubble. Hezbollah’s capture of two Israeli soldiers in a bloody crossborder raid on July 12 touched off Israel’s heaviest bombardment of Lebanon in 24 years. Israel warplanes also continued their bombing to cut off roads, collapsing part of a suspension bridge linking two mountain peaks on the Beirut-Damascus highway in central Lebanon, which has already been heavily hit. Three U. N.-run positions near the border were struck. One post on was severely damaged, though the Ghanian troops inside were safely in shelters. A U. N. officer said it was hit by an Israeli artillery shell, but Israel said Hezbollah rockets struck it.
Two more U. N. positions on the Lebanese side took direct hits from Israeli artillery, also causing damage but no casualties, the U. N. observer force said.
Israel’s army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, said the military would conduct “limited ground operations as much as needed in order to harm the terror that harms us.” He left it unclear how deep and how powerful the Israeli punch into Lebanon would be. Israel on Friday called up several thousand reservists to free up regular troops for duty in the north.
“We will fight terror wherever it is because if we do not fight it, it will fight us. If we don’t reach it, it will reach us,” he said at a nationally televised news conference.
Ships lined up at Beirut’s port as a massive evacuation effort to pull out Americans and other foreigners picked up speed. U. S. officials said about 5, 000 Americans were leaving Friday, bringing the total evacuated to more than 8, 000. Roughly 25, 000 Americans were in Lebanon when the fighting began.
France, the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross painted a dire portrait of life for civilians trapped in the south or forced to flee their homes there.
They demanded that Israel open humanitarian corridors to allow life’s necessities — shelter, food, water and medicine — to reach the estimated half-million displaced people.
Halutz said in Tel Aviv on Friday that Israel had decided to allow a safe path for evacuations and another corridor for humanitarian aid, “out of an understanding for the developing difficulty.”
At the United Nations, Israeli Ambassador Dan Gillerman said he expected the humanitarian corridor for food, medicine and other supplies to be opened by today.
Responding to a U. S. request, Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said French aid would be allowed into Lebanon’s port of Sidon. The Red Cross on Friday made its first attempt since the fighting began July 12 to supply Tyre in southern Lebanon. The convoy arrived after a sixhour journey over war-damaged roads from Beirut. The relief effort, coordinated with Israeli authorities, carried in 24 tons of food, medical supplies and other assistance to the port city, according to spokesman Vincent Lusser. UNICEF will be delivering water kits, purification tablets, water containers, essential drugs and toys over the weekend to Damascus for road shipment to Lebanon.
PROTESTS Thousands across the Muslim world used Friday’s Islamic day of prayer to protest Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah, urging Sunni-Shiite unity to defeat the Jewish state.
Police clashed with anti-Israeli demonstrators in Egypt, Bahrain and Indian-run Kashmir.
Waving posters of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, thousands gathered after Friday prayers at Cairo’s Al-Azhar Mosque, the most prominent Sunni Muslim institution in the Arab world.
“Sunnis or Shiites [there is ] no difference; all together to resist the enemy,” Sameh Ashour, head of the Arab Lawyers Union, told the crowd. “Resistance is the solution.”
The fighting between Israel and the Shiite guerrillas in Lebanon has exposed divisions, as leaders in some predominantly Sunni countries such as Saudi Arabia, Hezbollah’s actions.
But many people, both Sunnis and Shiites, support Hezbollah because of its willingness to fight Israel.
During a fiery sermon at a Damascus mosque, one of Syria’s most prominent Sunni Islamic clerics assailed his Arab neighbors for condemning the capture this month of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah guerrillas.
“Our Arab people have been surprised by our Arab leaders who have ignored what is being said on the streets,” said Sheik Salah Keftaro.
In Iraq, radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr predicted that Israel would collapse like the World Trade Center if Sunnis and Shiites join together to fight.
“I will continue defending my Shiite and Sunni brothers, and I tell them that if we unite, we will defeat Israel without the use of weapons,” al-Sadr said in the southern city of Kufa.
Protesters also took to the streets in other cities, including