Posted on 08/01/2006 2:12:14 PM PDT by elhombrelibre
Israel strikes northeastern Lebanon Olmert: Hezbollah weakened every day
NORTHERN ISRAEL (CNN) -- The Israeli military engaged in fierce fighting Tuesday with Hezbollah forces just across the border with Lebanon, and the Lebanese Army reported Israeli aircraft struck targets near the Syrian border.
Israeli aircraft hit "several" targets near the northeastern Lebanese town of Baalbeck, the Lebanese army reported.
The army also reported heavy helicopter traffic east and west of the town. The Arab-language television network Al-Arabiya said it appeared the Israeli army was attempting to drop in soldiers.
The Israel Defense Forces had no comment on the reports.
Israeli forces also waged a firefight with Hezbollah forces in the town of Aita Al-Shaab in southern Lebanon, and warned residents almost 20 miles inside the country to leave the area. (Watch Israeli bombardment pound Aita Al-Shaab -- 3:09)
Israel hit the town with heavy shelling and 500-pound bombs, and the sound of gunfire exchange could be heard.
Israel Defense Forces said its troops had killed or wounded 20 Hezbollah forces in battles Tuesday.
Hezbollah said four of its forces died in the fighting.
In Tayba, the IDF said it has taken control of several strategic positions that have been used by Hezbollah fighters to launch missiles at northern Israel over the past two weeks.
Israeli police reported 14 cross-border strikes hitting northern Israel on Tuesday, including two with Katyusha rockets and 12 with mortar shells.
Israel says it has killed 300 of the estimated 2,000 Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon during its three-week offensive.
"Hezbollah has taken a serious beating, and that is why the pressure of a ground offensive will produce the expected results," Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon said Tuesday on Israeli Channel 10.
A Hezbollah spokesman says 43 of its fighters have been killed, Reuters news service reported.
The IDF said Tuesday that three of its soldiers were killed and 25 wounded in the fighting in southern Lebanon. Five other soldiers were wounded on the Israeli side of the border when they were hit by a mortar shell, it
said.
Ramon's announcement came after Israel's Security Cabinet approved an expansion of the ground campaign against Hezbollah.
While Hezbollah attacks into northern Israel have subsided in the past two days, Ramon said the Lebanese militia has increased the number of rocket launches from areas north of the Litani River -- about 20 miles from the border -- where the Israeli military has asked residents in two locations to evacuate.
Labor Party lawmaker Danny Yatom told The Associated Press that Israeli ground forces could go up to the Litani River.
The goal is "to control the area, to kill as many Hezbollah terrorists as possible and to destroy as many rockets and launchers as possible, in order to minimize the capabilities of Hezbollah," Yatom, a reserve general and former chief of the Mossad spy agency, told AP.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israeli forces were weakening Hezbollah daily and that no cease-fire would come until Israel was safe from a future war.
"Every additional day is a day that drains the strength of this cruel enemy," Olmert said in a speech Tuesday. "Every extra day is a day in which the [army] reduces their capability, contains their firing ability and their ability to hit in the future."
Other developments pointed to a lengthening of the 20-day-old conflict.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday directed his country's military to heighten its readiness, the state news agency SANA reported.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad held the United States and Britain responsible for the bloodshed in Lebanon, AP reported.
"The U.S. and Britain are accomplices in all crimes committed by the occupying Zionist regime and have to answer to these crimes," he said in a speech, drawing shouts of "Death to America" from the crowd in northeastern Iran.
President Bush said Monday there could be no cease-fire until Hezbollah was reined in and called on Iran and Syria to stop aiding Hezbollah.
Aid process difficult Meanwhile, the United Nations said it has not had much success getting aid into southern Lebanon during Israel's self-declared 48-hour lull in fighting.
"We did not achieve much," spokesman Khaled Mansour said. The U.N. asked Israel to allow three convoys through with about 30 trucks, but Israel denied permission for two of them, he said.
The European Union on Tuesday said it approved $64 million in humanitarian aid for Lebanon, and EU foreign ministers, meeting in emergency session Tuesday, called on Israel and Hezbollah to agree to an "immediate cessation of hostilities" followed by international efforts to get agreement on a sustainable cease-fire.
The conflict began July 12 when Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed three others in a cross-border raid.
As of Tuesday, 557 Lebanese civilians and soldiers have died and 2,128 have been wounded in the conflict, according to Lebanon's Internal Security Forces.
Israel has reported 54 deaths, including 19 civilians killed by Hezbollah rocket attacks.
CNN's Nada Husseini, John Roberts, John King, Elise Labott, Richard Roth and Ben Wedeman contributed to this report.
Copyright 2006 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report
That's a creative way of wording it so that the figures which are mostly coming form areas completely under Hezbollah's military and diplomatic control sound like they are credible.
The Lebanese government refuses to deploy Lebanon's Internal Security Forces to these areas due to claims that it would cause a civil war, so how would these Security Forces know how many have been killed or injured, or if they were civilians or if they were part of Hezbollah?
You have to wonder how well-entrenched Hezbollah was in southern Lebanon prior to the hostilities, for the Israelis to be involved in "fierce" fighting. That says a lot about the Lebanese.
Hmm. Dropping troops in NE Lebanon. Pretty soon you'll be telling me that Israel is doing the most prudent military option and occupying all the roads from Syria to block more equipment from coming in. They wouldn't be that smart. Would they?
The Hizzies had 6 years to prepare the battlefield. Israel leveled it in less then three weeks.
From this point forward, it is going to get harder for the Hizzies. They cannot resupply, they cannot regroup and they have no where to run. So they must fight and die.
I give it two more weeks and then the bunker busters will tear up the rest of the joint.
Victory however long and hard is important; for without victory, there is no survival.
Sure. 63 folks wre wounded over here at my house now....
I suggest a better target for Israel to hit -- Northwest Iran.
Don't hit Iran unless it's sustained and protracted enough to eliminate its military infrastructure and its nuclear capabilities.
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