Unfortunately the "world community" isn't behind her...
Posted on 08/01/2006 5:39:47 PM PDT by Pharmboy
Israeli airborne commandos battled guerrillas near a Hizbollah-run hospital in eastern Lebanon on Wednesday, and officials in the Jewish state said the 23-day-old war could run for at least another week.
Lebanese security sources said Israeli soldiers had landed by helicopter near the Hizbollah stronghold of Baalbek in the eastern Bekaa valley as aircraft launched dozens of strikes in the region. An Israeli army spokesman declined to comment.
Three weeks after the war erupted when Hizbollah seized two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid, Israel's security cabinet agreed to step up its offensive, and carry out a ground sweep 6-7 km (4 miles) into Lebanon, a political source said.
But U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said a ceasefire could be reached within days. "This week is entirely possible. Certainly we are talking about days not weeks," she said on the PBS Newshour.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert also saw movement toward a ceasefire now that Hizbollah had suffered what he said were heavy losses.
"We are at the beginning of a political process that in the end will bring a ceasefire under entirely different conditions than before," he said.
Israel says it will not stop fighting until an international force is in place in southern Lebanon. Israeli leaders believe they have at least another week to damage Hizbollah before major powers finalize terms for a ceasefire and stabilization force.
"It's the beginning of the end," a senior government official said of the offensive. "But the diplomatic process is like the revolutions of a locomotive engine, first it is slow and then it gathers momentum. We've just left the station."
BAALBEK BATTLE
Despite growing international calls for an end to fighting that has killed at least 624 people in Lebanon and 54 Israelis, Israel was set to resume full air strikes in Lebanon early on Wednesday at the end of a partial, 48-hour suspension.
Security sources said the target of the Israeli troops dropped near Baalbek was the vacated al-Hikmah hospital. One source said senior Hizbollah official Mohammad Yazbik could have been the target of the attack.
There was fierce fighting with assault rifles, grenade-launchers and machineguns around the hospital, witnesses said. Israeli helicopters fired rockets and heavy machinegun fire at targets near the hospital and other targets in the city.
A Hizbollah source said several Israeli soldiers were trapped in the hospital. There was no independent confirmation.
Fighting raged for more than four hours. Another unit dropped in the outskirts of the ancient city but its target was not immediately clear, the security sources said.
Air strikes hit civilian neighborhoods in the city and several civilians were feared killed or wounded.
Hizbollah fighters killed three Israeli soldiers and wounded 30 in fierce fighting on several fronts in south Lebanon on Tuesday as Israel.
"We have so far now about six efforts running inside Lebanon ... brigade-size or even bigger than brigade-size efforts in each one of them," Israeli Brigadier General Shuki Shahur said. An Israeli brigade usually has at least 1,000 soldiers.
DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged major powers to patch up differences on the crisis and rescheduled a meeting of potential contributors to an international force for Thursday.
European Union foreign ministers called for an immediate end to hostilities, watering down demands for an immediate ceasefire at the insistence of Britain and other close U.S. allies.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned Syria and Iran, Hizbollah's main backers, they risked confrontation if they continued to support terrorism and export instability to Iraq and elsewhere.
Israel's justice minister said about 300 of an estimated 2,000 Hizbollah fighters had been killed so far, and the tourism minister later said 400 had been killed.
Hizbollah, which says it does not hide its dead and that it has many thousands more fighters, has announced 43 deaths in that period and said the Israeli statements were false.
Israel wants to push Hizbollah back and stop it firing rockets over the border. But an Israeli minister said there was no way Israel's forces could destroy all the missiles, a remark apparently aimed at lowering his people's expectations.
(Additional reporting by Jerusalem and Washington bureaux)
Kick some serious @ss Israel!!! Make them hurt real bad.
I love the smell of tough yids in the morning...
Go Israel, go! Kill 'em all, let God sort it out.
That might make a good site for the 101st Airborne to stage an exercise.
I'm sure the 101 wouldn't mind at all, but can you imagine the headlines if they shared some "exercises" there with the IDF??
'fierce fighting with assault rifles'
Well Duh - that describes everything in my safe.
A joint exercise?
As long as it was live-fire, I would stay up all night to awatch Fox News coverage.
Lord knows we wouldn't find it anywhere else.
You left out the rest of the Anglosphere, Canada and Australia. Germany and Poland supported the UK in the EU today as well.
This is a photo chop of the graphic in the English newspaper. It was their choice of what countries go where.
AMEN!
Here is an email I just received in response to one I sent:
This is from an old high school buddy who moved to the
northern Israeli town of Karmiel 35 years ago.
They've been Katusha'd for weeks now. Names omitted for privacy...
From: "ru..."
To: @yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Hey man...how are you and Ga...
Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2006 04:20:22 +0100
Subject: Hey man...how are you and Ga...
Ru..: Today was the second day without a single air
raid. Really nice. Most small businesses are still
closed and many who left have still not returned, and
we've been warned that things could start up again
tomorrow.
ME: I just got a report on Reuters that IDF Commandos
are battling the Hezbullies in the Bekaa Valley...
Excellent.
Ru..: There is a major offensive there and all across
southern Lebanon. We've been kicking ass, but now it
will be serious ass. They've been asking for it, and
now they're getting it. Nearly all of Hizballas
communiques are total fabrications, although most news
agencies present them seriously. Fox News seems to
give a more realistic picture of what's really
happening. It's just a matter of time now...
Thanks for getting in touch - and keep in touch!
Best,
Ru..
LOL!! A man after my own heart...
High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel.
also Keywords 2006israelwar or WOT [War on Terror]
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