Posted on 08/10/2006 8:58:48 PM PDT by BurbankKarl
Love is a Battlefield
IDF soldier received heart shaped cookie somewhere near the Lebanon border...
hmmmmm.."disarming of Hezbollah"....
THAT would seem to be a non-starter for Lebanon.
Also, if the Hezzies just sunk a warship and killed whole crew....I just can't imagine Olmert getting away with stopping the war now..
Per Fox News, Condi Rice on way to UN in New York.
Quick UN approval seen for resolution to end Hezbollah-Israel war, as terms include Israeli withdrawal
Eric Shawn now reporting on FOX that Condi is expected this afternoon at the UN
hhmmmm...
A U.N.-authored resolution for a cease-fire in Lebanon has been approved by Israel
any word from the Israeli side about the warship going down
Ok- so NOW it's up to Lebanon...this will be interesting.
17:12 U.S. envoy to UN says sides are `very, very close` to deal on draft resolution (Reuters)
17:11 Lebanese source reports `major progress` with U.S. official on UN resolution (Reuters)
17:03 Rocket hits 11-story building in Kiryat Shmona; one person moderately hurt (Haaretz)
I just can't believe Israel would quit now. Something doesn't smell right. VERY hard to believe.
A U.N.-authored resolution for a cease-fire in Lebanon has been approved by Israel
3 options -
1)Hizbullah and co. reject the ceasefire, war goes on
2)Hizbullah accepts, Olmert out of a job
3)Israel renigs b/c one of their ships just got blown out of the water
Olmert faces backlash over Lebanon war
By Adam Entous
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert faced a backlash on Friday over a U.N. proposal to end the war in Lebanon, with army officers saying they were held back and right-wing rivals calling for new elections.
"Olmert must go," read a front page headline in Israel's left-leaning Haaretz newspaper.
Opinion polls, conducted before details of the proposed Security Council resolution emerged, showed public support eroding for Olmert, a career politician who lacks the combat credentials of many of his predecessors.
Twenty percent of those surveyed by Haaretz believed Israel was winning the war.
Leading members of the right-wing opposition Likud party called the resolution a victory for Hizbollah.
"We will work to bring down the government," said Likud's Silvan Shalom. Yuval Steinitz, also of Likud, said the Israeli government should resign and call new elections.
Some Israeli military commanders said an expanded ground offensive, authorized by Olmert and his security cabinet on Wednesday, should not have been put on hold.
They accused Olmert of denying the army a chance to gain more ground militarily to secure a ceasefire that would be more favorable to Israel and less so to Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
Army officers said Israeli troops massed along the Lebanese border were now "sitting ducks" while Israeli political leaders awaited the outcome of the negotiations at the United Nations.
"We need to keep on going with the military operation," one officer said. He did not want to be identified.
Another officer told Haaretz: "Nasrallah will continue to mock us, and in the end there will be another war."
Justice Minister Haim Ramon defended the government, telling Israel Radio: "War in the name of the war is not an objective."
Tzachi Hanegbi, a senior member of Olmert's Kadima party, said that, if it was possible to remove Hizbollah from southern Lebanon through diplomacy, "obviously this is far preferable to a military clash with its heavy price in lives of fighters."
LATEST PROPOSAL
The latest proposal calls for the existing U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon to be reinforced by French and other troops, although Beirut has rejected a proposed mandate allowing the use of force for more than just self-defense.
Hizbollah would pull out from south of the Litani river, 13 miles from the border -- as Israel wants.
Israeli critics say the resolution would not secure the immediate release of two soldiers seized by Hizbollah, whose capture on July 12 sparked the war, and does not guarantee the guerrilla group's disarmament.
Political sources said Israel was still pushing for changes to the resolution to make sure troops would withdraw only once the expanded peacekeeping force was on the ground.
Israel also wants the resolution to spell out how an embargo will be enforced to prevent Hizbollah from receiving new arms.
A poll published in Haaretz on Friday showed only 48 percent of Israelis were satisfied with Olmert's performance compared with more than 75 percent early in the fighting.
A poll in the mass-circulation Yedioth Ahronoth showed 66 percent were satisfied with Olmert, down from 73 percent.
Haaretz columnist Ari Shavit wrote: "You cannot lead an entire nation to war promising victory, produce humiliating defeat and remain in power."
Ben Caspit, a columnist for Maariv, agreed that it would be hard for Olmert to remain: "The public in Israel will not keep silent about this month.. without reaching a victory or exacting an appropriate price."
(Additional reporting by Jonathan Saul)
If they had someone other than Olmert at the top I would agree. However, Olmert is incapable of fighting.
They would hang Olmert in TelAviv square if he were to accept a cease fire under such circumstances.
I hope they do. (Or something slower and more painful.)
Olmert's government doesn't want to be the savior of the west against the Jihad, and those of us who have hoped that were wishing.
Thanks for the report.
Get well soon - we need you.
This is obviously a "keep your powder dry" kind of moment since there is no clarity yet on what will actually be proposed.
Bill Hemmer reporting the soldiers are gung-ho to finish the job- but the element of surpsise has been lost making it tougher if they DO go in now.
I get the sense from Hemmer this will not go down well with the soldiers.
I'm telling you, if Olmert is not careful he may meet the same fate Rabin did
Israeli strikes kill at least 14 in Lebanon; ground attacks picks up in south
August 11, 2006 - 10:12
By: JOSEPH PANOSSAIN
BEIRUT (AP) - Israeli air strikes on Friday pounded south Beirut and border crossings to Syria, killing at least 14 people across Lebanon as ground fighting picked up intensity in the south.
Jets struck twice at a busy bridge at the Abboudiyeh border crossing into Syria, killing at least 12 people and wounding 18 others, hospital and security officials said. The checkpoint is some 15 kilometres inland from the Mediterranean coast, on Lebanon's northern border.
Israel also struck an area close to the Lebanese border crossing at Masnaa in the Bekaa Valley, about 50 kilometres southeast of Beirut, but there were no reports of casualties. Masnaa is the main border crossing with Syria, and has been closed after four previous strikes. It was the main escape route for hundreds of foreigners and displaced Lebanese who fled the country over land.
Only one other official border crossing, at the northern coastal town of Arida, is open.
Israeli warplanes also struck three vehicles near the eastern city of Baalbek, killing at least one person and wounding two others, security officials said. Witnesses said the vehicles were directly hit and caught fire. It was unclear whether they were cars or pickup trucks - a frequent target of Israeli raids.
A drone fired a missile at a motorbike on the southern coastal highway between Sidon and Tyre, killing its driver, security officials said. Jets also hit roads and residential areas near the southern market town of Nabatiyeh, flattening a deserted house there, they said. It was unclear if its owner, Zaino Yassin, was a Hezbollah activist, they said.
Israeli warplanes struck roads and villages in mountainous areas in the southeastern part of the Bekaa Valley as well, security officials said. No casualties were reported.
At least 20 explosions rang out across the Lebanese capital as thick black smoke rose from the southern suburbs. Hezbollah said it unleashed "a new barrage of rockets on Haifa" in response. Later the group said it fired at the Israeli towns of Kiryat Shemona, Nahariya, Avivim, Kfar Giladi, Margelot and Metulla "in response to the continuing Zionist attacks on Lebanese civilians."
Warplanes returned to the capital midday and sent missiles into Chiah, a south Beirut neighbourhood where at least 41 people were killed in a strike Monday.
Friday's attack came a day after Israeli jets dropped leaflets over Beirut, warning Chiah residents to leave. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Hezbollah said its fighters killed or wounded about 15 Israeli soldiers trying to advance toward the border village of Aita al-Shaab. "The remaining soldiers retreated under the cover of artillery shelling," it said in a statement said. Aita al-Shaab is one of several Lebanese border towns where gun battles have been raging for weeks between Israeli troops and Hezbollah guerrillas.
The group later said it killed four Israeli soldiers in Qantara, about eight kilometres from the Israeli border. Hezbollah said its guerrillas inflicted casualties on Israeli forces in the village of Rachaf as well, some 14 kilometres from the border.
"The Islamic Resistance (Hezbollah) has since early morning been engaged in fierce clashes (with Israeli troops) on the southwestern outskirts of Rachaf. By 9:40 a.m. the (Israeli) enemy was trying to evacuate its casualties from the battlefield," Hezbollah said in a statement broadcast on its Al-Manar television.
Fighting also continued in Beit Yahoun, with Hezbollah saying it destroyed an Israeli tank and bulldozer, killing or wounding their crews. The town is about 12 kilometres from the Israeli border.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on Hezbollah's statements.
Meanwhile, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Welch held talks Friday with Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, who said afterward there was "slight" progress on a ceasefire plan.
Welch, who has been shuttling between Jerusalem and Beirut, did not make any comments after his meeting. He also visited Parliament speaker Nabih Berri, Hezbollah's de facto negotiator.
Asked whether there was any breakthrough in talks to end the fighting, Saniora said: "There is slight progress," but he did not elaborate.
The European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, planned to visit Beirut on Friday to press for a peace pact.
Suggestions that a new UN resolution was in the works also emerged.
"A new proposal is being drafted, which has positive significance that may bring the war to an end," Israeli member of parliament Otniel Schneller quoted Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as saying. "But if the draft is not accepted there is the Cabinet decision."
The Israeli security cabinet authorized Olmert to expand the current offensive in Lebanon, but Israeli officials said they would hold off to give diplomacy more time to work.
http://www.680news.com/news/international/article.jsp?content=w081143A
17:12 U.S. envoy to UN says sides are `very, very close` to deal on draft resolution (Reuters)
What sides are they talking about Israel and Lebanon or Israel and Hizbullah. I tend to think the former (which is worthless)
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