Even with more adequate preparation and training, taking out fixed fortifications with infantry is murderous.
True, but block by block, house by house fighting in every single Southern Lebanese villiage was probably not necessary. A significant commitment of Israel ground forces early on seizing all territory south of Litani would have allowed Israel to hit Hizbullah positions within that zone from all sides. Couple this with a policy of not separating the remaining Shia population in S.Lebanon whom actively support Hizbullah from Hizbullah itself would have allowed for a much more robust campaign of choking off and razing each and every village which offered resistance to Israel. Basically, the policy of Israel should have been to drive out the vast majority of non combatants and then annhilate everything and everyone whom offered resistance within the South of Litani zone.
The Israelis could use heavy, precision bombing, which they lack because they don't have the heavy bombers.
Im fine with giving them heavy bombers, but I think since we are basically talking about a relatively small space from the Litani south for most of the intense ground combat, concentrated Israeli artillery tied with the bombing capacity the Israel Air Force can bring to bare should be sufficient to accomplish the mission.
The key here is for Israel to get away from all this PC nonsense about avoiding "civilian" casualties (we Americans also need to drop this sillyness). The Shia in South Lebanon ARE Hizbullah. These people support and vote for Hizbullah. Drive those whom want to leave north, then simply destroy everything within the zone until resistance ceases.
A Normandy type offensive. We certainly did a lot of collateral damage there.
The bombings in Normandy before and after the D-Day were especially terrible. The famous French historian Henri Amouroux (in La Grande histoire des Français sous l’Occupation, volume 8) says that 20,000 civilians were killed in Calvados department, 10,000 in Seine-Maritime, 14,800 in the Manche, 4,200 in the Orne, around 3,000 in the Eure. All together, that makes more than 50 000 killed people. During the only year 1943, 7,458 French civilians died under allied bombs. The most terrible allied bombings under the German occupation were these: Boulogne-Billancourt near Paris (2-3 March 1942, more than 600 killed people), Saint-Nazaire (9, 14, 17 and 18 November 1942, 228 dead), Rennes (8 mars 1943, 299 morts), Boulogne-Billancourt again (4 April 1943, 403 dead), Le Portel (8 September 1943, 510 dead), Paris western suburbs (9 and 15 September 1943, 395 morts), Nantes (16 and 23 September 1943, 1,247 dead), Toulon (24 November 1943, 450 dead), Lille (9-10 April 1944, 450 dead), Rouen (18-19 April 1944, 900 dead), Noisy-le-Sec (18-19 April 1944, 464 dead), Paris-La Chapelle (20-21 April 1944, 670 dead), Sartrouville (27-28 May 1944, 400 dead), Orléans (19 and 23 May 1944, 300 dead), Saint-Etienne (26 May 1944, more than 1,000 morts), Lyon (26 May 1944, 717 dead), Marseille (27 May 1944, 1,752 dead), Avignon (27 May 1944, 525 dead), Lisieux (6-7 June 1944, 700 dead), Vire (6-7 June 1944, 400 dead), Caen (6-7 June 1944, more than 1,000 dead), Le Havre (5-11 September 1944, more than 5,000 dead), Royan (5 January 1945, 1,700 dead), etc. Only during the day of 27 mai 1944, 3,012 French civilians were killed by anglo-american bombings on Marseille, Avignon, Nîmes, Amiens, Sartrouville, Maisons-Laffittes and Eauplet. (That’s more than the number of victims killed in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001).
What's the French phrase: C'est la Guerre?
If Israel wanted to really be bold, they'd attack into Syria -- the lead division to threaten Damascus and to distract from the second division attacking into the Bekka Valley from Syria itself. I doubt that Hezbollah's defenses are prepared to defend from an attack from their rear. The distances are short for an armored division. It would cut off their supply lines and it would put Hezbollah into trying to defend in two directions.