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4 soldiers injured in gunbattles with Hizbullah

Paratrooper seriously wounded during operation against Hizbullah posts on western part of northern border; exchanges of fire erupt on eastern part of border, three soldiers lightly to moderately injured by anti-tank missile. Hizbullah: We destroyed Merkava tank
Hanan Greenberg

An Israel Defense Forces paratrooper was seriously injured after being shot by a sniper Thursday morning in exchanges of fire with Hizbullah members during an operation on the western part of the northern border.

The force was operating on Lebanese territory as part of redefining the new border between Israel and Lebanon, aimed at hitting Hizbullah targets near the border. The soldiers also destroyed three rocket launchers. At a certain stage, Hizbullah opened fire at the forces, hurting one of the soldiers in his jaw. He was evacuated to the Ziv Medical Center in Safed.

Exchanges of fire also erupted Thursday morning between the Israel Defense Forces and Hizbullah members on the northern border, near Avivim in the eastern region.

Three soldiers were injured, sustaining light to moderate wounds, after being hit by an anti-tank missile in an IDF tank on Lebanese territory.

Simultaneously, heavy exchanges of fire are being held in the northern border's western region.

Hizbullah's al-Manar television station enthusiastically reported of the incident in Avivim: "The Zionist enemy's soldiers have tried in vain to advance toward the Lebanese lands in order to achieve a military victory."

"Once again the people of God resisted them, and proved to them that an army without an army can overcome them. The last attempt took place at 6:50 this morning, Thursday, when the fighters resisted them and destroyed a Merkava tank. Fighting continues to this hour," al-Manar reported.

Two of the injured soldiers were evacuated to the Ziv Medical Center. One of them was taken to the surgery room after suffering from shrapnel and wounds to his legs. The other soldier suffered from shrapnel wounds in his lower limbs.

IDF fighters went through long hours of battle in the Avivim area Wednesday. The battles took place during an operation of an elite
IDF unit against terrorists near the community of Avivim north of Safed, a few hundred meters inside the Lebanese territory.

The force was operating in the area in order to strike a Hizbullah bunker in which arms and rockets were being stored. The soldiers waited in the area since the morning hours, before encountering the terror cell in an area in which an IDF post once existed, which looked out over the area.

IDF: Hizbullah built mass bunker network

The soldiers killed during the gunbattles are Staff Sergeant Yonatan Hadassi, 21, from kibbutz Merhavia and Staff Sergeant Yotam Gilboa, 21, from kibbutz Maoz Haim. Nine soldiers were wounded.

A senior IDF Northern Command officer told Ynet that Hizbullah has set up an extensive underground bunker network not far from the Israeli border.

Hizbullah terrorists were hiding out in the fortified underground bunkers some 40 meters (roughly 120 feet) underground, along with mass weapons caches, the officer said.

“Despite the results of the event, we’ll continue with this operation,” the officer stated. “There are missions that the Air Force cannot carry out and they need to be completed by other means.”

While the war in the north enters its ninth day, and the firing of rockets at Israel continues, defense establishment and cabinet officials are debating whether to also launch a large-scale ground offensive.

The grave events of the past two days are apparently being taken into consideration if Israel decided to enter Lebanon again.

Meanwhile, the air and artillery strikes continued. A senior IDF officer told Ynet: "So far we have fired more than 10,000 shells at Lebanon. Using our equipment, we hit ammunition storerooms, launchers and even groups of terrorists."

He added that the artillery equipment enables a more precise hit up to dozens of kilometers inside the Lebanese territory.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3278724,00.html

Newsweek

By Rabbi Marc Gellman
Remember Amalek
What the Bible says about fighting terrorism.

July 19, 2006 - The Bible is the greatest collection of books, and I believe it to be the complex but discernable word of God. However, the Bible can also be a dangerous book when it is used as a blueprint for any particular political or military stance seeking sanction and support through a few carefully selected and often misleading segments.

On both sides of any war debate, both pacifists and provocateurs can use the Bible's authority. The same is true for the Qur'an and for the Vedas. God's will and God's ways, we must always remember if we are to be true to the message of faith, are not our own. As Abraham Lincoln cautioned, the important question is not whether God is on our side but whether we are on God's side. However, we ought not conclude from this humble caution that the Bible is utterly recondite and irrelevant to the wars we fight. I believe that the key to the Bible's message to us in this moment is remembering Amalek.

In Deut. 25:17-19 we read: “Remember what Amalek did unto thee by the way, when ye were come forth out of Egypt; How he met thee by the way, and smote the hindmost of thee, even all that were feeble behind thee, when thou wast faint and weary; and he feared not God. Therefore it shall be, when the Lord thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it, that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget it.”

What made Amalek so dastardly was that unlike any other enemy who attacked the Israelites fleeing slavery in Egypt from the front, Amalek attacked the rear. This meant that his soldiers could kill women and children, the elderly and the infirm and in so doing avoid engagement with the soldiers at the front. In this way he could produce maximum carnage and maximum terror. The moral problem the Bible addresses is that this is not warfare, it is the slaughter of innocents—it is terrorism.

Why, I wondered, would God command us to remember the terrorist Amalek? There are other villains in the Bible, but there is no biblical command to remember Pharaoh or Nebuchadnezzar, or Cyrus. We are commanded only to remember Amalek. I believe this is because the planned and plotted slaughter of innocents even during wartime cannot be condoned and must be remembered as a bright moral line which can never be crossed. Indeed our remembrance of Amalek is combined with a chilling pledge from God that is also unique in the Bible: “The Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation” (Exod. 17:16). Our enemies are just our enemies except if our enemy is Amalek. In that case our enemy is also the enemy of God. Amalek thus becomes the symbol of terrorism in every generation. He is the symbol not of evil but of radical evil.

In our generation Amalek is alive and well and killing the weak ones at the rear of the march. Amalek has attacked the rear of our line of march in Madrid and Bombay, in Jakarta and London, in Haifa and Tel Aviv, in New York and Washington, in a quiet field in Pennsylvania and in a hundred other homes and families—leaving them covered with blood and tears. Yes, one can disagree and debate how Amalek must be fought, but not that Amalek must be fought. One must report and mourn the innocents who are inadvertently killed by our soldiers in our battle against Amalek, but that remembrance must always make the spiritual moral and political distinction that our victims were killed by mistake and Amalek's victims were killed by design.

I have no new or fresh or insightful take on the latest battle in the worldwide war on Islamic fascism except the message of our president: victory is the only way. In my heart and prayers, I thank President Bush for remembering Amalek. And to all the world leaders who are used to thinking about war as just a struggle for land or oil or power, remember that this war is different and this enemy is different. If you can, come to realize that this is a war against a lover of slaughter. If you join us, then we shall not have to fight Amalek alone and he cannot again attack the weak ones at the rear of the line.

© 2006 Newsweek, Inc.