17:32 PDT More details on the action in Baalbek. Eyewitnesss claim dozens of IDF helicopters over the city and air strikes to the hills north and east. Electricity to the town and surrounding areas is cut off. IAF helicopter gunships are attacking the Hezbollah outside the hospital. (Haaretz)
17:15 PDT Via a link from Little Green Footballs: Jerusalem Online gives a recap of today’s news from Isreal’s Channel 2 TV, dubbed in English.
17:12 PDT Selective Eviction Notices: Israel urges some Lebanese north of Litani to leave. (Reuters AlertNet )
17:09 PDT Who is fooling who? US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said a ceasefire in Lebanon will be reached in days but Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres says fighting may go on for weeks (Ynet)
16:51 PDT The situation in the Baalbek raid remains confused. “It remains unclear whether the operation was successful, but witnesses said ‘the Jews took some people with them.” (AP/Ynet)
An ancient city with spectacular Roman ruins, Baalbek was a former Syrian army headquarters and included the barracks of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards when they trained Hezbollah guerrillas there in the 1980s.
The last time IDF forces were know to have penetrated so far into Lebanon was in 1994, when they abducted Lebanese guerrilla leader Mustafa Dirani, hoping to use him to get information about missing Israeli airman Ron Arad. Dirani was released in a prisoner exchange 10 years later.
Fierce fighting as IDF commandos launch raid deep in Lebanon