Baalbek the last stand?

The response was due to Hezbollah...Let's not forget that. By deconstructing Hezbollah, you marginize defensive response from the IDF as a consequence. As it is commonly known all wars have "civilian" death...But the Hezbollah terrorist group purposely hides rockets and themselves in homes and other civilian blatant structures...Hezbollah because of their tactics are the ultimate decider of civilian death beacuse of this. Am I saying Israel makes all decisions as perfect? no...The fog of war is named because mistakes can happen, but to want peace is paramount, and understanding the terroristic nature of Hezbollah means to realize their is no willingness by Hezbollah to co-exist with Israel...Hezbollah has seemingly hijacked Lebanon, and Israel is doing a righteous deed in the aspect of self-defense and the war against terror...My argument is that Israel can create a situation of squeezing Hezbollah to the breaking point in capturing this key area where major ops are underway as I speak....The phase of deconstructing Hezbollah will be met...However th lasting peace will be international scrutiny against any further actions and supply movement. As such it will be regulated to only a political segment with a realization that co-existance and acceptance of Israel must take place...

 

BTW, It's also cool when they chant "death to america" as well ...If anything they make sense, huh?

 

Picture you are Israel...You have made concessions, you have tried land for peace and it doesn't work...ANY concession or attempts at such is made with rocket attacks by the terrorists...The rocket attacks keeps hitting you and hitting you in various and routine manner that many in other countries (such as U.S.) don't care, don't think it is a threat, or feels Israel should accept the danger and deathly threat as better than a full scale rocket attack threat or full scale suicide bombing threat versus only here and there...Some think Israel should accept their OWN innocent killings so as to their response doesn't make the killings something they may cause or increased...Well I say BS on this!...Then of course hezbollah kills again and kidnaps, and finally you have enough and attack...

Enough is enough!...My hope and my prayer IS that the IDF destroys or deconstructs Hezbollah. Step #1 to ...peace...

 

Here is the link...


Israeli Commandos Raid Hezbollah Hideout in Baalbek Hospital
Tuesday, August 01, 2006

BOURJ AL-MULOUK, Lebanon — Israel launched its deepest ground attack into Lebanon with Israeli commandos raiding Hezbollah-run hospital in the eastern city of Baalbek on Wednesday.

The Israeli army would not comment on the operation in the ancient city, which was once a Syrian army headquarters some 130 kilometers north of Israel. The Web site of the Israeli daily Haaretz reported that "helicopters put down IDF (military) commandos near Baalbek," without adding details.

Hezbollah's chief spokesman, Hussein Rahal, told The Associated Press that Israeli troops landed near Dar al-Hikma Hospital and that fierce fighting ranged for more than one hour.

• CountryWatch: Israel | Lebanon | Syria | Iran

"A group of Israeli commandos was brought to the hospital by a helicopter. They entered the hospital." He said Hezbollah guerrillas fought the commandos inside the hospital.

...(Hey check it out they ARE in a hospital...what bravery by your Hezbollah folk!)

Hezbollah was using automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, and Israeli jets were attacking the surrounding guerrilla force with rockets, Rahal said.


Israeli warplanes staged more than 10 bombing around the hospital as well as on hills in east and north Baalbek, witnesses said. The planes also dropped flares over the city while heavy fighting was raging around the hospital, they added.

Jets later fired a second round of missiles on residential neighborhoods in eastern and northern Baalbek where Hezbollah's Shiite supporters live, witnesses said. There was no immediate word of casualties.

...(I'm sure they will claim BS)

Fighting ended at about 4 a.m. (0100 GMT) as precarious calm prevailed in Baalbek, residents said.

Speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, residents said the Dar al-Hikma hospital is financed by an Iranian charity, the Imam Khomeini Charitable Society, which is close to Hezbollah. The hospital is also run by people close to Hezbollah, the residents said.

Rahal, the Hezbollah spokesman, dismissed as "untrue" reports that the Israeli commandos managed to snatch some patients from the hospital and spirit them away in helicopters.

The ferocity of the battles in Baalbek and across southern Lebanon, the determination of the Israelis to keep fighting and the minimal diplomatic progress toward a cease-fire all indicate the 3-week-old war is more likely to escalate than end soon.

In the south, thousands of Israeli troops were operating all along the Israel-Lebanon border on Tuesday. Additional soldiers had crossed into Lebanon during the day, Israeli defense officials said, joining forces already fighting there for three days.

They entered through four different points along the border and progressed at least four miles inside Lebanon. Thousands of reservists, called up over the weekend, also were gathering at staging areas on the Israeli side of the border, ready to join the battles and extend the range of the invasion.

In announcing the expanded operation, Israeli officials said their soldiers were to go as far as the Litani, about 18 miles from the border, and hold the ground until an international peacekeeping force comes ashore.

Hopefully with teeth!

But the army later said it had distributed leaflets northeast of the river at villages where Hezbollah was active; the leaflets told people to leave, suggesting that the new offensive could take Israeli soldiers even deeper into Lebanon.

...(the differance between terrorists who aim to kill AS MANY AS POSSIBLE!!! HOOORAAA)

The Israelis want to keep Hezbollah off the border so their patrols and civilians along the fence are not in danger of attack, such as the July 12 raid in which guerrillas killed three soldiers and seized two others. The army also hopes to push Hezbollah far enough north so that most of the guerrillas' rockets cannot reach the Jewish state.

Despite mounting civilian deaths, U.S. President George W. Bush held fast to support for Israel and was pressing for a U.N. resolution linking a cease-fire with a broader plan for peace in the Middle East. Staking out a different approach, European Union foreign ministers called for an "immediate cessation of hostilities" followed by efforts to agree on a sustainable cease-fire.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said it was not in Israel's interest to agree to an immediate cease-fire because every day of fighting weakens the guerrillas.

HooooorahhhUJ!

"Every additional day is a day that drains the strength of this cruel enemy," he said. "Every extra day is a day in which the (army) reduces their capability, contains their firing ability and their ability to hit in the future."

Until the arrival of an international force, Israel hopes to create a temporary buffer zone in a region that it occupied for 18 years until 2000. It is not yet clear that an international force will be formed, but the intention would be to bolster the Lebanese military's ability to control southern reaches of the country where Hezbollah has been launching its rocket attacks on Israel.

...(See its a strategy Stupid...)

Israel resumed sporadic airstrikes — hitting Hezbollah strongholds and supply lines from one end of Lebanon to the other — despite a pledge to suspend such attacks for another day in response to world outrage over the killing of 56 Lebanese in a weekend bombing.

Aid groups had hoped to take advantage of the supposed 48-hour lull in airstrikes to get food and medicine to civilians trapped in the south. But Israel denied access to two U.N. convoys. Others who made the journey described airstrikes close to their convoys, and bodies along the road.

Hezbollah fired just 10 rockets across the border Tuesday, well below an average of about 100 a day since the fighting began 21 days ago, Israel said.

...(I WONDER WHY? WHY?....WHY? YOU CAN'T CAN YOU BEECH? HUH?...I'm gonna tell you why. Israel is winning and destroying the strike capability...I hope that they gain momentum in either the complete deconstruction of destruction of Hezbollah...Either one is fine..by..me.)

But the ground battles were intense.

At nightfall Tuesday, Israeli troops were fighting Hezbollah at several points along the common border. Reporters and Arab television reported especially heavy fighting and Israeli artillery bombardment at the village of Aita al-Shaab.

The Israeli army said that three Israeli soldiers died and 25 were slightly wounded by small arms fire and anti-tank rockets in Aita al-Shaab.

Israeli Cabinet Minister Haim Ramon said the fighting to date had killed about 300 of Hezbollah's main force of 2,000 fighters, which does not include its less-well trained reserves. "That's a very hard blow," he said.

Hezbollah has said only 46 of its fighters were killed. Four were lost in battles with Israeli ground troops in Adaisse and Taibeh, near the Christian town of Marjayoun, about five miles from the border with Israel, Hezbollah said.

...(Ha, they make joke....kinda like a couple posters who can't add anything of substance, but lets not feed the troll as is...shhhh.)

Israeli jet fighters also struck deep inside Lebanese territory, hitting Hermel, 75 miles north of the Israeli border in the Bekaa Valley. Warplanes fired at least five air-to-surface missiles on the edge of the town, targeting a road linking eastern Lebanon to western regions and the coastline.

In the west, Israeli warships fired artillery into the villages of Mansouri, Shamaa and Teir Harfan around the port city of Tyre. No casualties were reported.

Another strike at an area near the Syrian border, about six miles north of Hermel, targeted the Qaa-Homs road, one of four official crossing points between Lebanon and Syria. Two of the four border crossings are now closed because of damage, and repeated airstrikes have made the main Beirut-Damascus highway impassable.

Polls in Israel show wall-to-wall support for Israel's fight against Hezbollah, even with Israeli civilians enduring a barrage of rocket fire and the army poised for a sweeping ground offensive that is sure to lead to more casualties.

But the deaths of 56 Lebanese in the devastating weekend strike in Qana focused attention on civilian casualties.

Three more civilians were killed and three seriously wounded when Israeli warplanes hit a house in the southern Lebanese town of Lweizeh, Lebanese security officials said Tuesday.

Also, the Lebanese Red Cross said the bodies of 12 civilians were retrieved from the rubble of buildings destroyed in airstrikes on four villages in southern Lebanon and many more were believed still buried. It was not clear when the victims were killed.

At least 532 Lebanese have been killed, including 461 civilians and 25 Lebanese soldiers and at least 46 Hezbollah guerrillas. The health minister says the toll could be as high as 750, including those still buried in rubble or missing. Fifty-four Israelis have died — 36 soldiers as well as 18 civilians killed in Hezbollah rocket attacks.

But human lives are not the only casualties of this war. The United Nations warned Tuesday that the longer a spill of 110,000 barrels of oil is not cleaned up from Lebanon's coast, the more severe the environmental impact will be. The oil spilled two weeks ago after Israeli warplanes hit a coastal power plant.

 

Ummm yes. What about after Oct. 7, 2000 when Hezbollah guerrillas fired 50 salvoes of Katyushas, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades from southeast Lebanon...

 

Hezbollah fired just 10 rockets across the border Tuesday, well below an average of about 100 a day since the fighting began 21 days ago, Israel said.

What are the reasons for this?....Hmmmm. why? nobody will answer this on the wicky side and I will stand the silence as reluctance to admit this indicates ...progress...peace...

 

LOL...HA hA HA! Where did I say a poster was pro-Hezbollah....? huh?

 

We shall