Israeli ground troops enter Lebanon

Israeli ground troops have entered southern Lebanon to attack Hezbollah bases on the border. So far Israel's six-day-old offensive against Hezbollah has been fought from the air and the sea. Things are ramping up.

Earlier today, Israeli fighter bombers hit Lebanese targets again, attacking Beirut's port and hitting a Hezbollah stronghold in attacks that killed at least 17 people. Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel hitting a residential building in Haifa's Bat Galim..injuring a number of people.

Hezbollah also fired rockets across the Western Galilee – hitting the main northern Israeli towns of Tiberias, Safed, Carmiel, Nahariya again as well as the Golan heights.

Israeli estimates are that the IDF has taken out about 25% of Hezbollah's missile capacity so far.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan are reportedly calling for the deployment of international forces to stop the bombardment of Israel and to persuade Israel to stop attacks on Hezbollah, and the EU said it was considering the deployment of a peacekeeping force. I'm sure it will be just as effective as the UN peacekeepers were in deterring Hezbollah.

Funny thing how there's always a cry for a ceasefire and international involvement when Israel is winning. I certainly didn't hear any calls from the international community to send troops in to enforce UN Resolution 1559 to disarm Hezbollah. And I'll bet my dollar to your dime that if the Arabs were advancing on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, you wouldn't hear a peep, except from the US and Australia..maybe Canada.

Speaking at the Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, Blair said the fighting would not stop until the conditions for a cease-fire were created.

"The only way is if we have a deployment of international forces that can stop bombardment coming into Israel," he said.

President Bush got caught expressing himself in Texas terms to Blair, not realizing his remarks were being picked up by a microphone at lunch.

"See, the irony is what they really need to do is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this sh*t," Bush said.

Foreigners continue to flee and several countries, as I reported yesterday are moving to get their citizens out...one sign that this might end up getting bigger than it alredy is. Russia sent an airliner to Jordan today as it prepared to evacuate its citizens from Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. Britain also airlifted 40 of its citizens from Lebanon over the weekend and another group was taken out today, Ambassador James Watt said. A French ship is due to arrive in the port later today to evacuate Europeans, and Kofi Annan is reportedly going to order UN workers and their dependents out of the country.

The Israeli navy is watching the ports, but has left enough capacity for ships to come in and evacute people.