Urban renewal of the Hezbollah HQ in Beirut
As I predicted, today was a seminal day in the Middle East war against Israel. The next couple of days could see Syria and Iran directly involved against the IDF.
Israel stepped up air attacks against Hezbollah positions in South Beirut and the Bek'aa Valley today and tonight. The Israeli air force bombed central Beirut for the first time, and pounded Lebanese seaports and took out a key bridge, part of the Damascus Highway over the Litani River.
The attacks seem to be focused on completing the sealing off Lebanon so that Syria and Iran have trouble bringing in troops and military aid to deploy against Israel, and in focusing on Hezbollah's top leadership in south Beirut and the eastern city of Baalbek.
Another air strike hit between midnight and until 2:30 a.m., with explosions shaking southern Beirut again as Israel targeted Hezbollah's headquarters in South Beirut for the second straight day.
Israeli jets could be heard over the city, much of it darkened because airstrikes have knocked out power stations and the fuel depots feeding them.
A special center expected to be hit hard is the al-Dahiya neighborhood in Beirut, where Nasrallah has established "a state inside a state," and where he also lives with his family.
The IDF refused to say whether Nasrallah himself is being targeted, and settled for a general statement about "an operation against all terrorists wherever they are." Leaflets distributed in the neighborhood called on the residents to leave the area.
Hmmm...you guys hear that? Sort of a high pitched whistling overhead?
***Update***
I just got a report that Nasrallah was wounded in an IAF strike. Hezbollah has denied it.
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Most of Shiite-populated southern Beirut was deserted due to the Israelis leafletting that part of the city and warning the residents to leave. Many of them fled east to the Hezbollah stronghold Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, and some to Syria.
Hezbollah, meanwhile, fired barrages of rockets ever deeper into Israel. Tiberias was hit by 12 rockets Saturday in two volleys that injured 9 and caused heavy damage.The ancient Roman town, a totally civilian target on the shore of the Sea of Galilee was targeted for the first time today, July 15. Another rocket landed further south near Kibbutz Maoz close to another important town of Beit Shean, indicating that Hizballah has now begun using its longer-range Fajjar-5 rockets. Israeli military sources warn that Hezbollah is preparing to launch rockets next against Tel Aviv,70 miles inside Israel. Those rockets are secreted by Hezbollah in thousands of villages across south Lebanon in fortified rooms built in private homes....giving a new meaning to the term `adoption'.
The mood in Israel is somber, but resolute..after all, they have been through this before. The IDF has already began calling reserves of pilots and rescue personnel, and an entire reserves division is set to go up north soon.The IDF is obviously in the mood to get the job done.
"We are fighting for our home and the way it will look in the future. We have to be able to absorb in the short run in order to guarantee the future," said Home Front Command Chief Major-General Yitzhak Gershon said.
One consequence that Hamas and Hezbollah didn't forsee is that these attacks would unite the Israelis like nothing else could have. In that, the jihadis may have made a major miscalculation.
The splendid spirit that usually envelops Israelis in times of crisis is very much in evidence according to my sources on the ground there, and the missile attacks against the civilian population seem to have angered the Israelis more than they have intimidated them.
And that is not good news for Hamas and Hezbollah....or their patrons,Iran and Syria should they choose to get involved.
Meanwhile, the war threatens to widen to Syria and Iran. According to the London-based Arabic language newspaper Al-Hayat, "Washington has information according to which Israel gave Damascus 72 hours to stop Hizbullah’s activity along the Lebanon-Israel border and bring about the release the two kidnapped IDF soldiers or it would launch an offensive with disastrous consequences." They quoted an unnamed `senior Pentagon source'.
That sounds like it could be pure Arabian Nights bunkum to me, but what is true is that Syria's mood is increasingly jingoistic and belligerant. According to this report, The Syrian Government, which has come out unequivically in support of Hezbollah is prepping its population for hostilities, with pop radio stations playing military marches and hardline anti-Israel material in its press and airwaves.
There is apparently a great deal of popular support there for the idea of the Syrians joining Hamas and Hezbollah in their battle against Israel. If that happens, Iran, which just conclude a mutual defense pact with Syria has already said that it would regard Israeli attack on Syria as an invitation to get involved.
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I've seen reports that some analysts figure this as a relatively short conflict, with hostilities stopping in 48-72 hours. I'm not so sure about that. There's not a whole lot of evidence that either Western or Arab nations could muster a quick diplomatic solution. One sign of that is that the United States and France are in the process of evacuating their citizens, and Britain has dispatched an aircraft carrier to the eastern Mediterranean in apparent preparation for evacuations of its nationals.
The Arab league met but is seemingly split, with delegates at the emergency meeting bickering over Hezbollah's actions, a rift over an Israeli action against one of their own that usually would have united them.
Instead of lining up behind Hezbollah, which was what the Lebanese and Syrian delegates demanded, Sunni Arab states led by Saudi Arabia lashed out at Hezbollah for starting the recent war.
"These acts will pull the whole region back ... and we cannot simply accept them," Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal told his counterparts, according to delegates who were inside but declined to be identified, for obvious reasons.
To the Saudis, Hezbollah's attacks on Israel, were "unexpected, inappropriate and irresponsible acts."
Lining up with the Saudis were representatives of Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem emerged as the summit's lead defender of Hezbollah, calling hezbollah's actions "legitimate acts in line with international resolutions and the U.N. charter, as acts of resistance" , joined by Representatives of Yemen, Algeria and Qatar.
They ended up with a watered down resolution calling for intervention by the UN Security Council.
Meanwhile, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora went on television to plead with the United Nations to broker a cease-fire for his "disaster-stricken nation."
I understand how he feels, but he seems to have forgotten that the UN already did that, with Resolution 1559 that called for Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah and police its borders. The Lebanese government made its own choice not to do so, unfortunately..with the results we see now.
In his speech, Saniora seems to have belatedly recognized this failure when he pledged to `reassert government authority over all Lebanese territory', a hint that his government might deploy the Lebanese army in the south and disarm Hezbollah.
That would, of course be a tough assignment in reality. Any effort by Saniora's Sunni Muslim-led government to use force against the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah army could trigger another bloody civil war in Lebanon. The 70,000-strong Lebanese army itself might break up along sectarian lines, as it did during the 1975-90 civil war. There may be some truth to the assertion by several observers that the Lebanese government welcomes the IDF taking out Hezbollah and doing the job that it's unable to do.
As for the UN, Bush has said that the US prefers that a solution be worked out at the G-8 summit rather than the UNSC and has called for hezbollah to `stop attacking ' and release the two hostages.
Putin an dthe EU disagree, as you might expect. When Iran pulled this particular trigger, it attacked the weakest hinge between the US and the EU - Israel.
Of course, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also got into the act , telling Tehran's state television, "The Zionist regime behaves like Hitler." Iran denied an Israeli accusation that troops from its Republican Guard were fighting with Hezbollah and were the ones who shot off the missile that hit an Israeli naval ship.
On Israel's second front in the battle against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, Israeli aircraft on Saturday took out the Palestinian Finance Ministry.
Early today, Israeli troops, tanks and attack helicopters went back back inside the Northern Gaza Strip again firing missiles and exchanging gunfire with armed Palestinians.
Israeli tanks also went into Beit Hanoun today, looking to take out Hamas rocket launchers. Three Hamas jihadis were killed in the renewed Gaza fighting and at least 11 people were wounded in Israeli airstrikes in Beit Hanoun.
That part of the war isn't over by a long shot...just overshadowed for now. Hamas will have its day of reckoning as well.
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