http://www.spacewar.com/reports/a060721192417.ba3phzmc.html

WAR REPORT
Air power shortcomings shadow Israel's next steps in Lebanon


by Jim Mannion
Washington (AFP) Jul 21, 2006
Israeli air power alone is capable of damaging Hezbollah but not defeating the Shiite militia, confronting Israel with a choice of a ground offensive in southern Lebanon or a diplomatic settlement, US military analysts said.
Israeli ground forces already have begun conducting "pinpoint" operations inside southern Lebanon, Israeli officials said, amid a buildup of forces near Israel's northern border that could signal a larger ground offensive.

Israeli Brigadier General Michael Herzog, a visiting military fellow at a Washington think tank, said Israel's objective in the south was to clear a kilometer wide strip along the rugged border.

Israel envisions the strip as the first layer of a buffer zone about 12 miles wide that would be occupied by Lebanese army and international forces, he said.

However, heavily armed Hezbollah fighters entrenched in heavily fortified bunkers in the difficult rugged terrain were putting up fierce resistance in the border area, he said.

"There is no Israeli intention of a wide-scale invasion of Lebanon on the scale of '82 or '78. But it's clear to me that Israel may require more forces to uproot Hezbollah," he said in an interview.

The risks of a ground offensive are not lost on the Israelis. They failed to pacify southern Lebanon in a bloody 18 year campaign that ended in 2000 with the withdrawal of Israeli forces and Hezbollah as the uncontested power in the south.

"If you're thinking about being decisive, in some sense it's got to be an appealing strategy," said Michael O'Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution. "But it's a high risk roll of the dice."

James Corum, a military expert at the Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, said he doubted the Israelis "would do anything more than send raiding teams and very short-term ground forces."

"And if ground forces do move, it would be for a very short period to basically destroy every piece of Hezbollah infrastructure within 20 miles of the border, within rocket range of Israel, and then withdraw fairly quickly," he told AFP.

Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets into Israel, killing 15 people, in the 10 days since its capture of two Israeli soldiers in a raid set off waves of retaliatory Israeli air strikes across Lebanon.

The Iranian-backed militia has reached deeper into Israel with longer range missiles than ever before, and it struck an Israeli naval vessel early in the conflict with an anti-ship missile believed to be of Iranian manufacture.

Israeli fighter jets responded by targeting missile launchers and other military targets -- bunkers, storage areas, communications sites, headquarters.

They have also bombed the Beirut International Airport, roads leading to Syria, and roads and bridges in southern Lebanon to interrupt the flow of supplies and missiles to Hezbollah and put pressure on the Lebanese government. Israeli warships clamped on a naval blockade.

Lebanese officials have said nearly 340 people have been killed in the air strikes.

Herzog estimated that 80 percent of the targets were military while the remaining 20 percent hit civilian infrastructure that the Israelis regarded as supporting or potentially supporting Hezbollah.

"The focus was, is on Hezbollah. Anything that can strengthen Hezbollah, enhance Hezbollah's capabilities, that will be targeted," he said.

But the attacks have not stopped Hezbollah missile launches from the south, underscoring the difficulty of taking out fleeting short-range missile launchers from the air.

Corum, author of "Air Power in Small Wars," published in 2003, said Hezbollah has proved to be "emminently resistant to being coerced by firepower."

"Any time you punished Hezbollah, killed some of their people, they had people lining up to volunteer to be suicide bombers," he said.

O'Hanlon estimates that past air campaigns suggests that Israel may succeed in reducing Hezbollah's military capability by a quarter through air strikes.

But the longer the air campaign goes on, the more Hezbollah is likely to benefit from international outcry over civilian casualties in air strikes captured by the world's media, he said.

The military gain is "not enough to warrant much more of something that already has probably gone too far in terms of Israel's strategic interests."

Corum, however, suggests that Israel is attempting to use air power to create conditions on the ground for a favorable political settlement.

"No, I don't think the Israelis think they can defeat Hezbollah," he said.

"However, if they knock out a major proportion of Hezbollah's military infrastructure, and damage them severely, it will be somewhat easier for the Lebanese to assert control.

"And it will also be a lot of easier for a much more serious peacekeeping force to come in and cover the southern border of Lebanon," he said.

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Toll_Of_Is...Itself_999.html

WAR REPORT
Toll Of Israel Strategy Could Be War With Lebanon Itself

In the aftermath of Hezbollah's attacking and kidnapping of the Israeli soldiers across the border, Israel implemented a "shock and awe" strategy that blasted away every piece of infrastructure that the Lebanese painstakingly built over the past fifteen years.
By Nadim Matta
Stamford, Conn. (UPI) Jul 21, 2006
When Hezbollah embarked on its provocative incursion into Israel, most Lebanese (apart from ardent Shiite radicals) saw this incident for what it was: a reckless act aimed at advancing the interests of the Iranian and Syrian regimes, at great risk to both Lebanon and its people.
But the mood in Lebanon has drastically changed over the past few days. Very few now blame Hezbollah, or actively agree with calls for its disarmament (even though the majority of the population supported this goal prior to the recent events). And virtually no one would be pleased if the two Israeli soldiers were surrendered under the threat of Israel's continuation of its systematic destruction of Lebanon's infrastructure.

Understanding this radical transformation in mind-set can shed some light on the unintended -- yet tragically predictable -- consequences of U.S. policy in the Middle East.

What has happened in the span of a few days?

In the aftermath of Hezbollah's attacking and kidnapping of the Israeli soldiers across the border, Israel implemented a "shock and awe" strategy that blasted away every piece of infrastructure that the Lebanese painstakingly built over the past fifteen years. As the long-in-place agreement to restrict activities in southern Lebanon and northern Israel to military targets gave way to open warfare, Hezbollah also unleashed its deadly barrages of Katyusha rockets over northern Israel.

In a few infernal days, Israeli planes and warships managed to destroy the fruits of fifteen years of labour of ordinary Lebanese citizens determined to restore the country to a semblance of its pre-war level of development. Significantly, only three Hezbollah fighters were killed in the Israeli raids, while more than two hundred Lebanese civilians, including whole families, perished. It is equally sad that Israeli civilians were killed and wounded by Hezbollah rockets.

In what can only be viewed as an insult to the intelligence of informed citizens everywhere, U.S. President George W. Bush argued simply that Israel "has the right to defend itself." Luckily for Bush, Israel was able to articulate a more plausible explanation for its strategy: it was ensuring that Hezbollah will not smuggle the Israeli soldiers out of Lebanon, and it was cutting off Hezbollah's arms supply routes.

In reality, this explanation is not borne out by the facts on the ground. For example, Israeli jets bombed the highest bridge in the Middle East -- a few miles from my hometown on the main road between Beirut and Damascus -- disabling it and rendering it unusable for months to come. Curiously, the Israelis were not satisfied by disabling the bridge. They came back the next day and completely demolished the remainder of the structure -- as if to simply add tens of million of dollars to the eventual cost of repair. Israel also bombed power generating plants, cellular telephone towers, gas stations, foodstock warehouses and purely commercial targets. I am not a military expert, but none of these seem like relevant targets if the aim is to block Hezbollah from transporting the Israeli soldiers out of the country or to prevent it from receiving arms from Syria and Iran.

The more plausible rationale for the 'shock and awe' operation is to make the situation so painful for Lebanese civilians that they 'take responsibility' for the actions of one of their own, the Hezbollah militia. The argument goes as follows: if the cost is made high enough, citizens will pressure their government into doing what it has been struggling to do for months -- disarming Hezbollah. This strategy was beginning to work in the first day of the Israeli operation, as voices in the country began to be raised against Hezbollah and its reckless action. But as the intensity and the perniciousness of the Israeli bombing escalated, even the most moderate civilians in Lebanon experienced an emotional transformation into what can be likened to the revulsion of an innocent person being terrorized into submission by a vastly superior power. In an affront to human dignity and disregard for human life, Israel is inflicting severe pain and suffering on a huge number of civilians to incite them to do its bidding.

Hezbollah may be accused of doing the same in Israel (though with a much more limited capacity to inflict pain). But then we would expect a terrorist organisation to commit acts of terrorism. A state committing the same acts, magnified many times over, with the same intentions, must be condemned and ultimately prevented by the world community. Otherwise, we would be sending yet another message to people and nations who feel wronged yet do not have the means to win the fight against their aggressors: your only recourse is to equip yourself with whatever means necessary to deter your aggressors. It would be a return to the law of the jungle that the world can ill afford in this age of nuclear proliferation.

By failing to act on behalf of Lebanon and to call Israel to account for its actions, the U.S. is putting the world at greater risk, and it is setting back by decades the cause of peace in the region.

To understand the sense of injustice that people in Lebanon feel about their situation, consider this analogy: black rights activists, indignant at police brutality towards fellow blacks, kidnap a white police officer and retreat into their black neighborhood, demanding the release of detained black activists in exchange for the police officer. The state calls in the exclusively white national guardsmen who surround the neighbourhood and start firing mortars into it, destroying businesses and killing whole families. To drive their point home, the national guardsmen cut off the electricity and water supply of the neighbourhood, and announce to the inhabitants that they, the community, will be held responsible for the actions of their radical fringes, and will continue to be pounded by heavy artillery until they rise up against the activists among them. Would blacks in the neighborhood rise against their reckless brothers, or would this response by state authorities take their fury towards their white neighbors to new and irreversibly hostile levels?

To put things in perspective, Lebanese civilians are experiencing the same type of revulsion towards Israel that American citizens felt towards Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida after Sept. 11. But blame is also directed at the U.S. government for its political and moral support of Israel in this affair. And I am not talking here about Lebanese Shiite fanatics. I am talking about Jane and John Doe of Lebanon: your average Sunni, Christian, Shiite and Druze who may otherwise hold living in the United States as their greatest aspiration.

The Lebanese are feeling tremendous indignation at the injustice they are facing. Let us not allow this indignation to fester and turn into new seeds of hatred. The U.S. had best seize the moment, quickly and decisively, to demonstrate that it understands there is no lasting peace for Israel or Lebanon without some measure of justice and dignity for all parties involved.

(Nadim Matta is a management consultant and U.S. citizen of Lebanese origin. During the civil war in Lebanon, he worked for USAID and for Save the Children Federation in Beirut. He can be reached at nadim@rhsa.com.)


Source: United Press International

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/A_Notebook...ideast_999.html
WAR REPORT
A Notebook Of Discordant Reports From The Mideast

CIA Headquarters.
By Arnaud De Borchgrave
UPI International Editor
Washington (UPI) Jul 21, 2006
Congress was near unanimous in its hosannas for Israel's military campaign to uproot Hezbollah from Lebanon's body politic. Only Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb) was nuanced in his support, questioning Israel's disproportionate response to the capture of three Israeli soldiers. The intelligence community's Middle Eastern experts -- both on active duty and in retirement -- were clearly on a different page.
The ones we queried either served in the region as CIA station chiefs or were responsible for Middle Eastern departments in one of the 16 agencies that make up the 100,000-strong intelligence community. Those still on active duty would only react to our question on condition their names be withheld.

The barometer of Hezbollah's post-conflict influence will be the most relevant measure of the success or failure of the massively disproportionate Israeli military, in which the Bush administration has also invested so much of its rapidly dwindling political capital. So will Hezbollah emerge from the current crisis weaker, or stronger, than before hostilities began?

Graham Fuller, formerly Vice Chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA, an accomplished Arabic scholar and historian, most recently author of the book "The Future of Political Islam": "Most of the U.S. thinks this crisis was started by Hamas and Hezbollah and that therefore those parties should be made to pay the price. A more objective reading of the situation would note U.S. and Israeli determination to strangle Hamas in the nest from day one, to starve it, humiliate it and, typically and expectedly, to drive its radical wing to undertake a guerrilla operation against Israel. So the region does not view this conflict as prompted by Hamas and Hezbollah, but rather as one made inevitable and justifiable by unrelenting and merciless pressure from the U.S. and Israel. I fear in the end this will be one more bloody chapter in this now widening struggle. In the interim, unseen to our eyes, the radical jihadis are making silent recruits every night through the flickering television images of yet new regional horrors. But sadly we will be seeing those recruits as they turn to action in weeks, months or even years from now.

Chuck Cogan, former Chief of the CIA's Near East Division, and station chief in several countries, now lecturing at Harvard: "The irony in all this is that Israel has an interest in a multicultural Lebanon and not an Islamist Lebanon, and the high hopes for the former are being dashed."

Ray Close, former CIA analyst for the Middle East: "Israeli actions in Lebanon are belligerently challenging the continued viability of the fragile coalition government that is struggling to achieve credibility and legitimacy at a critical period in Lebanon's history. Israeli actions are, even more importantly, threatening to revive the deep, sectarian divisions and inter-communal tensions that led to 15 years of tragic civil war (1975-90). American national interests will suffer more than Israel's if chaos results. Secondly, we Americans have other critical interests to worry about if we take a position that (continues to) support Israel's demand that Hezbollah must be totally defeated and disarmed (a futile objective in any case), and especially if Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the revered spiritual leader of Hezbollah, is physically harmed, the Shiite populations of Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East will be inflamed -- greatly undermining American prospects of working cooperatively and constructively with the Shiite religious parties in Iraq that control the overwhelming political power in that country. Open confrontation of Hezbollah with the U.S., allied with Israel, will have a powerful impact on the Iranian people, as well."

Former CIA operative in the Middle East, now an analyst for the agency: "Even if the Israelis were again to occupy and hold a 20-mile defensive cordon sanitaire above Israel's northern border, then missiles of a 40 or 50 or 60-mile range, as the need demanded, would render that barrier obsolete and useless -- while Hezbollah guerrillas, using the other new set of super-weapons, the IED and the suicide bomber, would make Israelis just as vulnerable and just as miserable in that so-called 'protective zone' as they were during the 18 long years when they occupied the same swath of Lebanese territory the last time round. The same applies to Gaza. In 38 years, a large modern Israeli war machine, equipped with every high-tech weapon that modern military science can devise, has been unable to contain, much less defeat, a virulent and lethal resistance movement in tiny little Gaza.


Source: United Press International

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/German_Spi...ldiers_999.html

WAR REPORT
German Spies Working To Free Israeli Soldiers

German Chancellor Angela Merkel with US President George W. Bush. Photo courtesy of AFP. Berlin is hoping that a success in the BND/SWR mission could highly elevate the international standing of the German and Russian intelligence services.
By Stefan Nicola
UPI Germany Correspondent
Berlin (UPI) Jul 21, 2006
Germany is getting increasingly involved in the Middle East conflict, with reports the country's intelligence service is using contacts with Hezbollah and Hamas to try and free the kidnapped Israeli soldiers.
For several weeks, Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, or BND, in cooperation with Russian foreign intelligence service SWR, has used its channels in the Middle East in an effort to soothe tensions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Berliner Zeitung newspaper said Friday.

Government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm Friday in Berlin did not want to give details on Germany's involvement.

"But since the release of the soldiers is one of the important preconditions for a solution to the current crisis... of course that's the goal one is working for," he said.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his Russian counterpart, Sergej Lavrov, on June 29 in Moscow discussed the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who had been taken to Gaza four days earlier.

When two more soldiers were abducted on July 12, Steinmeier and Lavrov in an evening telephone conversation agreed to expand intelligence cooperation to free the soldiers, the newspaper said.

German officials have been successful before: In 2004, BND head Ernst Uhlau, who at the time was the intelligence coordinator in Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's office, managed a prisoner exchange between Hezbollah and Israel.

Israel at the time released hundreds of Arab prisoners in exchange for Hezbollah handing over a kidnapped Israeli businessman and the bodies of three soldiers.

Germany has been trusted for long in the region: In the 1980s, then Chancellor Helmut Kohl was asked to mediate in the quest for Ron Arad, who had been shot down over Lebanese territory. Arad, however, remains missing to this day.

A success in the BND/SWR mission could highly elevate the international standing of the German and Russian intelligence services. The BND could especially use some props, given that it is embattled by a parliamentary inquiry at home into its role in the war on terror, where it has been accused of using dubious methods.

There is no doubt Germany is getting involved: Steinmeier is expected to travel to the region soon, according to information from the foreign ministry. Some 3,300 Germans have been evacuated from Lebanon already, with more waiting to get out.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and several international leaders had called for a U.N. force to stabilize the region during last weekend's Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg.

On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in New York to

meet with three U.N. envoys who recently returned from a Middle East mission to assess conditions there.

While supporting the idea of a U.N.-mandated force, Merkel has been quite cautious when it comes to German involvement. The Bundeswehr (Germany`s armed forces) already is a major contributor to the European Union`s mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and is playing a leading role in Afghanistan, where it is part of the International Security Assistance Force.

The Bundeswehrverband, a German soldiers` interest group, however, had strongly protested against German involvement in the Congo, claiming its resources were overstretched and that Germany had no interests in the region.

German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung said Friday that the first priority should be getting Israel and Hezbollah to agree to a cease-fire. The Bundeswehr is not keen on having to shoulder yet another mission, but observers say it will be hard to say no given burden of Germany`s history with Israel.

'How should Germany react, if everyone says `yes`?' Gert Weisskirchen, a foreign policy expert of the Social Democrats, asked in the Berliner Zeitung. 'Saying `no` then would really no longer be an option.'

Berthold Meyer, a Middle East expert at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, Friday told United Press International in a telephone interview that Germany, given its past, will likely not turn its back on such a mission.

'I understood the Bundeswehr`s reluctance to take part in the Congo mission,' Meyer said. 'But this is different. We have a moral responsibility with Israel and in the region. I can`t imagine that the Bundeswehrverband will protest in the same way.'

But the force will have to be assembled very quickly to contain the escalating violence. Reports surfaced Friday that Israel is preparing a ground offensive into Lebanon, a move that would undermine any further stabilization efforts before they even begin.

The U.N. Security Council would have to make a decision Friday or later this weekend so the EU Foreign Ministers could discuss the resolution Monday during their regular session.

If called upon to participate in such a mission, German lawmakers would have to agree in parliament to send soldiers to the Middle East, a step that could further slow down any progress.


Source: United Press International

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/a060723085342.up73aarm.html
Israel punches into Lebanon as civilians flee


by Jihad Siqlawi
Tyre, Lebanon (AFP) Jul 23, 2006
Israeli warplanes blitzed southern and eastern Lebanon on Sunday after troops in tanks and armoured cars punched across the border and seized a strategic village, intensifying the war on Hezbollah despite mounting concern over the plight of civilians.
Shiite guerrillas responded with a new hail of rocket fire on Israel's third city of Haifa that killed two people, while the UN reported fighting around the village of Marun Al-Ras taken over by Israeli forces on Saturday.

As the bloody conflict entered its 12th day, top diplomats from France, Germany and Britain were heading to the region ahead of a visit by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who rejects ceasefire calls as a "false promise."

In a wave of pre-dawn raids, fighter-bombers for the first time struck directly inside the main southern city of Sidon, where tens of thousands of Lebanese have sought refuge from the relentless Israeli offensive.

A three-storey building housing a Hezbollah religious centre was hit.

Israel also targeted Hezbollah's power base in Beirut's Shiite-dominated southern suburbs and struck factories, roads and bridges in air strikes in the eastern Baalbek region, killing one person.

Streams of people, many waving white flags, are making a desperate trek from southern Lebanon after Israel ordered them to leave their homes, raising fears of a largescale ground invasion.

More than 350 people have been killed in Israel's massive blitz against Lebanon which was launched after the capture of two soldiers by guerrillas from the Shiite Muslim group in a deadly border attack on July 12.

A total of 37 Israelis have died in the fighting.

As international efforts to end the conflict gathered pace, there was growing criticism of Israel's offensive, which has left Lebanon virtually cut off from the world, made hundreds of thousands refugees in their own country and destroyed billions of dollars of infrastructure.

"The whole thing has to stop. It's no natural disaster but a man-made crisis. This is a senseless war. It should never have started. It should never have been carried out like it is now," UN relief coordinator Jan Egeland said.

He was in Beirut Sunday to launch an appeal for millions of dollars in aid to help the half million civilians displaced by what the United Nations says has created a "catastrophic" humanitarian situation.

But the White House said Saturday it was keeping to its policy on backing Israel's right to self-defence, as Rice prepared Sunday to leave for the region where she is expected to hold talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

"We are keeping to our adopted position. Israel has the right to defend herself," a White House spokesman told AFP.

The United States is also expediting an arms shipment of precision bombs to Israel from an arms deal struck last year.

Packed into tanks, bulldozers and armoured cars, Israeli troops cut across the border near the town of Avivim Saturday in what the army said was another "pinpoint operation" against Shiite Muslim guerrillas.

General Beni Gantz said Israeli air and ground forces "have more or less completed taking over the village of Marun Al-Ras," strategically located 911 meters (3,000 feet) above sea level.

A spokesman for the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon said Israeli troops and tanks were inside the hotspot village and that there was fighting in the area, where five Israeli soldiers and several Hezbollah militiamen have been killed in recent days.

Israeli forces have been mounting regular incursions into Lebanon in addition to its massive air bombardment, calling up thousands of reservists and massing troops along its northern border.

Justice Minister Haim Ramon said the aim of the offensive was to keep Hezbollah -- which controls southern Lebanon in the absence of the regular Lebanese army -- at least 20 kilometres (13 miles) from the frontier.

"For Israel, there are no longer civilians in southern Lebanon," Ramon warned. "We want to uproot Hezbollah but in a prudent manner to prevent losses."

He said the current offensive would not match the magnitude of the 1982 invasion, which left about 20,000 people dead, traumatising Lebanon and plunging Israel also into a lethal quagmire.

On Saturday, Israel pounded television transmission stations and mobile telephone masts in raids across the country that left five dead, including a television station employee.

"The Israelis are looking to destroy sound and image in Lebanon -- the last weapons this country has -- after bombarding infrastructure," Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh said.

Britain's junior foreign office minister Kim Howells made London's most unequivocal criticism yet of Israel's offensive, in stark contrast to the line taken by Washington and his own prime minister.

"These are not surgical strikes. It's very difficult to understand the kind of military tactics that are being used," Howells said during a visit to Beirut.

"If they are chasing Hezbollah, then go for Hezbollah. You don't go for the entire Lebanese nation," he said. "I very much hope that the Americans understand what's happening to Lebanon -- the destruction of the infrastructure, the death of so many children and so many people."

Israel said it opened a 50-mile-long and five-mile-wide (80-kilometre by eight-kilometre) safe passage to Beirut for ships and aircraft, a humanitarian corridor to allow aid to the Lebanese.

Israel's air and sea blockade put Lebanon's only international airport out of action, and the bombing of houses, roads, bridges, factories, warehouses and trucks created scenes reminiscent of the 1975-1990 civil war.

But US President George W. Bush maintained his backing for Israel's campaign as Rice prepared travel to the region in search of what she described as a long-term solution.

"I believe sovereign nations have the right to defend their people from terrorist attack, and to take the necessary action to prevent those attacks," Bush said in his weekly radio address.

Underlining the repercussions of the conflict on the whole region, he said Syria was "a primary sponsor" of Hezbollah and has given the militia Iranian-made weapons.

Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mukdad said Damascus is ready to open a "dialogue" with the United States to resolve the crisis.

Meanwhile thousands of people around the world on Saturday bashed drums, brandished placards and chanted slogans to demand an end to Israel's offensive.

Foreign governments also continued to evacuate their citizens, mainly to the neighbouring island of Cyprus which is battling to find temporary accommodation and flights for the estimated 70,000 evacuees at the height of its holiday season.

Israel is also pressing on with its offensive on the Gaza Strip, where at least 106 people have been killed in two weeks. It aims to retrieve a soldier snatched by Palestinian militants and to stop rocket fire.

NEW CONFLICT IN MIDEAST CONFOUNDS U.S., ISRAEL - DAVID WOOD (BALTIMORE SUN, JULY 23): One of the Army's rising stars, Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, who heads the Army's Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., has pushed hard for the Army to develop what he calls "non-kinetic" skills, meaning those that don't involve firepower: language skills, cultural awareness, the ability to negotiate among warlords or to organize schools, health clinics and defense militias in small towns in Afghanistan, for example.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationwor...ack=1&cset=true

HEZBOLLAH GAMBLES ON HOLDING SHI'ITE HEARTS AND MINDS - THANASSIS CAMBANIS (BOSTON GLOBE, JULY 23)
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeas...d_minds?mode=PF

FEARS OF INCREASING HEZBOLLAH'S POPULARITY: AS THE ISRAELI MILITARY CAMPAIGN CONTINUES, THE LEBANESE POPULATION'S SUFFERING GROWS -- AND ITS STANCE TOWARDS HEZBOLLAH BECOMES MORE COMPLEX. AS SOME PARTS OF THE COUNTRY RALLY AROUND THE ISLAMIC MILITANTS, OTHERS IN LEBANON BLAME THE TERRORISTS FOR THEIR CURRENT WOES - ULRIKE PUTZ (SPIEGEL, JULY 20)
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/internatio...,427754,00.html

A FIRST STEP BACK FROM THE BRINK OP ED CONTRIBUTORS (NEW YORK TIMES, JULY 22): With chaos threatening to engulf Lebanon, the need to resolve the conflict in the Middle East has rarely seemed so urgent. The Op-Ed editors went to seven experts with experience in the region, asking each of them what should be the first step toward defusing the crisis.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/22/opinion/...%2fContributors

CONDI'S MIDEAST MISSION: AN OPENING TO DISARM HEZBOLLAH AND ISOLATE IRAN ? EDITORIAL (OPINION JOURNAL FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EDITORIAL PAGE, JULY 24): After some initial uncertainty, and mixed messages from the State Department, the Bush Administration now seems properly focused on exploiting the clash between Hezbollah and Israel as a strategic opening.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/fe...ml?id=110008695

TIME FOR REAL DIPLOMACY: VIEWPOINT: FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI ARGUES THAT SECRETARY RICE MUST STAY IN THE REGION AS LONG AS IT TAKES - AND TALK TO EVERYONE - ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI (TIME, JULY 23)
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,...1218021,00.html

BACK INTO HISTORY: THE MIDDLE EAST CRISIS IS GIVING BUSH A SECOND CHANCE TO BE A PEACEMAKER - MIKE ALLEN (TIME, JULY 23): By sending Rice to the region, the White House is gambling that Arab governments fear the Hizballah militants more than they resent the Israelis.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...1218059,00.html

. . . . DEADLINE PERILS - ARIEL COHEN (WASHINGTON TIMES, JULY 24): The United States should not impose any deadline that would press Israel to cease its fire.
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.p...23-093641-6456r

TEHRAN, HEZBOLLAH AND A 'CEASEFIRE' EDITORIAL (WASHINGTON TIMES, JULY 24): The Bush administration needs to continue to fend off ill-considered plans to bring the Israeli operation in Lebanon to a premature conclusion.
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.p...23-093643-9501r

WEAK HORSES: MOST LIBERALS (AND THE ODD CONSERVATIVE) DON'T WANT TO FIGHT--BUSH DOES - WILLIAM KRISTOL (WEEKLY STANDARD, JULY 21): Bush, Blair, and the Post editors understand that the right policy is to stand behind Israel, and to support that nation in defeating terror --for its own sake, and on behalf of liberal civilization. They understand that we are at war with an axis of jihadist-terrorist organizations and the states that sponsor them.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Publ...12/468osmmx.asp

A STRANGE WAR: ISRAEL IS AT LAST BEING GIVEN AN OPPORTUNITY TO UNLOAD ON JIHADISTS - VICTOR DAVIS HANSON (NATIONAL REVIEW, JULY 21): If the United States really cares about human life and future peace, then we should talk ad nauseam about ?restraint? and ?proportionality? while privately assuring Israel the leeway to smash both Hamas and Hezbollah -- and humiliate Syria and Iran, who may well come off very poorly from their longed-for but bizarre war.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MmE1O...DQ2N2ZmMjQ5MmM=

LETTING ISRAEL BE ISRAEL: BUSH'S CONSISTENT APPROACH TO WAR AND PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST - FRED BARNES (WEEKLY STANDARD, JULY 21)
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Publ...12/477gtigo.asp

NATIONAL INTERESTS: ENDING THE MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT PREMATURELY WOULD BE A MISTAKE - CLIFFORD D. MAY (NATIONAL REVIEW, JULY 21): Hezbollah?s defeat would represent a setback for Syria, Iran and the global Militant Islamist movement that is waging war against the U.S. and other free nations.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OGM0Y...MTM3ZTViMWM0NGQ

MODERNISM VS. FUNDAMENTALISM: BACKING FOR ISRAEL REVEALS TRUE NATURE OF CLASH IN LEBANON - AMOTZ ASA-EL (SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, JULY 23): The free world must understand that defeating Hezbollah in particular, and fundamentalism in general, will take not only military resolve and diplomatic acrobatics, but also financial initiative and ideological conviction.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...&type=printable

ONWARD CAUTIOUS SOLDIERS - DAVID BROOKS (NEW YORK TIMES, JULY 23): We can't just let reckless tyrannies dominate the Middle East on the supposed grounds the region is not yet ready for freedom.
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/07/23/opini...agewanted=print
PAID SUBSCRIPTION

ARMAGEDDON -- I WANT FALWELL IN MY FOXHOLE: AT THE END OF THE DAY -- OR AT THE END OF DAYS -- ISRAEL HAS PLENTY OF TIME FOR ANYBODY WHO WANTS TO HELP THE JEWS - ZEV CHAFETS (LOS ANGELES TIMES, JULY 23): For millions of American evangelical voters, living right includes supporting Israel.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-...inion-rightrail

HEZBOLLAH IS HERE - MICHELLE MALKIN (WASHINGTON TIMES, JULY 22): The Jew-hating terrorists of Hezbollah who call themselves the "party of God" are already in America, plotting attacks, raising money, slipping through the cracks.
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.p...21-090022-1236r

HEZBOLLAH'S APOCALYPSE NOW - AMAL SAAD-GHORAYEB (WASHINGTON POST, JULY 23): Hezbollah's face-off with Israel is not only a defensive war of survival (in response to the declared Israeli and U.S. objective of eliminating the organization), but also an attempt to shatter the myth of Israeli invincibility (which explains why Israel also views this conflict in existential terms).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2101363_pf.html

FIND A BETTER WAY - BOB HERBERT (NEW YORK TIMES, JULY 24): The United States should have whispered into Israel?s ear, the message being: ?The carnage has to cease. We?ll find a better way.?
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/07/24/opini...2fBob%20Herbert
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STRENGTHENING MILITANTS, MARGINALIZING MODERATES IN THE MIDDLE EAST - BILL SCHER (HUFFINGTON POST, JULY 23): Truly befuddling is why the Bush administration did not use its leverage with the Israeli government to shore up Hamas pragmatists.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-scher/s...html?view=print

BUNKERED DOWN FOR A WAR OF ATTRITION - SAMI MOUBAYED (ASIA TIMES, JULY 22): The international community does not seem in a hurry to end the war. Spearheaded by the Americans (with the notable exceptions of Italy, Russia and France), countries have sided with Israel in its war on Hezbollah.
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HG22Ak01.html

ISRAEL?S CRIMINAL ACCOMPLICE - PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS (COUNTERPUNCH, JULY 24): There never was any doubt of the Bush Regime?s complicity in Israel?s naked aggression against the Lebanese civilian population.
http://www.counterpunch.org/Roberts07242006.html

A PERILOUS EXCURSION INTO THE DISTANT PAST, STARTING SEVEN WHOLE WEEKS AGO: HEZBOLLAH, HAMAS AND ISRAEL: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW - ALEXANDER COCKBURN (COUNTERPUNCH, JULY 21): Forcing the US to pressure Israel to settle the basic problem takes political courage, and virtually no US politician is prepared to buck the Israel lobby, however many families in Lebanon and Gaza may be sacrificed on the altar of such cowardice.
http://www.counterpunch.org/Cockburn07212006.html

DISASTER IN THE MAKING - CHARLEY REESE (ANTIWAR.COM, JULY 23): You can observe three important things simultaneously in the Middle East: One, Israel's total disregard for the lives and property of the Arab people; two, the effectiveness of the Israeli propaganda machine; and three, the utterly craven support for Israel by the U.S. government.
http://www.antiwar.com/reese/?articleid=9385

WHY ISRAELI BOMBING MIGHT NOT BE ENOUGH TO WIPE OUT HEZBOLLAH IT ALSO MIGHT LEAD TO BACKLASH AMONG LEBANESE - DAVID BIALE (SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, JULY 23): Pinned down in Iraq, the American Army cannot attend to the real enemies in the Middle East region. And American diplomacy can no longer play its traditional role as "honest broker."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...&type=printable

SPANISH LESSONS FOR ISRAEL - NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF (NEW YORK TIMES, JULY 23): Israel is likely to kill enough Lebanese to outrage the world, increase anti-Israeli and anti-American attitudes, nurture a new generation of anti-Israeli guerrillas, and help hard-liners throughout the region and beyond.
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/07/23/opini...agewanted=print
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DARK STAIN OF CONFLICT WILL SPREAD, LINGER - ANTHONY H. CORDESMAN (BALTIMORE SUN, JULY 21, 2006): The regional effects will be deeply negative. Israel will have U.S. support, but images of Israeli attacks on Lebanon will further alienate Arabs and Muslims throughout the world.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/o...-oped-headlines

ISRAEL'S DISPROPORTIONATE VIOLENCE NO SURPRISE - JONATHAN COOK (ANTIWAR.COM, JULY 23): If the US allows itself to be handcuffed to Israel's even more extreme version of the "war on terror," the consequences will be dire not just for the Palestinians or the region, but for all of us.
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/cook.php?articleid=9390

BUSH ADMINISTRATION HAS MADE U.S. A POWERLESS PLAYER IN MIDDLE EAST - TRUDY RUBIN (BALTIMORE SUN, JULY 21): Preoccupied with Iraq, the United States pretty much bowed out of efforts to restart the Mideast peace process.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/o...-oped-headlines

WE HAVE TO TALK TO BAD GUYS - JOHN MCLAUGHLIN (WASHINGTON POST, JULY 23): Although the fighting in the Middle East is still raging, it is not too soon to start drawing lessons from these tragic events, among them that that even superpowers have to talk to bad guys and that there are no unilateral solutions to today's international problems.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2101399_pf.html

LEBANON: BLACK & WHITE AND DEAD ALL OVER - LAWRENCE PINTAK (COMMON DREAMS, JULY 23): The Middle East is a messy place and the 'bad guys' are part of the equation. America's penchant for quick-fixes and simplistic bromides don?t work there. Iraq should have taught us that.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0723-21.htm

CONDI'S FLYING DUTCHMAN - MAUREEN DOWD (NEW YORK TIMES, JULY 22): Like her boss, Rice does not show any sign of tension over the fact that all of their schemes to democratize the Middle East ended up creating more fundamentalism, extremism, terrorism and anti-Americanism. Lebanon represents the shipwreck of our Middle East policy.
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/07/22/opini...fMaureen%20Dowd
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THE SHAME OF BEING AN AMERICAN - PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS (ANTIWAR.COM, JULY 23): Democracy is permitted only if it produces the results Bush and Israel want.
http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=9381

POWER PLOY: WHY THREE ARAB REGIMES ARE PUBLICLY ALIGNING THEMSELVES AGAINST HEZBOLLAH AND IRAN - MARC LYNCH (AMERICAN PROSPECT, JULY 20): The quiet death of democracy promotion could be a tremendous hidden cost of the current crisis Lebanon crisis.
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?sectio...articleId=11746

BALLOTS AND BULLETS - NOAH FELDMAN (NEW YORK TIMES, JULY 21): We are in the world of asymmetry, of democratically legitimated militias and armed bands that fight wars with powerful states. Democracy can no longer be seen as an end in itself, and the fate of peoples lies in their own hands.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/21/magazine...agewanted=print

ARMAGEDDON -- BUSH'S MIDDLE EAST DEMOCRACY FLOP: THE U.S. HAS ALIENATED POTENTIAL ALLIES AND UNDERMINED ITS OWN STATED GOALS - ANATOL LIEVEN (LOS ANGELES TIMES, JULY 23): Now that the U.S. dream of combining democratization of the region with submission to Washington's policies is dead, the U.S. too is faced with a stark choice: seek genuine compromise with key regional actors, or be prepared to fight repeated wars.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commen...omment-opinions

THE 'DECIDER' HAS RULES, ALL OF THEM ARE BIG, 'YO' - ROGER COHEN (NEW YORK TIMES, JULY 22): Among the 20 cardinal rules of the American president: Always push freedom and democracy, especially in the Middle East, and even when the newest democracies are being bombed by your ally; Never stray from the war on terror as paradigm; Israel is always right, or about right, or near enough right, or at least more right than its enemies.
http://select.nytimes.com/iht/2006/07/22/w...agewanted=print
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Rice vetoes ‘temporary solutions' Ynetnews
US secretary of state arrives in Israel as part of effort to diplomatically resolve Israel-Hizbullah crisis. ‘Goal of Hizbullah is to set the world aflame and we will not let them succeed,’ Rice proclaims.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice vetoed temporary solutions to the Israel-Lebanon crisis during a Monday evening meeting with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. "Any peace is going to have to be based on enduring principles and not on temporary solutions," Rice said shortly after arriving in Israel Monday night. Rice flew to Israel immediately following a round of diplomatic meetings in Beirut with Lebanese Premier Fouad Siniora. She stressed that in advancing a solution to the crisis the international community needed to be guided by UN resolution 1559, which stipulates the disarmament of Hizbullah and the redeployment of Lebanese forces along the southern border."The free world is facing a threat, the goal of Hןzbullah is to set the world aflame and we will not let them succeed," she said. "This is a difficult time for the Israeli people, it is a difficult time for the Lebanese people, it is a difficult time for the Palestinian people." Rice expressed concern from the humanitarian situation in Lebanon. No one wants to see innocent civilians killed under the current conditions in Lebanon, she said, noting that she planned to discuss the issue further in the framework of her Israeli visit.

Livni: We know why we're fighting
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni also highlighted UN resolution 1559: “The international community and the free world led by the United States are acting out of a common understanding not merely of the causes of the crisis, but also of the method of solving it – based on UN Security Council resolution 1559 and the G8’s decisions.” “The kidnapped soldiers must be released. Hizbullah must be disarmed and the Lebanese government’s sovereignty must be enforced across the state. I want to be clear – there is not conflict between Israel and the citizens of Lebanon. But Israel has no greater duty than its duty towards its citizens," Livni said. "In my opinion, this is a moment of truth not only for Israel and the Lebanese government, but for the entire international community which must act to enforce its decisions and force the Lebanese government to confront Hizbullah and commit to the decisions made, for the sake of all of our futures,” she added. The foreign minister used the opportunity to address the Israeli nation with words of encouragement: “I want to turn to the families of the captive soldiers, to IDF troops, to families sitting in bomb shelters and those who left their homes – we know why we are fighting." "I know we are experiencing frustration in the face of the pictures publicized around the world; we feel we aren’t understood sufficiently, but the whole world understands that Israel was attacked and the problem needs to be solved from its foundations," she concluded.

Ceasefire in itself not main goal
At the conclusion of the meeting, the two agreed that a ceasefire with Lebanon in itself was not their main goal. Livni’s office stated that the aim of the meeting was to discuss solutions for after the fighting ends, in the framework of UN resolution 1559. Rice asked Israel to contribute to solving the humanitarian crisis in Lebanon and to evacuating foreign nationals stranded in the war-torn country. Rice and Livni agreed to reconvene Tuesday for further discussions.
By Ronny Sofer
Rice finally sets out in search of ceasefire formula Guardian Unlimited
US pledges humanitarian aid for Lebanon ABC Online
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UN launches Lebanese aid appeal BBC News
The UN has launched a $150m (£81m) aid appeal for strife-torn Lebanon and the US has announced its own $30m package to ease the suffering of civilians.The UN's top humanitarian official, Jan Egeland, said the money was needed to help feed and shelter about 800,000 civilians caught up in the conflict. The moves came as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice flew to Lebanon and Israel to discuss the regional crisis. Some 380 Lebanese and up to 40 Israelis have died in 13 days of conflict. The Israeli offensive began after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on 12 July. In fresh violence on Monday:

• Israeli forces pushed north from the captured village of Maroun al-Ras in south Lebanon and fierce clashes were reported around Bint Jbeil. Two Israeli soldiers were killed and more than 10 were injured in the border fighting
• An Israeli helicopter crashed in northern Israel, killing two pilots. An army spokeswoman blamed technical problems, but Hezbollah reportedly claimed it had been shot down
• More Hezbollah rockets struck Haifa and other northern Israeli towns, wounding at least four people, Israel said.

'Awful thing'
Jan Egeland made the UN appeal during a visit to Beirut. He said the money was needed to help aid organisations cover needs of displaced people for three months.About $24m was on behalf on Unicef for children who have been displaced inside Lebanon or who have fled to Syria. Mr Egeland said he was asking the Israelis for safe passage for aid ships to enter the northern port of Tripoli and the southern port of Tyre. US President George W Bush on Monday ordered helicopters and ships to Lebanon to provide humanitarian aid.White House spokesman Tony Snow said that supplies would start arriving on Tuesday. "It is a move that is designed in recognition of the fact that innocent men, women and children are being hurt," he said. "And that is an awful thing." Mr Snow said the US was also working with Israeli and Lebanese officials to open up humanitarian corridors in Lebanon. The EU has already pledged $12.6m in aid while on Monday the UK increased its pledge to £5m.

Pre-conditions
Amid the aid moves, the diplomatic effort was also being stepped up. Ms Rice flew to Beirut on an unannounced trip which her officials said was to show support for Lebanon's government. She met Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and said she was "deeply concerned about the Lebanese people and what they are enduring".

• Mid-East crisis map
• Press focus on Rice
• Leaders' quotes

But she also said there was no place for "terrorist groups" like Hezbollah to attack from Lebanese territory. Ms Rice also met Shia parliament speaker Nabih Berri, who is said to have lines of communication with Syria and Hezbollah. According to Lebanese government sources, Ms Rice made the release of the two Israeli soldiers and the withdrawal of Hezbollah forces from the border the pre-conditions for any ceasefire. She has flown on to Israel for talks with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other officials. On Monday night Mr Rice met Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who said that Hezbollah wanted to set the region in flames. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said on Monday it was important that talks in Rome on Wednesday of Western and Middle Eastern ministerial powers succeeded.

Rice Seeks 'Durable Solution' to Mideast Conflict

By Scott Wilson, Robin Wright and Fred Barbash

JERUSALEM, July 25 -- As Hezbollah rockets fell on the Israeli city of Haifa Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice completed her talks with Israeli and Palestinian officials, rebuffing Palestinian calls for an immediate cease-fire in the Lebanese conflict and insisting instead on a...

To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...er=emailarticle

It’s Time for a New Middle East, Rice Says BET
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Israeli Prime Minister Euhud Olmert Tuesday morning saying that any plans for a cease fire must include provisions for long-term peace. “It is time for a new Middle East. t is time to say to those who do not want a different kind of Middle East that we will prevail, they will not,” Rice said at news conference in Israel. As Israeli ground forces make tactical strikes into Lebanon against Hezbollah targets, Rice continues to resist Arab calls for an immediate ceasefire, ABC News reported. "We of course urgently want also to end the violence so that innocent people can return to a free life," Rice said. "We need to do that, of course, in a way that is enduring." Rice said in order to do that, a strong peacekeeping force will need to be in place. But until that can be done, she said the U.S. refuses to stand in Israel's way, ABC News reported. "We will not hesitate to take the most severe measures against those who are aiming thousands of rockets and missiles against innocent civilians for one purpose – to kill them," Olmert said at a news conference Tuesday morning. Senior Israeli officials said that military operation is going more slowly than they expected and they expect to step up operations in the next couple of days, the Associated Press reported. One of the goals is to take more Hezbollah hostages so they have bargaining room in future negotiations with Israel.

The Little Victims
Meanwhile, the fighting is taking its toll on both sides of the border. To help ease some of the pain, the United States is rushing $30 million in emergency aid to the Middle East. But there are some victims, suffering in untold numbers, which are caught up in the crossfire and have absolutely nothing to do with the ongoing fight -- the children born in it. Children make up one-third of the population in Lebanon. Many children have had to find comfort playing in bomb shelters under daily threats by Hezbollah missiles. In south Beirut, the parking garage of a mall was turned in a makeshift playground as well as home to thousands of people, AP reported. Children on both sides of the border have expressed their frustration with the ongoing fighting through drawings, videos, in which one Israeli girl posted a video on You Tube to show people what her life is like everyday, and questions. "Why America is giving Israel Army the bombs to kill us," one child in Beirut asked an ABC News reporter. The way they see it, Israel and America are trying to kill them, ABC News reported. "I don't want us to die," a 10-year-old girl in Beirut said. There are more than 600,000 people that are displaced. Half of them are children.
Israel Targets Hezbollah, Bombs Beirut ABC News
Israelis seal off Hezbollah stronghold China Daily
Monsters and Critics.com - RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty - Globe and Mail - [url=http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2006/07/mideast_crisis__2.html]USA Today - all 3,259 related »

Lebanon: UN launches $149 million three-month emergency appeal UN News Centre
The United Nations today launched a $149 million humanitarian appeal for Lebanon covering the next three months and focusing on food, health care, logistics, water and sanitation, protection and common services for an estimated 800,000 people affected by the worsening conflict. “The aid community can help save lives in this region,” said Jan Egeland, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, who is seeing the situation first-hand in Lebanon before travelling on later today to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. “More supplies are on their way – but we need safe access so that we can get the aid to those who need it most,” he stressed, echoing earlier calls that humanitarian workers and supplies be allowed for those most in need in the conflict. Two weeks of fighting between the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) and Lebanese group Hezbollah have killed over 350 people and wounded more than 1,500 inside Lebanon, while in Israel over 34 people have been killed and 200 wounded, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said today. Approximately 800,000 people have been affected by the conflict, some of these are internally displaced, and the humanitarian situation is particularly acute in the south of Lebanon, OCHA added, a point highlighted by Margareta Wahlström, Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Coordinator, speaking about the appeal in New York. Ms. Wahlström said the appeal would be revised if needed because estimates of the amount of aid required were difficult to make because of the access problems. She criticized all sides in the conflict for violating humanitarian law by not doing more to prevent civilian casualties. “The extremely vulnerable situation of the civilian population I think is very evident to all of us. It’s clear that all parties to this conflict are in violation of international humanitarian law by not taking due care to prevent the civilians from being injured and being caught in the middle of this conflict.” The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said it was asking for almost $24 million out of the total appeal to provide rapid support for displaced or refugee children and families who are in urgent need of medical care and other essentials. “Many of those who have been uprooted in the violence are children,” said Ann Veneman, UNICEF Executive Director. “They may have witnessed the death or injury of loved ones and many are suffering acute distress. “Children face the immediate danger of disease and will be impacted by the loss of hospitals, health clinics and schools.” UNICEF has already provided $1.2 million for medical supplies and other immediate assistance, with the first charter flight leaving for the region last Saturday with 38 tonnes of supplies. For its part, the UN refugee agency has asked for almost $19 million for its work aimed at helping 150,000 vulnerable displaced people in Lebanon and neighbouring countries. “The plight of the displaced in Lebanon is growing more difficult by the hour and it’s crucial that we get the humanitarian pipeline flowing now,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) António Guterres. “UNHCR is trucking some 40 trailers loaded with over 500 tonnes of aid supplies from our regional warehouse in Jordan to Syria. It’s frustrating that we can’t deliver this aid, particularly when there are thousands of uprooted civilians just a few hours away in Lebanon who desperately need it.” In addition to pre-positioning tonnes of relief supplies, UNHCR has sent a 19-member emergency response team comprising humanitarian specialists who will augment the agency’s staff in Syria and Lebanon. The World Health Organization (WHO), which is coordinating the UN’s health action in this crisis in collaboration with Lebanon’s Ministry of Health, is appealing for $32.4 million. “As more people are displaced and as more infrastructure is destroyed, the health needs will grow. International concern for the people caught in this conflict is high. Funding from the international community for health will save lives and reduce suffering,” said Dr Ala’ Din Alwan, the WHO Director-General’s Representative for Health Action in Crises. WHO, whose partners include UNICEF, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), said that among other things the funds will help increase support for the health ministry in coordinating the humanitarian response, setting up mobile health care units and putting in place urgent immunization campaigns for internally displaced persons (IDPs). “Urgent action is needed to protect the health and well-being of women, children and other innocent civilians,” said UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, whose Agency has asked for just over $6 million. “The widespread destruction of public infrastructure and services is dangerous for everyone, but especially for pregnant women, the injured and others who may need medical care to survive.”

So if I post and endless stream of articles it is not spam? this could get very interesting.

I will have to think about this challenge.

Israel suggests NATO as peacekeeping force MSNBC
Leaders diverge from U.N. force that has failed to bring peace in regionAs world leaders scramble to secure a cease-fire in Lebanon, a crucial question arises: Who will ensure the peace? Israel has suggested it prefers a NATO-led coalition — not the traditional U.N. peacekeeping force that has tried but failed to bring peace to Lebanon the last three decades. But the alliance’s member states are already stretched in missions elsewhere, including full-scale combat in Afghanistan. Precedents in Kosovo and Bosnia also raise questions about the ability of a NATO-led force to impose its will. And cobbling together a coalition would be difficult, especially considering the traumatic history of peacekeeping in Lebanon: American and French troops stepped into a bloody quagmire when they joined a multinational force there in 1982. There are also competing initiatives, including a proposal Tuesday by European Union security and foreign affairs chief Javier Solana for a new kind of international force that would include troops from Europe, Turkey and Arab states. NATO officials insist it’s premature to discuss a NATO role — an idea first aired by Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz on Saturday and which Washington has indicated it would support — until the current round of diplomacy runs its course. “No request has been made to NATO,” alliance spokesman James Appathurai said Tuesday. “The international community is still discussing ... the possibility of a force, its mandate, and the duration of the mission. All these issues remain open.”

Turkey may have major role
Still, momentum is building to end the fighting, and there is broad sympathy for Israel’s demand that Hezbollah not be allowed to return to its border. But few believe the weak Lebanese government can achieve this as Israel demands, and the U.N. force that has been in Lebanon since 1978 is discredited. That leaves many turning to NATO. One NATO country that may have troops available for a mission in Lebanon is Turkey. As the only Muslim member of the alliance, Turkey might have considerable clout if it were persuaded to lead a multinational force — helping to deflect the perception that troops are being sent in solely to defend Israel’s interests against Hezbollah.

http://www.wane.com/Global/story.asp?S=5193508&nav=0RYb
Saudis issue warning

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah is issuing an appeal to the world to stop Israeli attacks on Lebanon.

In a statement read on television, Abdullah said the Mideast could be plunged into war if peace efforts fail.

A royal court statement says the king has pledged one and a-half ( billion dollars to Lebanon -- half-a-( billion for the country's reconstruction and the remainder for Lebanon's central bank to support the economy.

While Abdullah calls the Israeli military "brutal," Hezbollah also has not been spared Arab criticism. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Kuwait have rebuked Hezbollah for the fighting in Lebanon.

Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

US supports lasting but not urgent ceasefire: Rice Xinhua
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is on a visit to the Palestinian territories, said on Tuesday that the US administration supports a lasting ceasefire in the Middle East but not an urgent one. Rice made the remarks during a brief joint news conference with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after nearly two-hour meeting at Abbas' office in the West Bank city of Ramallah. She urged all parties concerned to find a suitable way to a ceasefire to end the security deterioration in the region, but she underscored that the ceasefire must be reached in a way that secures the sovereignty of Lebanon and implementation of the UN Resolution 1959. She also voiced concerns over what is happening on Palestine, Lebanon and Israel, saying that "the Palestinian people and civilians of Lebanon and Israel are innocent." Rice said that the U.S. and the Palestinian National Authority(PNA) had a joint vision to create two states for the Israelis and the Palestinians. Rice arrived in Ramallah on Tuesday after she wrapped up her visits in Lebanon and Israel. For his part, Abbas promised to exert efforts to secure the release of the captive Israeli soldier, who has been held hostage by Palestinian militants since June 25. However, he reminded Israel and the world to consider the suffering of 10,000 Palestinian families which have sons jailed in Israel. Israel has launched a large-scale offensive into the Gaza Strip in the wake of the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit by three Palestinian militant groups on June 25 in a cross-border raid against an Israeli army base southeast of the Gaza-Israel border. The militant groups conditioned the return of the captive soldier on the release of Palestinian junior and women prisoners jailed in Israel, which was rejected by the Israeli government. Not long after the seizure of Israeli soldier by the Palestinian militant groups, Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah also captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12. Lebanon has been targeted by Israeli military offensive since then. Enditem
Israel Wants Lebanon Buffer Zone, Peacekeepers NPR
Rice to Lebanon: Just Give Israel More Time Washington Post
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DEBKAfile: Middle East war rhetoric escalates sharply with Rice’s exit from region

July 25, 2006, 8:57 PM (GMT+02:00)


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DEBKAfile: Middle East war rhetoric escalates sharply with Rice’s exit from region

July 25, 2006, 8:57 PM (GMT+02:00)

Not surprisingly, the most extreme statement came from Iran: A Middle East storm is brewing and will strike violently, said the radical Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “The use of force in Lebanon could trigger a hurricane.”

He spoke after Riyadh released an official statement from King Abdullah asserting: “If the peace option fails because of Israeli arrogance, there will be no option but a war in the region.” The Saudi king was uncharacteristically unrestrained in his speech after seeing the US secretary come and go without allaying the Lebanese crisis.

At around the same time as the statement from Riyadh, huge explosions struck Hizballah targets in South Beirut for the first time since US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice landed in the Middle East for talks in Beirut, Jerusalem and Ramallah. Israeli positions along the Lebanese border also came under heavy Hizballah mortar fire on Tuesday afternoon, coinciding with an Israeli air bombardment of Hizballah rocket sites in Tyre. The IDF began closing some strategic roads to the Lebanese border to civilian traffic.

Hopes had been entertained In Cairo and Riyadh that the visiting US secretary would voice some sort of reproof for Israel’s extensive military action in Lebanon and apply the brakes in her private talks with Ehud Olmert. Instead, no sooner had she departed when Israeli defense minister Amir Peretz announced that Israel is clearing a security zone in South Lebanon that will remain under IDF fire control unless a multinational force assumes responsibility.

Given the enormous, time-consuming difficulties facing the assembly of such a force, his statement was taken as the first avowal of Israel’s intentions beyond the military operation. The term “security zone” was uttered for the first time since the Hizballah attack of July 12 sparked the current crisis.

Privately, the pro-Western rulers in Riyadh, Cairo and Amman were cheering Israel’s offensive in the hope of its crippling the extremist Shiite Hizballah and dealing Tehran its comeuppance. But Peretz’s statement gave Arab rulers the pretext for ignoring the fact that Israel was defending itself against attack and reviving their age-old accusations of Israeli ambitions to seize Arab lands with American support.

It was rumored in Cairo that Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak plans to visit Syrian president Bashar Asad in Damascus this week to discuss the Lebanese crisis.
Copyright 2000-2006 DEBKAfile. All Rights Reserved.


Not surprisingly, the most extreme statement came from Iran: A Middle East storm is brewing and will strike violently, said the radical Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “The use of force in Lebanon could trigger a hurricane.”

He spoke after Riyadh released an official statement from King Abdullah asserting: “If the peace option fails because of Israeli arrogance, there will be no option but a war in the region.” The Saudi king was uncharacteristically unrestrained in his speech after seeing the US secretary come and go without allaying the Lebanese crisis.

At around the same time as the statement from Riyadh, huge explosions struck Hizballah targets in South Beirut for the first time since US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice landed in the Middle East for talks in Beirut, Jerusalem and Ramallah. Israeli positions along the Lebanese border also came under heavy Hizballah mortar fire on Tuesday afternoon, coinciding with an Israeli air bombardment of Hizballah rocket sites in Tyre. The IDF began closing some strategic roads to the Lebanese border to civilian traffic.

Hopes had been entertained In Cairo and Riyadh that the visiting US secretary would voice some sort of reproof for Israel’s extensive military action in Lebanon and apply the brakes in her private talks with Ehud Olmert. Instead, no sooner had she departed when Israeli defense minister Amir Peretz announced that Israel is clearing a security zone in South Lebanon that will remain under IDF fire control unless a multinational force assumes responsibility.

Given the enormous, time-consuming difficulties facing the assembly of such a force, his statement was taken as the first avowal of Israel’s intentions beyond the military operation. The term “security zone” was uttered for the first time since the Hizballah attack of July 12 sparked the current crisis.

Privately, the pro-Western rulers in Riyadh, Cairo and Amman were cheering Israel’s offensive in the hope of its crippling the extremist Shiite Hizballah and dealing Tehran its comeuppance. But Peretz’s statement gave Arab rulers the pretext for ignoring the fact that Israel was defending itself against attack and reviving their age-old accusations of Israeli ambitions to seize Arab lands with American support.

It was rumored in Cairo that Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak plans to visit Syrian president Bashar Asad in Damascus this week to discuss the Lebanese crisis.

Copyright 2000-2006 DEBKAfile. All Rights Reserved.

http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1188
Washington Expected an IDF Grand Slam to Dispose of Hizballah

DEBKAfile Special Report

July 23, 2006, 6:22 PM (GMT+02:00)


US officials are not yet saying so out loud, but in private and “on condition of anonymity,” White House circles are signaling disappointment.

It arises from the expectation that the Israeli Defense Forces, the most effective Middle East army, would dispose of Hassan Nasrallah and his Hizballah in a few days, presenting the Bush administration and Sunni Muslim Arab rulers with a dearly hoped-for smash victory against Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. Now, after 12 days of Israeli air, sea and ground assaults, it is beginning to look as though it will take a long, sustained effort to break Hizballah.

Therefore, US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice is coming to the Middle East Monday, July 24, brandishing a whip in the form of an implied deadline. She will assess the situation at close hand, talk to allies in Rome Wednesday and go back to Washington after setting a date to return in the week beginning July 30.

A really quick, crushing victory over the Hizballah could be achieved by the landing of American forces in northern Lebanon – at the invitation of the Beirut government. Nasrallah’s forces could then be strangled between US forces and the Israeli army coming up from the south.

But this is not on the cards for the simple reason that America is willing to fight in Lebanon to the last Israeli soldier, just as Iran is ready to fight to the last Hizballah combatant. Israel must beware of being hustled into taking imprudent steps by the proxy contest between the Washington and Tehran. Israel and its armed forces must pursue their own national agenda which is to cripple the Hizballah and inflict a defeat on Tehran, both of whom are sworn to destroy the Jewish state. It is necessary for Israeli commanders to proceed cautiously and set a pace that is commensurate with their military capabilities. Their best fighting men must not be place needlessly in harm’s way and Lebanese civilian casualties have to be avoided as far as possible in a situation in which Hizballah stores its men and weapons in domestic cellars, kitchens and banana groves. Above all, Israel must beware of being drawn into tailoring its arduous and dangerous campaign to the pressures of Washington’s disappointment. After four years in Iraq, US forces know the score and understand the challenges besetting Israel.

On Day Twelve of the war, Israel faces two major tactical difficulties:

1. The enemy the IDF is pursuing is not a regular army which moves divisions around, but a small militia of 4,000 hardened, highly trained jihadist guerrillas, who have reduced their offensive against Israel to two simple tactics: shooting rockets at population centers and lying in wait for a chance to take Israeli troops unawares.

It therefore behooves Israeli forces, which Saturday, July 22, launched a large-scale offensive to sanitize South Lebanon, to beat Hizballah at the game of catching the opposition unawares. There is no doubt that the Israeli army is badly in need of a success – and not only to impress the Americans. Israel’s home front, though solidly behind its servicemen, needs to be assured that the war is on course and will be fought “until the job is finished.” This is the mantra heard up and down Israel, most insistently from the one-third of the population taking the punishment of lives lost or disrupted and homes destroyed by daily rocket attacks, with very little complaint.

This assurance is beginning to wear thin as the Hizballah rocket blitz intensifies day by day. Saturday, they shot a record 160 rockets at dozens of towns and communities. Sunday, July 23, the ball bearings packed in the Katyusha warheads punched hundreds of holes in a car and a workshop, killing two men on the spot. Sirens were heard for the first time in Binyamina, Zichron Yaacov and Kfar Ada, 70 km from the Lebanese border and the deepest south yet. The buildings of Israel’s third largest city, Haifa, and many other towns of northern Israel, are severely battered and bear the scars of blasts which scatter the metal balls designed to maximize human injuries.

The week’s grace that Rice appears to be granting the Israeli government and armed forces for bringing the war to a successful conclusion is also a boon for Tehran, Syria and Hizballlah. It gives them time to engineer a nasty surprise to greet the US secretary’s second visit, hitting Israel at the very moment that the diplomats weigh in to start the process for ending hostilities. Israel will then be told to hold back on reprisals. This dead-end maneuver will be painfully familiar to the many peacemakers who tried their luck with the Palestinians, notably Condoleezza Rice’s predecessor, Colon Powell.

While Syrian officials angle for direct talks with the United States and call for a ceasefire, Damascus is preparing to step into the war. Damascus is preparing to step into the war. Syrian information minister Mohsein Bilal warned Sunday, July 23, that Syria will join the conflict if Israeli ground forces in Lebanon approach the Syrian border. But Bashar Assad also prefers to hide behind the back of a proxy. The ruling Syrian Baath suddenly “discovered” Sunday a new organization called the “Front for the Liberation of Golan,” claiming it launched its first attack last Thursday, July 20, on an Israeli army post. It was said to have killed 8 Israeli soldiers and taken two hostages to be held in Syria against the release of Golan Druzes in Israeli jails. The tale is made of whole cloth, but it is a straw that shows which way the wind is blowing in Damascus.

Neither Damascus nor Tehran – and certainly not the Hizballah - have any intention of leaving the diplomatic initiative in the hands of the US secretary of state. They will do their utmost to stay one step ahead of any American-led steps and keep Israeli forces from running away with a victory. The way events are going now, both the Americans and Israelis will soon be confronted with the necessity to cut both Syria and Iran down to size.

Diary: Rice's Mid-East mission BBC News
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is on a mission to the Middle East to seek a "lasting solution" to the crisis between Israel and Lebanon. She is meeting regional leaders in Beirut and Jerusalem before heading to Rome later in the week. Our correspondent is following her trip.

25 JULY: IMAGE PROBLEM
We're getting a clearer sense of Condeleeza Rice's long-term objectives in the crisis. Before she left Washington she likened the violence to "the birth pangs of a new Middle East". Perhaps an unfortunate choice of words given the suffering. But today, meeting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, she once again talked of creating a "new Middle East".It's the reason why Washington is so reluctant to criticise Israel's military operations. The Bush administration see the Israeli offensive on Hezbollah in the context of its two main foreign policy goals - winning the war on terror and spreading democracy. Others would argue that fighting a war on terror only recruits more terrorists and spreads resentment rather than encouraging democracy to flourish. But this argument does not seem to "compute" with the US administration. Condeleezza Rice no doubt has a very difficult task trying to resolve this crisis. But there's a woman travelling with her who - some would argue - has an even tougher assigment. Karen Hughes is the US Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy. It's probably the world's most challenging PR job. If Karl Rove is Bush's brain - Karen Hughes is his heart. She was the one who helped the president reach out to all those "soccer moms" in his political rise from Texas. It's hard to say that she's made much of an impact yet - opinion polls around the world suggest that America still has a huge image problem. It's also difficult to see her precise role here. She is of course totally eclipsed by the presence of Condi Rice. We're now off to Ramallah with Rice. She wants to give her support to the embattled Palestinian President Mahhmood Abbas. Not sure if it will help him in his current difficulties though.

24 JULY: INDELIBLE STAINS
My colleagues who were travelling with Condi Rice in Beirut have just arrived at our hotel in Jerusalem. I'm naturally jealous, though - they all bear indelible stains of helicopter hydraulic oil on their light coloured summer clothes. Apparently it sprayed over everyone - including the secretary of state - as they were on their way back to Cyprus. Colleagues who have threadbare, dated clothes are annoyed. Imagine how she feels with her thousand-dollar suits. The state department seems to have been sparing with details on the surprise Lebanon visit. There was no press conference with Condi - no interviews - basically no information from the meetings that she had - other than to deny what everyone else seems to be reporting that some of them went badly. In fact there's a lock-down mentality. No press conference with Lebanon's prime minister, no media availability with Israel's foreign minister other than a few bland opening remarks and no opportunity to question Rice after she meets Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The more difficult the mission - the less they want to talk. We're hoping for someone to brief tonight - it could be a long wait.

24 JULY: AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
This is not quite the trip Condoleezza Rice had been planning. Before the crisis in Lebanon she had been due this week to visit Japan, China, South Korea, Malaysia and Vietnam. All those stops - bar Malaysia - have now been cancelled. The focus of that visit would have been North Korea and its long-range missiles. So Condi has now just had to switch from one crisis to another. Madeleine Albright - the former Secretary of State - calls it the "perfect storm" of foreign policy: dark clouds closing in on Washington from every direction. But I met an American friend at the airport who did not view it in such cataclysmic terms. In fact he thought the crisis in Lebanon was playing out quite well for President George W Bush. This friend is a lawyer, not a journalist, so he is probably less influenced by what the media say. He thought the violence provided an opportunity to reshape the Middle East - very much in line with the administration's viewpoint, in fact. And I can't help wondering whether this war will actually help Mr Bush and the Republican party come the mid-term elections. It certainly takes Iraq off the front pages - and reminds voters that it's not just America fighting the "war on terror". But it's still too soon to judge its political effects.

Convoy
I've travelled ahead of Ms Rice to Jerusalem and will join her "bubble" when she arrives. I can't say I miss the food on Air Force Two, or being stuffed in cramped conditions in her plane alongside my fellow reporters. But then there is the access. She normally comes to the back of the plane to talk and answer a few questions. Once she even appeared from her cabin to sing "Happy Birthday" to a colleague. But in truth what I miss most is avoiding the queues at immigration and speeding through the streets in her convoy with a police escort. There can be few better ways of getting to your destination quickly.
By Jonathan Beale, BBC News State Department correspondent

http://www.cdi.org/program/document.cfm?Do...ge=../index.cfm
July 19, 2006

Israel’s Missile Defense Systems: MIA

Despite being inundated with volleys from Hezbollah – at writing, estimates range from 700 to 1,500 missiles and rockets launched at Israel in the past week – Israel’s two missile defense systems have been silent. Neither its Arrow system (co-developed with the United States) nor its version of the Patriot has been used in this conflict, largely because they are not designed to handle the kind of threat that Hezbollah represents. Hezbollah is shooting projectiles that have ranges mostly around 10 miles, while the missile defense systems are geared toward shooting down missiles that range from a couple hundred to roughly 1,000 miles.

Israel has a two-tiered missile defense system. The first, the Arrow Weapon System, is to intercept ballistic missiles in their final phase of flight. It would do so by shooting the U.S.-developed Arrow II interceptor at a threat. Once the Israel-developed Green Pine Fire Control Radar, Citron Tree Fire Control Center, and Hazel Nut Tree Launcher Center have sent the interceptor near the target, the Arrow II would blow up, with the hope that the fragments from the blast would either destroy the target or knock it sufficiently off course so that it would no longer remain a threat. There are two Arrow batteries deployed. One covers the center of Israel from its position in Palmahim, while the other in Ein Shemer is supposed to defend Israel’s northern territory. The Arrow systems do not move around very quickly and it is uncertain how much defense the two Arrow batteries would be able to provide to the southern part of the country.

Israel also has an early version of the U.S. Patriot missile defense system. The Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC)-2 is designed to defend against ballistic missile targets in their terminal phase as well; also, it would provide defense via a blast-fragmentation warhead (as opposed to the United States’ more advanced version, the PAC-3, which uses kinetic energy from a direct hit to provide a defense). The Patriot differs from the Arrow in that it aims at targets which are at lower altitudes.

The main reason why neither missile defense system has been used is because they are not designed to intercept short-range rockets. It is estimated that of the 13,000 or so rockets and missiles in Hezbollah’s arsenal, 11,000 of them are of the Katyusha type. These rockets have a short range – maybe up to nine miles or so – and a small warhead of roughly 40 pounds. Based on vintage Soviet technology, these rockets can be rolled out of a hiding place, shot, and rolled back in before any detection can be made. Their flight is over in seconds, making tracking difficult, much less shooting anything down. A system would have to be in exactly the right place to detect the missile once it is launched, then the defensive system would have to make a nearly instantaneous decision to respond, after which the interceptor would have to get to the target quickly enough to destroy it. It is an exceedingly difficult proposition when the flight times are as short as those launched by Hezbollah.

Hezbollah is thought to have received help from Iran on its weapon arsenal. Indeed, it has surprised the Israelis with what look to Iranian-origin Fajr 3’s, which can take a 200-pound warhead up to 25 miles, and Fajr 5’s, which can send a 385-pound warhead up to 45 miles. There were reports that Israel destroyed a launcher for a Zelzal missile in Beirut, thought to range 65 to 120 miles.

The biggest jump in Hezbollah’s capabilities was revealed when it targeted and hit an Israeli warship with a radar-seeking cruise missile. This level of technical prowess had been heretofore unknown by Hezbollah. On July 14, two missiles were launched at Israel’s Hanit, which was stationed roughly 10 miles off the coast of Lebanon. The first missile (C-801/802 Chinese “Silkworm” cruise missile) apparently was deliberately sent high so that the ship would deploy its defenses, allowing a second low-flying cruise missile, probably a C-701 TV guided missile, to come in unnoticed and make a direct hit. One Israeli soldier was killed in the attack. Furthermore, the first missile locked onto an Egyptian vessel about 30 miles off the shore of Lebanon and hit it, apparently following its radar after it flew over the Hanit.

This attack is reminiscent of 2003’s Operation Iraqi Freedom, where the Iraqi military jury-rigged several old Chinese Silkworms to fly over land against unsuspecting U.S. military bases.

Both of these instances underline a very important distinction: the missile defenses Israel has deployed at present, and that the United States had fielded at the time, were designed to detect, track, and intercept ballistic missiles. Ballistic missiles fly very different trajectories than cruise missiles. The latter fly more erratically, are lower to the ground, and are overall more difficult to track. Cruise missiles bring an entirely different level of threat to the situation.

Also, the Patriot and the Arrow tracking systems tend to get overloaded when there are too many air-borne targets to follow. Given that Hezbollah is sending up volleys of missiles and rockets, and that the Israeli air force has sent many of its aircraft on bombing raids against Lebanese territory, this air picture is extremely complicated and challenging for any system to pick out appropriate air-borne targets.

Finally, despite Israel’s two-tiered missile defense system, it is missing the capability to defend against short-range missiles. According to Uzi Rubin, the founder of the Arrow, it is not optimized for threats with ranges below 125 miles or so. In May, the Israeli government awarded a contract to a Raytheon/Rafael team to provide a defense against missiles with ranges of 24 to 155 miles. This new short-range ballistic missile defense system, which would use a direct intercept to destroy its targets, is supposed to also defend against cruise missiles. However, it is still in the very early planning stages, with its development continuing through 2010. In the meantime, Israel can defend itself the old-fashioned way: through conventional attacks on ground targets thought to be associated with Hezbollah or diplomatic forays.

# # #



Author(s): Victoria Samson

Day-by-day: Lebanon crisis - week two BBC News
A day-by-day look at how the conflict involving Israel and Lebanon is unfolding in its second week.

Day-by-day: Week one

TUESDAY 25 JULY
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice continues her diplomatic tour of the region, meeting separately with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli PM Ehud Olmert.Mr Abbas calls for an immediate truce but Mr Olmert says there will be no let-up in army operations. Ms Rice calls for peace across the region. Israel seals off Bint Jbeil, a Hezbollah stronghold in Lebanon and carries out heavy shelling. Hezbollah guerrillas continue to fire Katyusha rockets. In Israel a 15-year-old Arab-Israeli is killed in the northern village of Maghar and an elderly man dies of a heart attack as he tries to take shelter from rockets fired into Haifa. In Lebanon the coastal city of Tyre experiences further Israeli bombardment. Further north, seven members of one family, including two children, are killed in an overnight air strike in the town of Nabatiyeh.

• Israelis accused of 'human shields' tactic
• The travails of escaping Lebanon

MONDAY 24 JULY
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives in the Middle East, making a surprise stop in Beirut for talks with Lebanon's Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.Ms Rice reportedly makes the release of the two Israeli soldiers and the withdrawal of Hezbollah forces from the border the pre-conditions for any ceasefire. She later moves on to Israel. The UN launches an appeal for $150m in aid and the US pledges a $30m aid package to begin on Tuesday. UK PM Tony Blair says the situation in Lebanon is "a catastrophe", while UN Secretary General Kofi Annan says international ministerial talks in Rome on Wednesday must not fail. Meanwhile, there is fierce fighting in southern Lebanon around Bint Jbeil. An Israeli helicopter crashes in northern Israel, with two pilots killed. Hezbollah claims it shot the helicopter down; Israel disputes this. Air strikes continue on both sides.

• Lebanese open homes for refugees

Desperate Lebanese try to leave Tyre

SUNDAY 23 JULY
Israeli strikes hit southern Beirut, the Bekaa valley, Tyre, and - for the first time - Sidon, a southern port city full of refugees from the surrounding countryside. There are no confirmed reports on the number of Lebanese casualties. A volley of Hezbollah rockets hits the northern Israeli city of Haifa, killing two people and injuring 15. The UN's emergency relief co-ordinator, Jan Egeland, is shocked by the ruins he finds as he tours southern districts of Beirut. He says the large scale of the destruction, and its indiscriminate nature, renders it a violation of humanitarian law. Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz says Israel would agree to the proposed deployment of a multi-national force in southern Lebanon and suggested it should be led by Nato. Envoys from France and Britain also hold talks in Israel to look for ways to resolve the crisis. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected in the region.
The aftermath of bombing in a Beirut suburb

SATURDAY 22 JULY
The Israeli army continues ground incursions into southern Lebanon. It says it has gained control of the village of Maroun al-Ras after several days of fighting and warns civilians in 14 specific villages to leave. Troops continue to line up along Israel's northern border, but Israel says it is not planning a full-scale ground invasion. Humanitarian concerns mount as thousands of Lebanese try to flee southern Lebanon. The UN pushes for secure routes for civilians to escape and much-needed aid to be delivered. Israel targets Lebanese phone and television masts in air strikes, while Hezbollah fires dozens of rockets into Israel. The death toll rises to at least 350 Lebanese and 34 Israelis.

• Perilous escape for south Lebanese

Civilians flee southern Lebanon

FRIDAY 21 JULY
Israel masses soldiers and tanks on the Lebanese border, called up thousands of reserves, drops leaflets on parts of southern Lebanon urging residents to leave. It maintains its bombardment of the country, hitting more than 40 targets, mainly in southern Beirut. Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora says the offensive is now no longer against Hezbollah, but against Lebanon. The evacuation of foreign nationals continues, with thousands more expected to arrive in Cyprus.

• No refuge from bombs

Britons evacuated onboard HMS Bulwark

THURSDAY 20 JULY
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan calls for a ceasefire and stresses the need to let aid into the region. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert agrees to allow aid into Lebanon. Heavy fighting erupts between Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants inside Lebanon's border. Two Israeli soldiers and a number of Hezbollah fighters are killed, according to the Israeli army. Israel continues its bombing of Lebanon, carrying out 80 air strikes. Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah appears on television, saying Israel has not dented its capabilities. The Israeli army says that Hezbollah has fired 30 rockets into northern Israel during the day, but they do not cause any casualties. The death toll reaches at least 306 people in Lebanon and 31 in Israel. Evacuations continue, with many nations sending both military ships and chartered vessels to remove their citizens from danger. Forty US marines come ashore to help around 1,000 US citizens in Lebanon - the first presence of US troops in the country since Hezbollah militants blew up a marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, killing 241 personnel. But Cyprus, which is taking many of the evacuees, says it cannot cope with the influx and appeals to the European Commission for additional planes to fly people to their home countries.

• Stranded in the war zone
• Divided loyalties of Lebanon
• Q&A: Mid-East war crimes?Annan calls for ceasefire
  
  WEDNESDAY 19 JULY
  As Israeli forces bomb Lebanon for an eighth day, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora appeals for an immediate end to the Israeli attacks on his country, saying more than 300 people had been killed by the Israeli air raids so far, with 1,000 wounded and 500,000 displaced. Meanwhile, Israeli strikes hit Hezbollah positions in Beirut, as well as targets in southern and eastern parts of the country. The military says its aircraft dropped 23 tonnes of explosives in an evening raid on a bunker in south Beirut where senior Hezbollah leaders, possibly including Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, were hiding. But Hezbollah denies any of its "leaders or personnel" were killed and says the Israeli raid hit a mosque under construction rather than a bunker. More than 60 civilians are killed in raids - 12 in the southern village of Srifa, near Tyre, six in the southern town of Nabatiyeh, and many more elsewhere in the south as well as Baalbek in the east. Israeli troops cross into southern Lebanon to carry out what the army called "restricted pinpoint attacks". Two Israeli soldiers die in clashes with Hezbollah fighters inside Lebanon. Rockets fired from Lebanon strike the northern Israeli city of Haifa, and kill two children in the Israeli Arab city of Nazareth. They are the first Arab Israelis to die in the rocket attacks. Thousands of people continue to flee Lebanon. A British warship arrives in Cyprus, carrying the first 180 UK citizens. A Norwegian ferry takes hundreds of Norwegians, Swedes and Americans to Cyprus, while a US-chartered ship docks in Beirut to evacuate US and Australian citizens. After meeting Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the EU's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, says he has seen the suffering of Lebanese civilians and it is nothing to do with the battle against Hezbollah - it was "disproportionate". But Ms Livni says the Israeli military response is proportionate to the threat posed by Hezbollah to the entire region.[list]
• Fleeing in the line of fire
• Tolerant Haifa tested
• UK evacuation plan

Devastation in Tyre

Air strikes kills 7 civilians :

Israeli troops sealed off a Hezbollah stronghold and warplanes killed six people in a market city in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, while Beirut was pounded by new air strikes. Guerrillas fired rockets at northern Israel, killing a girl
http://tinyurl.com/mkxxb


Two IDF soldiers killed in battle for Bint Jbail :

An Israel ":Defense Forces" officer and a soldier were killed and 14 soldiers were wounded, two of them seriously, in a battle yesterday with Hezbollah in the town of Bint Jbail, in the central sector in South Lebanon.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/742250.html


Israel used cluster grenades on civilians:

A US-based human rights group has accused Israel of using artillery-fired cluster grenades against a Lebanese village last week during its assault against Hezbollah.
http://tinyurl.com/oydmp


Full HRW Report: Israeli Cluster Munitions Hit Civilians in Lebanon -

Israel Must Not Use Indiscriminate Weapons
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/07/24/isrlpa13798.htm


MK Bishara: IDF attacks 'like a nuclear bomb on Lebanon':

Knesset member Azmi Bishara (Balad) has accused Israel of such massive use of force in the conflict with Hizbullah that "it's like a nuclear bomb falling on Lebanon - the whole country is destroyed."
http://tinyurl.com/myp6v


Latest Pictures From Lebanon

- - WARNING -

Graphic images depicting the reality and horror of Israel's Invasion and destruction of Lebanon.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14186.htm


US keen on giving Israel time in Lebanon:

According to a well-worn script that Israel has grown accustomed to over the years, the arrival of the US secretary of state during wartime means an end to Israeli military advances. But this time the script is different.
http://tinyurl.com/q5kke


Israel occupy portion of Lebanon :

Israel says it will keep control over an area in southern Lebanon until an international force can be deployed.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5214046.stm


Hezbollah proves its mettle:

Hezbollah’s war with Israel, so far, has been a rare military accomplishment in the history of the Middle East conflict, analysts say. But they doubt whether the Islamist militia can endure sustained and intensive warfare.
http://tinyurl.com/rmm59


U.S. plan for Lebanon likely to fail, Arab analysts:

"I think it's preposterous. From the beginning this is a plan that cannot be achieved," former Egyptian foreign minister Ahmed Maher told Reuters.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L24687078.htm


Military Intelligence Chief: Syrian army now at its highest state of alert :

Yadlin emphasized that "neither Syria nor Israel are interested in a military clash but the situation is explosive and the events may potentially be incorrectly interpreted. This could entangle Syria up in a battle against us."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/742628.html


Saudi king warns of Middle East war:

In a statement read out on state television on Tuesday, King Abdullah said, "If the option of peace fails as a result of Israeli arrogance, then the only option remaining will be war, and God alone knows what the region would witness in a conflict that would spare no one."
http://tinyurl.com/qe9fl


U.S. Turns to Arab Dictators to Contain Hezbollah:

The United States is using authoritarian Arab leaders, who fear that Iran could export its revolutionary political model to their disgruntled populations and are concerned about Washington's reprisal against them a la Saddam Hussein in Iraq
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14185.htm


Hamas PM slams Rice's 'new Middle East' concept :

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya said the US view of a new Middle East was one that began with "destroying Lebanon" and with killing the maximum number of Palestinians.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14183.htm


Seven Palestinians, including two children, killed in the Gaza Strip on Monday :

A 5-year old child was killed and three members of her family were injured in Beit Lahia in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. In a separate incident, a child and his grandmother were killed; three residents were injured in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.
http://tinyurl.com/mvd4f


UN official accuses Israel of excessive force in Gaza :

UN humanitarian coordinator Jan Egeland today criticised Israel's strike last month on the sole power plant in impoverished Gaza as a "clear" example of disproportionate use of force.
http://tinyurl.com/n2vja


Israelis accused of 'human shields' tactic :

According to the Israeli human rights group, B'tselem, six civilians including two minors were subjected to the illegal tactic during an invasion into the town of Beit Hanoun last week.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5212870.stm


Leave your home, we are going to demolish it:

Without warning, the telephone or cellular phone rings in a Palestinian home. The caller is an Israeli intelligence officer who speaks weak Arabic. He speaks little and has only specific words to say, "We are from the Israeli Defence Force. Leave the house - we will destroy it in half an hour."
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=S...=Print&ID=13669


A Must Listen BBC Radio Documentary:

A Date With Bevin:

Jewish insurgents, who had long been fighting a bloody insurgency campaign against British troops in Palestine, were about to take their war to London.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14188.htm

SECRETARY-GENERAL SHOCKED BY COORDINATED ISRAELI ATTACK ON UNITED NATIONS OBSERVER POST IN LEBANON, WHICH KILLED TWo PEACEKEEPERS Department of Public Information • News and Media Division • New York - Secretary-General - United Nations
The following statement by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was issued today in Rome: I am shocked and deeply distressed by the apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defense Forces of a United Nations observer post in southern Lebanon that has killed two United Nations military observers, with two more feared dead. This coordinated artillery and aerial attack on a long established and clearly marked United Nations post at Khiyam occurred despite personal assurances given to me by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that United Nations positions would be spared Israeli fire. Furthermore, General Alain Pelligrini, the United Nations Force Commander in south Lebanon, had been in repeated contact with Israeli officers throughout the day on Tuesday, stressing the need to protect that particular United Nations position from attack. I call on the Government of Israel to conduct a full investigation into this very disturbing incident, and demand that any further attack on United Nations positions and personnel must stop. The names and nationalities of those killed are being withheld pending notification of their families. I extend sincere condolences to the families of our fallen peacekeepers.

Israeli PM regrets UN deaths Toronto Star
BEIRUT — Hezbollah guerrillas exchanged heavy fire with Israeli troops attempting to capture a southern Lebanese town on Wednesday, causing several Israeli casualties. The fighting came a day after an Israeli air strike killed four United Nations observers, including one Canadian, in a border outpost. In a phone call to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed "deep regret" Wednesday over the deaths of the peacekeepers in the air strike, which Annan had called ``apparently deliberate." Olmert said the peacekeepers were killed mistakenly and expressed dismay over Annan's accusation, according to a statement released by his office. The prime minister promised a thorough investigation and said the results would be presented to Annan. Al-Arabiya, a Dubai-based satellite TV channel said at least 12 Israeli soldiers had been killed in fighting in the town of Bint Jbail. In Jerusalem, the Israeli military would say no more than several soldiers had been wounded. Wednesday's fighting broke out as Israeli forces attempted to advance toward a hospital in the town, where it has been battling Hezbollah guerrillas for the past several days. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other key Mideast players gathered in Rome for a meeting Wednesday to discuss proposals for ending the fighting that has claimed more than 400 lives. Key issues were how to disarm Hezbollah and assemble an international peacekeeping force to enforce the peace along the Israel-Lebanon frontier. Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz said Tuesday Israel would maintain a security zone in the south until either a multinational force "with enforcement capability" is deployed on the border or Hezbollah is pushed back in a ceasefire agreement that also cuts off the supply of its weapons. As the Israeli incursion continued, a senior Hezbollah leader said the guerrillas had not expected such an onslaught when they snatched two Israeli soldiers July 12. "The truth is — let me say this clearly — we didn't even expect (this) response . . . that (Israel) would exploit this operation for this big war against us," Mahmoud Komati, the deputy chief of the Hezbollah politburo, told The Associated Press. One of the dead in the strike on the UN post was identified as Chinese UN observer Du Zhaoyu, China's official Xinhua News Agency reported. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said Israel's ambassador to Beijing was summoned Wednesday morning and asked to convey China's request that Israel fully investigate the incident and issue an apology to the victim's relatives. "We are deeply shocked by this incident and strongly condemn it," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said in the statement. The other three observers were from Austria, Canada and Finland but it wasn't clear which two were confirmed killed, UN and Lebanese military officials said. Israel's UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman also expressed his "deep regret" for the deaths and denied Israel hit the post intentionally. "I am shocked and deeply distressed by the hasty statement of the secretary-general, insinuating that Israel has deliberately targeted the UN post," he said, calling the assertions "premature and erroneous." Along with its daily press reports tracking major violence, the UN observers along the Israel-Lebanese border, known as the Blue Line, keep close track of individual incidents. Those figures, which do not include attacks far to the north, give a rare snapshot into the intensity of the violence in southern Lebanon. There were, for example, at least 73 acts of violence near the Blue Line between Israel and Lebanon on July 24 alone, including 45 air raids and artillery strikes by Israel and 12 missile launches from Hezbollah. That was in addition to numerous clashes around the town of Bint Jbail, a town known for its intense support of Hezbollah.
If Peace Comes, Just Who'll Go In to Keep It? Los Angeles Times
Fighting Continues in Middle East Wall Street Journal
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Heavy Israeli toll in fierce fighting Sydney Morning Herald
Israel's army suffered heavy casualties in a battle with Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon on Wednesday and Al Jazeera Television said at least nine soldiers had been killed. Al Arabiya Television said 12 were killed during fierce clashes in the town of Bint Jbeil, a key militia stronghold 4 kilometres in Lebanon. The stations gave no further details.Such a toll would be the heaviest for Israel's army since it launched an offensive against Hezbollah more than two weeks ago. Israeli media said up to 13 soldiers had been wounded. An army spokesman said he could only confirm several soldiers were wounded. Israeli forces have been battling for days to take over Bint Jbeil, since seizing a village closer to the border last week. Hezbollah earlier said in a statement in Beirut that fierce clashes were raging around Bint Jbeil. It said guerrillas had confronted Israeli forces trying to advance towards the town from a nearby hill. The army estimates it has killed up to 30 guerrillas in the battle for the Bint Jbeil stronghold, home to 4000 people. Until the latest fighting, nine Israeli troops had been killed in the ground offensive inside southern Lebanon. Taking Bint Jbeil would be a morale-booster for Israel, which launched its Lebanese offensive after Hezbollah killed eight soldiers and abducted two others in a July 12 border raid. Senior officers have described it as the main Hezbollah outpost in southern Lebanon. Clearing Bint Jbeil could also be part of Israel's plan to establish a no-go zone for the guerrillas in southern Lebanon until an international force arrives to take over. Defence Minister Amir Peretz said on Tuesday Israel would control a "security strip" along the 80-kilometre frontier and fire at anyone who entered. He did not say how wide it would be. Israeli government sources estimated the zone's width at 3-4 kilometres. According to Israeli intelligence estimates, Hezbollah fighters are holed up in a network of tunnels and trenches around Shiite Muslim villages in southern Lebanon. Israel ordered civilians out of 14 of the villages over the weekend.

Rockets slam into Haifa
Meanwhile, a fresh barrage of Hezbollah rockets slammed into the northern Israeli city of Haifa today, wounding several people, police said. One rocket landed near a car, seriously wounding a driver, medics said. The fresh strike came as the United Nations chief aid official, Jan Egeland, was visiting the coastal city, a favoured Hezbollah target. At least 11 rockets also landed in the town of Carmiel. It was unclear if there were any casualties. Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has vowed to take the war deeper into Israel, suggesting there could be strikes at cities south of Haifa. Such use of longer-range missiles would most likely trigger massive Israeli retaliation. Nasrallah, whose group ignited the war by capturing two Israeli soldiers in a July 12 cross-border raid, said: "We cannot accept any condition humiliating to our country, our people or our resistance. "Yes, the limit of our bombardment will not remain Haifa, regardless of the enemy's response. We will move to the phase of 'beyond Haifa'." The current conflict is the first in which Hezbollah rockets have hit Haifa, Israel's third largest city.
Crisis talks over Middle East violence ITV.com
Fierce fighting rages in Lebanon Mail & Guardian Online
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Several Israeli Troops Reportedly Killed in Lebanon

By John Ward Anderson, Jonathan Finer and Robin Wright

JERUSALEM, July 26 -- The Israeli army suffered heavy casualties Wednesday as it struggled to take the Hezbollah stronghold of Bint Jbeil in the fiercest ground clash so far in a war now into its third week.

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Israeli Airstrike Hits U.N. Outpost

By Scott Wilson and Robin Wright

JERUSALEM, July 25 -- An Israeli airstrike hit a United Nations post in southern Lebanon late Tuesday, killing four international observers, hours after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert agreed to lift Israel's 14-day blockade of Lebanon for shipments of humanitarian aid to reach the swelling ranks of...

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In Lebanon's Crisis, a Chance for U.S. to Broaden the Stakes

By Robin Wright

ROME, July 25 -- In trying to negotiate an end to the latest Middle East conflict, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appears to see the solution through a broader prism that redefines its stakes. The real issues, U.S. officials say, are not simply the hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah but...

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Israeli 'Doves' Say Response Is Legitimate

By John Ward Anderson

JERUSALEM, July 25 -- Yossi Beilin, one of Israel's most prominent peace activists, has a problem, and it is not the predictable one.

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JPost.com » Middle East » Article

Jul. 25, 2006 23:38 | Updated Jul. 26, 2006 6:09
The causes of war: Hizbullah's and Hamas's grievances
By ALEXANDER M. WRIGHT


As the violence and destruction progressively intensifies in Lebanon, Israel and Gaza, calls continue for a cessation to Israel's "disproportionate" use of force.

Israel's offensive in Lebanon and Gaza is in reaction to the kidnapping of three Israeli soldiers by Hamas and Hizbullah, both of which are considered to be terrorist organizations by Israel, the US, the UN and the EU. The majority of some 364 Lebanese killed in two weeks of violence have been civilians. At least 36 Israelis have been killed, 17 of them civilians. As unfortunate as this debacle is, and as disproportionate as the body count may be, numbers and proportions is not the problem.

For a while, the optimist in me saw Hamas heading down the same path of integration as the PLO did: terrorist organization turned legitimate political party. Then it committed political suicide by kidnapping an Israeli soldier, and thus validating Israel's refusal to recognize Hamas as a legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. Then, proving that it is anything but a representative of Lebanese interests, Hizbullah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers, thus initiating the carnage that we have seen for the last two weeks.

Israel's response was predictable to say the least. Since independence in 1948, it has lived by the philosophy of its first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, that any attack against Israel will be met with disproportionate retribution; hence why it has consistently pursued a rigid strategy of targeted assassinations of senior Hamas and Hizbullah leaders; collective punishment; and rejections of cease-fire proposals. And for better or for worse, this is why we are seeing the reaction that we are seeing in Lebanon and Gaza.

Hizbullah declared war against Israel not only by kidnapping its soldiers, but then by returning a barrage of rockets back at it. While the casualties of this war are heart-wrenching, since when is war supposed to be proportionate? When a state is attacked, would it make sense to strike back with an equal amount of force, and give your enemy space and time to fight back? What war has not produced innocent casualties?

Hizbullah not only initiated this conflict, but has been targeting Israeli civilians as well. Both parties are in violation of the Geneva Conventions in regards to targeting civilians during wartime; both are in violation of Security Council resolutions, which says more about the weakness of the UN than anything. For example, pleas for the enforcement of the 2004 Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls for the disarmament of Hizbullah, is laughable unless there is a realistic way of actually enforcing it. This resolution lacks a brush stroke of reality, because no one but Hizbullah can disarm Hizbullah. There needs to be incentive.

There has been much talk about the motives for Hizbullah's kidnappings. Unprovoked, it didn't seem logical. However, if we look at the worldwide protests against Israel's retaliation, which will only intensify, and the international focus on Israel as an aggressor using "disproportionate" force, it points to the success of Hizbullah's plan. If we compare Israel's traditional method with that of Hizbullah's, it seems that the latter of the two - despite the wide-spread human suffering it has brought - is winning more hearts and minds.

For example, there is a reason why the Palestinian cause is more internationally recognized than, say, Maoist rebels in Nepal, or the Shining Path in Peru: international terrorism works. The Palestinian cause became internationalized by hijacking and destroying commercial airlines, and kidnapping and killing Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The idea is that the world needs a slap in the face to see what the real issues are about.

Both Hizbullah and Hamas were born of Israeli occupation, but with Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, it dedicated itself, like Hamas, to the liberation of Palestine. Paradoxically, the two have only grown more influential and stronger, the more Israel has squeezed them.

Hizbullah is the second largest political party in Lebanon, and Hamas was elected democratically by the Palestinian people as their representative. Hizbullah's Al-Manar news station reaches over 10 million people in the Middle East, second only to Al-Jazeera, and both groups provide efficiently run hospitals, schools and other social services to their people. All this should serve as a warning to Israel that it should consider a serious policy shift away from Ben-Gurion's philosophy, and its traditional belief that the more it goes on the offensive, the weaker such groups will become.

Given Israel's inefficient approach, and the rising popularity of Hizbullah and Hamas, where do they all go from here? A prisoner exchange, like the one in 2004 between Israel and Hizbullah, cannot be ruled out. This, however, as well as any cease-fire, would only leave the back door open for history to repeat itself. Talk of a regional "Axis of Power" including Hizbullah, Hamas, Syria and Iran should not be underestimated. Syria and Iran provide Hamas with both political and economic support and it is asserted that Hizbullah committed its kidnappings in solidarity with Hamas.

I think an important question to ask is: How far will Israel take this? Is this also an opportunity for the US to settle its score with Hizbullah? Second only to al-Qaida, Hizbullah is responsible for more US casualties than any other terrorist organization, the most infamous being the deaths of 241 marines in Beirut in 1983. In fact, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage sees Hizbullah as more of a threat than al-Qaida.

It appears now that political wrangling and diplomatic efforts are being made to create a badly needed buffer zone on the Lebanese-Israeli border with a NATO or European-led force. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert appears to be leaning towards such a possibility. Unfortunately, I feel that until Israel changes its traditional policy, and the grievances of Hizbullah and Hamas are understood, such a plan will only bide time until history repeats itself.

Alex M. Wright is a Research Associate with the Centre for International Political Studies (CiPS). The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CiPS.

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JPost.com » Israel » Article


Jul. 25, 2006 23:32 | Updated Jul. 26, 2006 15:49
The pros and cons of an int'l force in Lebanon
By LT.-GEN. (RET.) YA'ALON AND MAJ.-GEN. (RES.) AMIDROR


Discussions about security arrangements in Lebanon at the end of the war have included the proposal to station an international force in that country. Yet the UN has a very bad name in terms of confronting strong forces in areas where it is stationed.

The only logical basis for an international presence is the creation of a force whose primary mission will be assisting the Lebanese army in disarming Hizbullah (as stated in UN Security Council Resolution 1559). Such a force should be deployed close to Beirut, at Lebanese-Syrian border crossing, and deep in the Bekaa Valley.

An international force has no role in southern Lebanon along the Israeli-Lebanese border. Israel is deployed along its northern border to defend itself and prevent the strengthening of Hizbullah, should it try to move southward.

To complement this deployment, there should be an agreement prohibiting the building of fortifications in southern Lebanon - as in the agreement between Israel and Egypt. In addition, the UN should establish a supervisory force like UNSCOM to deal with locating and clearing out Hizbullah's arms caches and preventing the building of new ones.

Types of international forces

In the interest of a serious national discourse about security arrangements in Lebanon at the end of the war, it is worthwhile to more thoroughly discuss the proposed stationing of an international force in Lebanon, an idea that Israel has opposed in the distant and recent past.

There are four known kinds of international forces:


A force whose purpose is to supervise signed agreements between two states - such as the multinational force (MFO) that supervises the Israeli-Egyptian agreement in the Sinai.

A force whose role is to report on events in the field where it is deployed, without the ability or role of enforcing a certain policy - such as the international force that is deployed by the UN in southern Lebanon (UNIFIL).

A force whose mission is to maintain quiet in a region where there is a potential for clashes - that being the role of the NATO forces in Kosovo.

A force whose task is to fight in the name of a certain policy - such as the UN force in the Korean War in the 1950s and the NATO force in Afghanistan today.
Although it is not clear what is being considered or planned regarding an international force in Lebanon, the accumulated experience on this issue should not be ignored.

The US Marines, who came to Lebanon at the end of 1982, withdrew in fear a few months later after Hizbullah used intensive terrorism against them. UNIFIL has been in the field since 1978 and has done more harm than good - it did not prevent Palestinian terror (prior to Israel's entry into southern Lebanon in 1982) or Hizbullah attacks, while hampering the IDF's freedom of action.

Among all the international forces in our area, the only one that successfully carries out its role is the multinational force in Sinai, which is built on a broad American basis. Its success is due mainly to the fact that the two countries involved, Egypt and Israel, are determined to uphold the security arrangements.

Also in Kosovo, where a large international force is stationed, there has been relative success - because the force, just by being there, promotes the interests of the local actors who want independence or annexation to Albania, and no one has an interest in harming the functioning of the force.

In Afghanistan, however, the multinational force under NATO command is waging a real war, and quite successfully, yet has no connection to the UN or its institutions.

What should Israel expect from a multinational force?

Israel should not expect a multinational force to fight Hizbullah so as to disarm it. The UN has a very bad name in confronting strong forces in areas where its forces are stationed.

A force that will separate between the aims and actions of a thriving Hizbullah and the State of Israel is a recipe for disaster; it will most likely fail in fighting Hizbullah, but will also hamper the IDF's freedom of response.

It seems the only logical basis which justifies an international force, made up of real combat soldiers, is the creation of a force whose primary mission will be assisting the Lebanese army.

It is the Lebanese Armed Forces that must carry the burden of disarming Hizbullah and that must verify that there are no military contingents of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Lebanon (all as stated in UN Security Council Resolution 1559). It is the Lebanese Armed Forces that must safeguard Lebanon's borders - so that Iranian and Syrian weapons are not smuggled into Lebanon to help Hizbullah rebuild close to the border with Israel.

The Lebanese Armed Forces is a sufficiently strong army and there seems to be no need to fear that the Shi'ites in it will defect to Hizbullah. This army may, however, need assistance and backing, and that is what a strong international force can provide. It should be prepared to assist the Lebanese Armed Forces in areas where Hizbullah was strong and influential.

An international force has no role along the Israel-Lebanon border

In southern Lebanon, the Lebanese Armed Forces will have a supportive backup in the form of the IDF, stationed along Israel's northern border. However, it needs a similar supportive framework in central and eastern Lebanon.

To complement this deployment, it may be worth importing two important ideas from other conflict zones. These ideas can help ensure Lebanon's flowering as an independent state, without threat from Hizbullah, either internally or by threatening Israel:

An agreement should prohibit the building of fortifications in southern Lebanon - as in the agreement between Israel and Egypt. This will remove the concern that the threat will return to Israel's northern border.

The UN should establish a supervisory force like UNSCOM to deal with locating and clearing out Hizbullah's arms caches and preventing the building of new ones. The UN carried out this role reasonably well in Iraq and there is no reason it cannot do so in Lebanon.

Lt.-Gen. (ret.) Moshe Ya'alon was the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces and is currently a distinguished military fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Maj.-Gen. (res.) Ya'akov Amidror heads the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14035942/
U.S., EU, Arab leaders fail to reach truce deal
Rice says Mideast region can't return to ‘status quo’ prior to clashes

Alberto Pizzoli / AFP - Getty Images
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan attend a news conference at Rome's foreign ministry Wednesday.
View related photos

NBC Video: Violence in Middle East

Today show• Rice in Rome for meeting on Mideast
July 26: After two days of diplomatic shuffling between Beirut, Israel and Palestinian areas, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives in Rome to attend an international meeting on the Lebanon crisis. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.
Updated: 45 minutes ago
ROME - U.S., European and Arab officials holding crisis talks on Lebanon failed to agree Wednesday on details for a cease-fire to end the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States favored urgently ending the fighting but said there cannot be a return to a “status quo” of political uncertainty and instability in Lebanon.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the solution to the Mideast crisis should involve Iran and Syria. He also called for the formation of a multinational force to help Lebanon assert its authority and implement U.N. resolutions that would disarm Hezbollah.

After listening to a dramatic appeal from Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Saniora for them to stop the killing, the officials said they had agreed on the need to deploy an international force under the aegis of the United Nations in southern Lebanon.

“Participants expressed their determination to work immediately to reach, with utmost urgency, a cease-fire that puts an end to the current violence and hostilities. The cease-fire must be lasting, permanent and sustainable,” Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D’Alema said.

He said many of the participants in the meeting appealed for an immediate and unconditional truce.

Opposition to a cease-fire
The United States and Britain opposed the push for a quick cease-fire, saying any truce should ensure that Hezbollah no longer is a threat to Israel and should ensure a durable peace.

Despite the failure to reach a common position on the details of how to pursue a cease-fire, the conference participants agreed to humanitarian aid for the country and to hold a donors’ conference.

The foreign ministers and other senior officials from 15 nations, as well as Annan and representatives from the European Union and the World Bank, agreed on a declaration expressing “deep concern” for the high number of civilian casualties in Lebanon, where government officials say hundreds of people have been killed.

The officials called on Israel to exercise “utmost restraint” and deplored the destruction of infrastructure in the country.

Time for a new Middle East?
Rice arrived in Rome late Tuesday for meetings with European and moderate Arab officials about the fighting along the border between Lebanon and Israel as well as the ongoing crisis between Israel and the Palestinians.

Palestinian officials said after their private meeting with Rice that she presented nothing new on their dispute with Israel. Separately, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, whose Hamas party was not present at the session, said from what he heard about Rice’s conversation with President Mahmoud Abbas, it “doesn’t augur well” for a solution to the Middle East crisis.

But standing beside Olmert in Israel, Rice said the time had come for a new Middle East.

“It is time to say to those that don’t want a different kind of Middle East that we will prevail. They will not,” she said.

“I have no doubt there are those who wish to strangle a democratic and sovereign Lebanon in its crib,” Rice said. “We, of course, also urgently want to end the violence.”

Olmert welcomed his ally warmly, vowing that “Israel is determined to carry on this fight against Hezbollah.” He said his government “will not hesitate to take severe measures against those who are aiming thousands of rockets and missiles against innocent civilians for the sole purpose of killing them.”

A senior Israeli official present at the talks said the two countries were in full agreement about Israel’s military actions.

© 2006 MSNBC Interactive

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/07/25/D8J3579G0.html
Israel Would Prefer NATO-Led Coalition
Jul 25 1:22 PM US/Eastern

By SLOBODAN LEKIC
Associated Press Writer

BRUSSELS, Belgium

As world leaders scramble to secure a cease-fire in Lebanon, a crucial question arises: Who will ensure the peace? Israel has suggested it prefers a NATO-led coalition _ not the traditional U.N. peacekeeping force that has tried but failed to bring peace to Lebanon the last three decades.

But the alliance's member states are already stretched in missions elsewhere, including full-scale combat in Afghanistan. Precedents in Kosovo and Bosnia also raise questions about the ability of a NATO-led force to impose its will.

And cobbling together a coalition would be difficult, especially considering the traumatic history of peacekeeping in Lebanon: American and French troops stepped into a bloody quaqmire when they joined a multinational force there in 1982.

There are also competing initiatives, including a proposal Tuesday by European Union security and foreign affairs chief Javier Solana for a new kind of international force that would include troops from Europe, Turkey and Arab states.

NATO officials insist it's premature to discuss a NATO role _ an idea first aired by Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz on Saturday and which Washington has indicated it would support _ until the current round of diplomacy runs its course.

"No request has been made to NATO," alliance spokesman James Appathurai said Tuesday. "The international community is still discussing ... the possibility of a force, its mandate, and the duration of the mission. All these issues remain open."

Still, momentum is building to end the fighting, and there is broad sympathy for Israel's demand that Hezbollah not be allowed to return to its border. But few believe the weak Lebanese government can achieve this as Israel demands, and the U.N. force that has been in Lebanon since 1978 is discredited. That leaves many turning to NATO.

One NATO country that may have troops available for a mission in Lebanon is Turkey. As the only Muslim member of the alliance, Turkey might have considerable clout if it were persuaded to lead a multinational force _ helping to deflect the perception that troops are being sent in solely to defend Israel's interests against Hezbollah.

Turkey enjoys close ties with both Israel and Arab countries and has wide-ranging experience in international peacekeeping, bolstering its credentials. Its colonial rule during the Ottoman Empire, however, may make some Arabs bridle at the thought of a Turkish presence.

On Tuesday, a Turkish Foreign Ministry official said the country would consider playing a major role in peacekeeping _ but only if it had a strong U.N. mandate that would define its role and the rules of engagement.

That appears to be the crux of the problem: Any international force without the power to react to renewed outbursts of violence or to strike back if it found itself under threat would be as impotent as the current U.N. peacekeepers and unlikely to succeed at keeping Hezbollah away from the Israeli border.

NATO officials said it would be difficult for the alliance to enlist the estimated 10,000 troops needed initially to secure a cease-fire. They pointed to the alliance's existing commitments, such as Afghanistan and Kosovo, which will soon draw more than 40,000 troops from member countries.

Although the alliance has a substantial command structure, which would lead any expeditionary force in the region, it depends almost entirely on voluntary contributions of troops and equipment from member states.

Major contributors to past NATO deployments have been noncommittal on whether they would participate in any mission in Lebanon, perhaps as a reaction to the escalating guerrilla war in Afghanistan.

"At the moment, I can't see it," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung said Tuesday after meeting with his French and Polish counterparts that a cease-fire must first be in place. "With or without German troops, the question of whether there is a peace mission will only come once there is a cease-fire," Jung said.

Washington already has ruled out participating in a multinational force, since a U.S. presence would likely serve as a lightning rod for attacks by militants of all stripes.

Dutch and Austrian officials have also balked at sending troops.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman expressed hope that the Middle East conference opening Wednesday in Rome will produce an agreement in principle on setting up a stabilization force.

But he said questions such as the force's composition and mandate could be worked out later.

If NATO governments agree to a role for the alliance in Lebanon, military planners would have to take into account that it is ill- equipped to engage irregular forces such as the Hezbollah militants.

In Afghanistan, for example, the Taliban-led insurgency is now said to be as active as at any time since the 2002 invasion of that country, despite the deployment of upward of 12,000 NATO troops in the country.

In Bosnia and Kosovo, where the alliance deployed over 100,000 soldiers in the 1990s, strict adherence by the warring sides to the peace accords ensured the success of those missions. Still, NATO failed to act when violence did erupt, such as the mass riots by ethnic Albanians in 2004 in which 19 minority Serbs died.

http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2006/0.../ap2905676.html

Associated Press
U.S., Allies Divided Over Cease-Fire Terms
By KATHERINE SHRADER , 07.26.2006, 10:23 AM


Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged the international community on Wednesday to work quickly to end the "spasms of violence" rocking the Middle East, but the U.S. remained isolated from most of its allies by insisting that any cease fire address the region's long-term problems.

"There is much work to do and everyone has a role to play," said Rice, joined by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and diplomats from European and moderate Arab countries attending a daylong conference on the Mideast crisis.

The policy conference came after two weeks of fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah militia in which hundreds of Lebanese have been killed and more than half a million more have become refugees. Hezbollah has inflicted dozens of Israeli casualties by firing hundreds of rockets into northern Israel and in firefights with Israeli troops.

"We all committed to dedicated and urgent action to try to bring about an end to violence that would be sustainable" and leave the Lebanese government in full control of its territory, Rice told reporters. South Lebanon has been controlled by Hezbollah guerrillas for years.

Rice said participants in the meeting agreed on the need for an international force in south Lebanon under a U.N. mandate that would have "a strong and robust capability to help bring about peace, to help provide the ability for humanitarian efforts to go forward and to bring an end to the violence."

But Rice conceded that it would take further meetings for countries to agree on details on precisely how that force would operate and what its mission would be. And as Wednesday's session ended, it was clear that differences also remained over how, and under what conditions, a cease-fire could be imposed on Israel and Hezbollah.

In Washington, the White House worked put a positive face on the meeting.

"If the talks broke down, they wouldn't have come out with a joint statement that showed that they are knitted up on the key items," said Press Secretary Tony Snow.

He said the statement released there tracks with the G-8 statement and the diplomacy the U.S. has been conducting and said that two U.S. envoys to the Middle East, Elliot Abrams and David Welch, will remain in the region while Rice travels on to Malaysia.

Before the session ended, a diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity said the international diplomats gathered here had been struggling to reach a consensus on a formal statement about the violence. That caused the briefing by Rice, Annan and others to be delayed by more than 90 minutes.

The diplomat said the sticking point was language about the terms under which fighting would end. The source insisted on anonymity because discussions on a conference resolution were still ongoing.

Earlier, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora gave an impassioned speech that prodded the international leaders to continue working, Rice said, saying he put "a human face" on the crisis.

Rice told reporters: "What we agreed upon is that there should be an international force under a U.N. mandate that will have a strong and robust capability to help bring about peace, to help provide the ability for humanitarian efforts to go forward and to bring an end to the violence."

She stressed that Saniora himself has said "there must be one authority over military force" and the international community will support the Lebanese government and work with it achieving that element of a U.N. resolution.

Rice said she had had private discussions with Saniora here - and separately with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert - but declined to reveal the details.

"The goal here is to see how the United States can contribute to end this violence so the Lebanese people and the Israeli people can live in peace," she said.

In a statement at the start of the conference, Annan called for an immediate cessation of hostilities, exhorting Hezbollah to stop its "deliberate targeting of Israeli population centers" and for Israel to end all bombing, blockades and ground operations.

The Bush administration has called for a framework that can lead to a long-term peace, and Annan said the cession of hostilities could lead to that, cautioning against getting too caught up in the sequence of how a cessation of hostilities would happen.

Soon after Rice arrived in Rome late Tuesday, word came that an Israeli airstrike had hit a U.N. observation post in south Lebanon, killing at least two U.N. personnel. Two others were feared dead. The attack prompted Annan to demand an Israeli investigation into the incident, which he called "apparently deliberate." It could further fuel international demands for a quick end to the fighting.

Olmert expressed "deep regret" over the deaths of the peacekeepers in a telephone call to Annan on Wednesday, according to a statement from Olmert's office. Olmert said the peacekeepers were killed mistakenly, expressed dismay over accusation and promised a thorough investigation, the statement said.



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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/26/world/mi...artner=homepage

Diplomats Back Troops, but Not Cease-fire, for Mideast

By HELENE COOPER and JOHN O’NEIL
Published: July 26, 2006
ROME, July 26 — American, European and Arab diplomats called today for an international force to be deployed in along the border between Lebanon and Israel and for a regional peace conference including Syria and Iran. But they stopped short of calling for an immediate cease-fire in the two-week old crisis.

The foreign ministers, meeting in a hastily convened conference here, issued a joint statement calling for “urgent efforts’’ toward a cease-fire. Most of the countries attending the conference made clear beforeit began that they favored an immediate halt.

But Secretary of State Condolezza Rice told reporters at the conference’s conclusion that the United States continues to oppose trying to arrange a cease-fire before the conditions have been created for a “sustainable’’ peace.

“This is a region that has had too many broken cease-fires,’’ she said.

Lebanon’s prime minister, Fouad Siniora, repeated his call for an immediate end to the fighting, saying, “the more we delay the cease-fire, the more people are being killed.’’

He also said that as part of any negotiations, he would press several conditions first put forward by Hezbollah: that Israel withdraw from a disputed slice of border territory it continues to occupy, that it release Lebanese prisoners, and that it turn over a map showing the locations of land mines it placed in southern Lebanon.

Besides Mr. Siniora, the conference was attended by diplomats from Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, all of which have been critical of Hezbollah while calling for an immediate cease-fire.

No details were announced about the makeup of the proposed international force or when it might be deployed. Mr. Annan said that it would operate under a United Nations mandate, and that discussions at the Security Council on its formation would begin quickly.

Ms. Rice made clear that a central part of its mandate would be assisting the weak Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah, an aim that Mr. Siniora said he supported.

Ms. Rice also said that Mr. Annan would “use his good offices’’ in reaching out to Syria and Iran, which the United States has accused of failing to do enough to restrain Hezbollah.

Mr. Annan said that it was crucial to include Syria and Iran in discussions on security. “Any lasting solution to Mideast tensions must be regional,” he said.

The discussions came two weeks after Israel began its military assault on Lebanon in response to a Hezbollah raid in which two Israeli soldiers were captured and eight killed, and as officials in Jerusalem raised the prospect of a more protracted offensive, saying Tuesday that Israeili forces would occupy a strip inside southern Lebanon with ground troops until an international force could take its place.

. Israeli officials have talked about limited raids into Lebanon, but now they seem ready to commit ground forces for at least weeks, if not months.Heavy fighting continued in southern Lebanon today, with reports that eight Israeli soldiers had been killed in new clashes with Hezbollah. Arab television claimed that 12 had been killed, news agencies reported. And 12 Palestinians died in fighting across the Gaza Strip today, according to Reuters, which said that seven of the dead were militants and one was a 3-year-old girl.Also hanging over the discussions here were the deaths on Tuesday of four unarmed United Nations observers who were killed when an Israeli airstrike hit their observation post near the Israeli border. After learning of the deaths on Tuesday night, Mr. Annan denounced the “apparently deliberate targeting’’ of the post.

Asked about that remark today, he said that the post was “long established and clearly marked,’’ and that the shelling had begun in the early morning and continued into the evening despite numerous warnings from United Nations commanders to the Israeli army. He called for a joint investigation by the United Nations and Israel, and said that Ehud Olmert, Israel’s prime minister, had called him today to apologize for what Israel says was an accident.

The observers were from Austria, Canada, Finland and China. In Beijing today, officials said that President Hu Jintao had condemned the killings and demanded an investigation and an immediate cease-fire, Reuters reported.

In the run-up to the meeting, the United States and Britain stood virtually along in opposing an immediate cease-fire.

Before the meeting began, Mr. Annan called on Hezbollah to stop its rocket attacks on civilians in northern Israel and on Israel to stop its “bombardments, blockades and ground operations.’’

The chairman of today’s conference, Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D’Alema, said that a donors conference would be convened soon to arrange for large-scale aid to Lebanon as it rebuilds.

The first shipments of humanitarian assistance arrived in Lebanon today, news services reported, with a United Nations truck convoy rolling into the south and a Jordanian jet landing at the damaged airport in Beirut. The plane was the first of three carrying doctors and medical supplies for a field hospital that will be set up there, according to Agence France-Presse.On Tuesday, Israel said it had killed the Hezbollah leader in the part of southern Lebanon where fighting has been concentrated, who was known as Abu Jaafer, as well as 20 to 30 other Hezbollah fighters in a 24-hour period. At least six people were killed in two neighboring houses in a predawn raid on the southern town of Nabatiye.

Hezbollah continued to strike at Israel, firing nearly 100 rockets as of Tuesday night, the Israeli military said. The group’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, threatened missile strikes “beyond Haifa.” Hezbollah is believed to have missiles able to reach Tel Aviv.

Forum: The Middle EastAnother Hezbollah leader, Mahmoud Komati, deputy chief of the group’s political arm, told The Associated Press that Hezbollah was surprised by the force of Israel’s reaction to its capture of two Israeli soldiers. He said Hezbollah had expected “the usual, limited” response such as commando raids or limited attacks on Hezbollah strongholds.

Israel’s defense minister, Amir Peretz, said Israel’s plan for a buffer zone inside Lebanon was being worked out and did not provide details. “We will have to build a new security strip, a security strip that will be a cover for our forces until international forces arrive,” he said.

“We are shaping it, but you can’t draw a single line that will become a permanent line along the entire zone,” Mr. Peretz said on Israeli radio. “Unless there is a multinational force that will enter and take control, a multinational force with the ability to act, we will continue to fire against anyone who enters the designated strip.”

Israeli officials, mindful of the Israeli public’s reluctance to repeat its long occupation of southern Lebanon, say they do not plan a major ground invasion, and do not intend to hold large areas of territory for extended periods. Israeli leaders say they want the Lebanese Army to assume control of the border eventually.

Israeli troops do not yet have control over the border strip. A senior government official said Israeli forces intended to clear out Hezbollah strongholds in border villages as the military is already doing in Bint Jbail and Marun al Ras.

The military plans to move into other villages as well, but “this will not be the re-establishment of the old security zone,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. “It is not remotely similar.”

Saudi Arabia on Tuesday pledged a financial package of $1.5 billion to aid the Lebanese economy and help rebuild the country, the official Saudi news agency reported.

International support is building for a multinational force in southern Lebanon, but many issues are unclear. An American official traveling with Ms. Rice said he believed that those matters would be worked out.

“I think you will hear about the impossibility of deploying an international force until the day it is deployed,” the official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the issue. “But there will be an international force, because all the key players want it.”France is perhaps the most likely European country to contribute troops, given its history with Lebanon. France administered Lebanon as a protectorate from 1920 to 1943, and the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri, who was killed in a car bombing last year that many believe was linked to Syria, was a close friend of the French president, Jacques Chirac.

But France is resisting the American idea of moving a force in quickly, insisting on a cease-fire first, followed by a political agreement between Israel and Lebanon that would also be accepted by Hezbollah, said Jean-Baptiste Mattéi, the French Foreign Ministry spokesman.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/26/....volunteers.ap/

Iranians volunteer to fight Israel
Group heads for 'holy war' in Lebanon
Manage Alerts | What Is This? TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Surrounded by yellow Hezbollah flags, more than 60 Iranian volunteers set off Wednesday to join what they called a holy war against Israeli forces in Lebanon.

The group -- ranging from teenagers to grandfathers -- plans to join about 200 other volunteers on the way to the Turkish border, which they hope to cross Thursday. They plan to reach Lebanon via Syria on the weekend.

Organizers said the volunteers are carrying no weapons, and it was not clear whether Turkey would allow them to pass.

A Turkish Foreign Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, would not say Wednesday if Turkey would allow them to cross. Iranians, however, can enter Turkey without a visa and stay for three months.

Iran says it will not send regular forces to aid Hezbollah, but apparently it will not attempt to stop volunteer guerrillas. Iran and Syria are Hezbollah's main sponsors.

"We are just the first wave of Islamic warriors from Iran," said Amir Jalilinejad, chairman of the Student Justice Movement, a nongovernment group that helped recruit the fighters. "More will come from here and other Muslim nations around the world. Hezbollah needs our help."

Military service is mandatory in Iran, and nearly every man has at least some basic training. Some hard-liners have more extensive drills as members of the Basiji corps, a paramilitary network linked to the powerful Revolutionary Guard.

Other volunteers, such as 72-year-old Hasan Honavi, have combat experience from the 1980-88 war with Iraq.

"God made this decision for me," said Honavi, a grandfather and one of the oldest volunteers. "I still have fight left in me for a holy war."

The group, chanting and marching in military-style formation, assembled Wednesday in a part of Tehran's main cemetery that is reserved for war dead and other "martyrs."

They prayed on Persian carpets and linked hands, with their shoes and bags piled alongside. Few had any battle-type gear and some arrived in dress shoes or plastic sandals.

Some bowed before a memorial to Hezbollah-linked suicide bombers who carried out the 1983 blast at Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 U.S. servicemen. An almost simultaneous bombing killed 56 French peacekeepers.

Speakers praised Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah and laid scorn on Muslim leaders -- including their own government -- for not sending battlefield assistance to Hezbollah since the battles erupted two weeks ago.

Even if the volunteers fail to reach Lebanon, their mobilization is an example of how Iranians are rallying to Hezbollah through organizations outside official circles.

Iran insists it is not directly involved in the conflict on the military side, but it remains the group's key pipeline for money. Iran has dismissed Israel's claims that Hezbollah has been supplied with upgraded Iranian missiles that have reached Haifa and other points across northern Israel.

"We cannot stand by and watch out Hezbollah brothers fight alone," said Komeil Baradaran, a 21-year-old Basiji member. "If we are to die in Lebanon, then we will go to heaven. It is our duty as Muslims to fight."

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Israel Bombs 4 UN Officials, World Reacts Bitterly Zaman Online
Four UN officials were killed late Wednesday in Israeli air strike on a known observation post in southern Lebanon. The UN announced that four unarmed military observers, part of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), were in the bunker struck by Israeli bombs.Rescue efforts were underway, but Israeli fire “continued even during the rescue operation,” Unifil spokesman Milo Struger said. Lebanese security officials stated that rubble is all that remains of the observation point in the Hiam region. Reportedly, the UN contingent consisted of observers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland. Another Israeli bomb hit an additional UN base in the region, leaving four Ghanaian soldiers wounded the previous day.

China Condemns Israel
China strongly condemned Israel’s killing of a Chinese peacekeeper in the airstrike against Lebanon. Spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, Liu Jianchao, made a statement regarding the death of Chinese UN observer Du Zhaoyu. “China urges the concerned sides, especially Israel, to take tangible measures to ensure the security of UN peacekeepers,” said Spokesman Jianchao, citing their “deep shock” and condemnation of the event. The Chinese Foreign Ministry officials summoned Israel’s ambassador in Beijing and demanded an apology over the Israeli air strike.

Annan: ‘I am Shocked’
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan also condemned the attack. “I am shocked and deeply distressed by the apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defence Forces of a UN observer post in southern Lebanon,” Annan said in a statement released in Rome. Annan called on the government of Israel to conduct a full investigation into the event, which he evaluated as “very disturbing,” and demanded the cessation of further attacks on UN positions and personnel.

Israel’s “Deep Regret”
“Israel does not target UN staff, and since the beginning of the conflict Israel has deployed all its efforts to ensure the safety of those staff in the region,” the foreign ministry stated.
An accident waiting to happen Asia Times Online
Analysis: The right force for Lebanon United Press International
India eNews.com - Reuters - TODAYonline - Stuff.co.nz - all 608 related »

UN deaths prompt 'diplomatic firestorm' Christian Science Monitor
The day after Israeli jets bombed a UN outpost in Lebanon, killing four UN observers from Canada, China, Austria and Finland, a "diplomatic firestorm" has erupted over the incident. CNN reports that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was "deeply distressed" over what he called an "apparently deliberate attack."

"This coordinated artillery and aerial attack on a long-established and clearly marked UN post at Khiyam occurred despite personal assurances given to me by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that UN positions would be spared Israeli fire," he said in a statement. "Furthermore, General Alain Pelligrini, the UN force commander in south Lebanon, had been in repeated contact with Israeli officers throughout the day on Tuesday, stressing the need to protect that particular UN position from attack."

CNN also reports that the UN observers who were killed in the attack had called "an Israeli military liaison about 10 times in the six hours before they died to warn that the aerial attacks were getting close to their position," according to a UN source. The Toronto Star reports that Milos Struger, spokesman for the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, said the firing on the position continued throughout Tuesday night and that "a UN rescue team sent to the observation post also came under Israeli artillery fire." Ha'aretz reports that Prime Minister Olmert called Mr. Annan to express "deep sorrow" over the deaths of the UN observers and to tell him that a full investigation would be carried out. But in a statement that was released later in the day, Olmert "expressed dismay over Annan's comments, saying "It's inconceivable for the UN to define an error as an apparently deliberate action."

Israel's UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman expressed his "deep regret" for the deaths and denied Israel hit the post intentionally. Gillerman said he was "shocked and deeply distressed by the hasty statement of the secretary-general, insinuating that Israel has deliberately targeted the UN post," calling the assertions "premature and erroneous." He said Olmert's assurances to the secretary-general are "a clear indication" of Israel's commitment to ensure the safety and security of UN personnel. Gillerman said "Israel is carrying out a thorough inquiry into this tragic incident and will inform the UN of its results as soon as possible."

Voice of America reports that Israeli Foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said Annan's comments made no sense.

"Why on earth would we deliberately target UN observers?" he asked. "What good would that do either on the military or the political level, because it so obvious that this would be harmful. Of course it is a tragedy for the observers and their bereaved families and we truly share their sorrow and we deeply regret the incident. It was obviously a fatal mistake."

Heavy fighting continued in southern Lebanon, with both sides taking casualties. The Associated Press reports that as many as 14 Israeli solders were killed Wednesday in fighting around the town of Bint Jubayl. There have been no firm reports on casualties among Hizbullah fighters. Hizbullah continued to fire rockets into northern Israel, seriously injuring one man. Israel also restarted its bombardment of sites in Beirut. USA Today reports that participants at a Middle East conference are gathering again in Rome to talk about a possible international peacekeeping force for southern Lebanon. Annan called for an immediate cease-fire, and said an international force stationed in south Lebanon "is vital to a peaceful solution."

Much of the discussion will likely focus on efforts by the Europeans and others to overcome strong US and British opposition to an immediate cease-fire. The Americans are against a quick truce, arguing that a cessation of violence must also lead to a durable peace and ensure that Hizbullah is no longer a threat to Israel. In a first sign of a concrete proposal, Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema called on participants to agree on an international donors conference for the reconstruction of Lebanon, his spokesman, Pasquale Ferrara, told reporters.

Ha'aretz reports that the US plan put forward by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice includes an Israeli withdrawal from the Sheba Farms, a mountainous region seized from Syria by Israel during the six-day war in 1967. Lebanon now claims that area as part of its country with Damascus' consent. Israel denies that the area is up for negotiation. Bloomberg News reports that Hilal Khashan, a professor of political science at the American University of Beirut, believes that a cease-fire will be reached next week, Hizbullah will agree to stop attacking Israel and disarm, Israel will leave the Sheba Farms region, and the two sides will exchange prisoners.

"Hizbullah's days are numbered," Mr. Khashan said in a phone interview. "Eventually it will be a political party without a military wing. By losing the Sheba Farms [as a reason to fight Israel], it looses its justification of existence as an armed group."

Rami Khoury, the editor-at-large of the Daily Star in Lebanon writes, however, that Ms. Rice's description last week of the fighting in Lebanon and Israel as the "birth pangs" of a new Middle East is more likely "the initial dying gasps of the Western-made political order that has defined this region and focused primarily on Israeli national dictates for most of the past half a century." One reason for this is that Washington "now can only speak to a few Arab governments (Saudi Arabia, Egypt and elsewhere) who are in almost no position to affect anyone other than their immediate families and many guards."

Washington is engaged almost exclusively with Arab governments whose influence with Syria is virtually nonexistent, whose credibility with Arab public opinion is zero, whose own legitimacy at home is increasingly challenged and whose pro-US policies tend to promote the growth of those militant Islamist movements that now lead the battle against American and Israeli policies. Is Rice traveling to a new Middle East, or to a diplomatic Disneyland of her own imagination? If Rice pursues contacts in the coming five days that increase Washington's bias towards Israel, tighten its links with isolated, increasingly impotent Arab governments and further alienate the masses of Arab public opinion, she will exacerbate the very problem she claims she wants to fix: the spread of violence and terror, practiced simultaneously by the armies of states like the United States, Israel, and police state governments in the Middle East who live by violence as a rule, and by non-state actors like Hezbollah and others like it.

Finally, Reuters reports that US Democrats are calling for a boycott of the speech to Congress Wednesday by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki after he recently denounced Israel's raids on Lebanon and Gaza. Last week Mr. Malaiki said it was time for "the world to take quick stands to stop the Israeli aggression." Maliki has also refrained from giving his opinion about Hizbullah. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California said unless Maliki "disavows his critical comments of Israel and condemns terrorism, it is inappropriate to honor him with a joint meeting of Congress."
Olmert: 'Deep Regret' Over Peacekeepers Washington Post
Israelis told to please explain The Age
Ynetnews - Irish Examiner - Sydney Morning Herald - Jerusalem Post - all 310 related »

Israel troops 'ignored' UN plea BBC News
UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon contacted Israeli troops 10 times before an Israeli bomb killed four of them, an initial UN report says.The post was hit by a precision-guided missile after six hours of shelling, diplomats familiar with the probe say. UN-led crisis talks in Rome ended with no agreement to urge an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. Eight Israeli soldiers have been killed in southern Lebanon - the biggest Israeli loss since the conflict began. Twenty-two soldiers were injured in the clashes in the town of Bint Jbail, a strategically located Hezbollah stronghold. Later, a massive explosion destroyed a several-storey building in the centre of Tyre housing the offices of a top Hezbollah commander lived. He was not there at the time. A senior Israel army general said he expected the fighting would continue for "several more weeks". More than 400 Lebanese and 42 Israelis have died in two weeks of conflict, which began after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on 12 July.

In other developments:

• Hezbollah fires more than 100 rockets into Israel, injuring 31 people, security and medical sources say
• A Jordanian military plane arrived in Beirut to evacuate some of the most seriously wounded Lebanese civilians
• Ten lorries loaded with food and medical supplies arrived in the southern town of Tyre from the capital, Beirut
• Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah warned on TV that his organisation would begin firing rockets further south into Israel than Haifa
• More than 300 people - mainly US and Australian citizens - who had been caught in the fighting in southern Lebanon are due to leave from Tyre on a Canadian ferry on Wednesday evening

Israeli regrets
The four unarmed UN observers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland, died after their UN post in the town of Khiam was hit by an Israeli air strike on Tuesday. The UN report says each time the UN contacted Israeli forces, they were assured the firing would stop. A senior Irish soldier working for the UN forces had warned the Israelis six times that their bombardment was endangering the lives of UN staff, Ireland's foreign ministry said. Had Israel responded to the requests, "rather than deliberately ignoring them", the observers would still be alive, a diplomat familiar with the report said. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has expressed "deep regrets" over the deaths. Israel is conducting an investigation into the incident. It has rejected accusations made by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that the targeting of the UN position was "apparently deliberate". White House spokesman Tony Snow said "something went really wrong" to cause the deaths, but also said there was no reason to suggest the bombing was deliberate. The UN Security Council is meeting to discuss the incident.

'Utmost urgency'
The Rome summit, called by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, brought together EU and Arab nations plus the US and Russia, but not Israel, Iran or Syria.The conference released a declaration expressing "determination to work immediately to reach with utmost urgency a ceasefire to put an end to the current hostilities". It also said a ceasefire "must be lasting, permanent and sustainable". The statement called for an international force with a UN mandate for south Lebanon, and the full implementation of existing UN Security Council resolutions calling for the disarming of militias and deployment of Lebanese troops in the border region. Mr Annan said it was important to work with the countries of the region, including Syria and Iran, to find a solution to the crisis. But Condoleezza Rice was critical of the role of both countries. "It's not a question of talking to Syria, it's whether Syria's prepared to act," she said. In an impassioned speech, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora warned that more people would die if the ceasefire was delayed, and called for a Lebanese-Israeli prisoner exchange as part of plan to end the fighting.

High death toll in Gaza clashes BBC News
Israeli military attacks in the Gaza Strip have killed 23 Palestinians, including several children, witnesses and medical sources say.At least 11 militants were among the dead, but many civilians were also killed, and about 70 people were hurt. The raids come amid Israeli efforts to release a soldier captured by Palestinian militants last month. About 140 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier have been killed since Israel launched its offensive. The attacks on Gaza have been overshadowed by fierce clashes between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Girls killed
Israeli air strikes began early on Wednesday and were backed by up to 30 tanks and other ground forces.A military spokesman said the air force had targeted "armed gunmen" east of Gaza City as troops mounted a fresh incursion on the city's borders, the AFP news agency reported. According to the BBC's Lucy Williamson in Gaza, the tanks stopped short of Gaza City and the refugee camp of Jabaliya. In one strike, offices used by Hamas in Gaza City were also targeted. There were reports that several Hamas members died, plus at least one militant from the Popular Resistance Committees group. Three girls, including one infant, were among the dead, Palestinians said. As well as attempting to free Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, Israeli units operating in Gaza have been trying to stop Palestinian militants from firing rockets into Israel.

14 Israeli troops killed In attacks on S. Lebanon :

Hezbollah inflicted heavy casualties on Israeli troops as they battled for a key hilltop town in southern Lebanon for a fourth day Wednesday, with as many as 14 soldiers reported killed. Lebanese official
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14200.htm


Nasrallah vows to fire missiles into Israel’s heart :

"We are entering a new phase in the confrontation, the phase of (striking) beyond Haifa," Nasrallah said in a televised speech referring to Israel’s main northern city.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14205.htm


Dahr Jamail : Hezbollah Could Be Gaining Strength :

"People are afraid, and in need, and we are protecting them and helping care for the refugees created by this Zionist aggression," he told IPS. "The longer this fight continues, the more support we will have. We are prepared to fight to the very end."
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14201.htm


Ahmed Motiar: Accepting Israeli Distortions To Justify Aggression :

Hamas and Hizbullah campaigns are legitimate resistance operations fighting a colonial army of occupation. Instead, by labeling their actions as “terrorism”, it effectively denies them the rights we all enjoy, namely, the right to be free, democratic and live in security without occupation.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14204.htm


US will not pressure Israel to stop:

Israeli ambassador to Washington Danny Ayalon, said that the US government would not pressure Israel to halt its operations in Lebanon.
http://tinyurl.com/kwqkj


Irish officer warned Israel on threat to U.N. staff:

An Irish army officer in south Lebanon warned Israel six times that air strikes threatened the lives of U.N. observers there before four staff were killed in a direct hit, Ireland's Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.
http://tinyurl.com/fuy25


UK Assists Israel and U.S. In Killing Lebanese Civilians:

US. Sending Bombs To Israel Through The UK:
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14203.htm


Dahr Jamail: Refugees Have Only Their Anger:

Among hundreds of thousands of refugees scattered across city parks, schools and abandoned buildings in Beirut, new and chilling words have been doing the rounds.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14198.htm


Israel's war with Hizbollah part of wider U.S. plan:

The United States wants to destroy Hizbollah, partly to prevent it from menacing Israel but also to humble the group's "founding patron Iran and its ally Syria", whose actions Washington says threaten the entire Middle East.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L25902370.htm


Saudi King Washes Lebanons Blood Fom His Hands:

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has promised to give $500m to Lebanon to pay for reconstruction.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5214354.stm


3 Children Among 19 Palestinians Killed By Israeli Occupation Forces in Gaza:

Israeli occupation forces killed 19 Palestinians in fighting across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, including at least 10 civilians, three were children and one a handicapped man, medics and witnesses said.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14202.htm

The international conference on the Lebanese crisis ended in Rome Wednesday with no practical way forward approved

July 26, 2006, 5:16 PM (GMT+02:00)

The participants agreed in principle that the Beirut government must control the whole of Lebanon, accepted the French position that a multinational stabilization force must be sponsored by the UN – not NATO, and endorsed the US call for a lasting and sustainable ceasefire, rather than an immediate truce demanded by Lebanese prime minister Fouad Siniora.

But no firm steps were set in motion.

The UN secretary Kofi Annan said it was necessary to work with Iran and Syria to help stop the conflict. However, US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice accused Syria of not acting responsibility and said she was deeply concerned by Iran’s role in the conflict. She insisted there must be no return to the status quo ante

The Lebanese prime minister put all the blame for the crisis on Israel, refusing to condemn Hizballah. The Italian foreign minister welcomed Israel’s decision to allow the passage of aid to Lebanon by land, sea and air.

Copyright 2000-2006 DEBKAfile. All Rights Reserved.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,...2287671,00.html

No ceasefire 'for weeks' as Lebanon talks stall
By Nicholas Blanford in Tyre, James Bone in New York and Philip Webster

ISRAEL received tacit approval to continue its campaign to crush Hezbollah yesterday, even as it was condemned for killing four UN observers and suffered its heaviest losses in Lebanon.
At an emergency meeting in Rome of foreign ministers from America, Europe and the Arab world. the United States, with British support, beat off concerted international demands for an immediate ceasefire. Instead, the ministers urged Israel to exercise the “utmost restraint” while the conditions for a sustainable ceasefire were put in place, and agreed in principle to the creation of an international force to police an eventual peace deal.

At the same time Britain complained to the United States about the apparent use of Prestwick airport, near Glasgow, as a staging post for shipments of laser-guided bombs from America to Israel. “We are not happy about it,” Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, told Channel 4.

Sir Stephen Wall, until last year one of Tony Blair’s leading foreign policy advisers, turned on the Government, saying that it had “weasel-worded” its way through the crisis and that Britain’s moral authority was being undermined by its close relationship with the US. “The overriding reason is Blair’s conviction that he has to hitch the UK to the chariot of the US President,” he wrote in The New Statesman.

“Could the Prime Minister really not speak up for the simple proposition that the slaughter of innocent people in Lebanon, the destruction of their country and the ruin of half a million lives were wrong and should stop immediately?”

In New York the UN Security Council was preparing a statement expressing deep shock at Israel’s bombing on Tuesday night of a clearly marked UN observation post on the Lebanese border, killing officials from China, Finland, Canada and Austria. The UN said the observers had called the Israeli military ten times in six hours to say that shells were falling all around their post.

Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, apologised and accepted demands for an investigation, but angrily rejected claims by Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, that the bombing was deliberate. The Americans also blocked an attempt by China to have the UN statement describe the bombing as “apparently deliberate”.

At least nine Israeli soldiers were killed on the fourth day of a battle for the town of Bint Jbeil, a Hezbollah stronghold four kilometres (2½ miles) north of the border — the highest toll since the offensive began 15 days ago. Hezbollah also fired more than 130 rockets at northern Israel, injuring dozens.

Israeli commanders have been surprised at the strength of Hezbollah’s resistance. Major-General Udi Adam, head of the northern command, said: “Given the progress over the last two weeks, I reckon [the offensive] will continue for several more weeks.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060726/wl_mi...on_060726150908

Hezbollah demands immediate truce, prisoner swap Wed Jul 26, 11:09 AM ET

Shiite militant group Hezbollah, locked in fierce battles with Israeli forces in south Lebanon, has demanded an immediate ceasefire and indirect talks for a prisoner exchange after world diplomats failed to agree an instant truce.

Mohamad Raad, leader of Hezbollah's 14-member parliamentary bloc, said: "The position for the Lebanese government is to establish an immediate and complete ceasefire and to start indirect negotiations for a prisoner exchange.

"Anything other than that is not acceptable," he said in a statement, as representatives of 15 nations met in Rome to address the crisis but failed to agree on an immediate ceasefire.

"The (Islamic) Resistance will continue its confrontation of the aggression whatever the Zionists do," he said.

The international crisis conference in Rome vowed to work with "utmost urgency" for a truce.

Israel launched a massive offensive in Lebanon after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers on July 12 in a bid to secure a prisoners' swap.

Israeli forces have since crossed into southern Lebanon, facing fierce resistance from Hezbollah guerrillas.




Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.


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http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/world/15127394.htm

Iranian president wants Lebanon cease-fire
VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
Associated Press
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for a cease-fire in Lebanon and criticized U.S. policy in the Middle East on Wednesday, saying Washington wants to "recarve the map" of the region with Israel's help.

Ahmadinejad's nation is a major backer of Hezbollah and a sworn enemy of Israel, but he denied that Tehran provides military support to the militant group, saying Iran only supports it politically and morally.

"Those who say that we provide military support for Hezbollah are lying. That is the way for America to cover up its failures," he said, according to a translation of his remarks from Farsi.

However, more than 60 Iranian volunteers set off from Iran on Wednesday in what they called a holy war against Israeli forces in Lebanon.

Ahmadinejad said a cease-fire must precede talks and blamed Israel for the hostilities, demanding it compensate Lebanon and apologize for its actions. He also denied U.S. claims that Iran provides military support for Hezbollah.

"We are calling for a cease-fire in Lebanon. We are against the war, against occupation," he told reporters after meetings with Tajik President Emomali Rakhmonov and Afghan President Hamid Karzai during a two-day visit to the Central Asian nation of Tajikistan.

Ahmadinejad demanded Israel compensate Lebanon and apologize for its actions.

He suggested the hostilities fit in with what he called a U.S. effort to influence the future of the Middle East. "The United States wants to recarve the map of the Middle East, acting through Israel. The United States is conducting its international policy through deceit, money and treachery," he said.

In a clear reference to the United States, he also warned against any attempt to attack Iran, which Washington believes is seeking to develop nuclear weapons. The Bush administration has stressed it wants to resolve the issue through diplomacy but will not rule out any course of action.

"If they attack Iran, they know our country, our people," he said. "They should think better before doing that. We can defend ourselves. Iran is a great world power which can protect its interests and its integrity. Only silly people would think about attacking Iran."

Ahmadinejad and Rakhmonov signed a joint statement Tuesday declaring "that the use of force against Palestine and Lebanon is unacceptable." At that time, they also called for a cease-fire and urged international organizations to seek the swiftest possible settlement of the conflict.

Organizers said the Iranian volunteers are carrying no weapons, and it was not clear whether Turkey would allow them to pass.

The volunteers - ranging from teenagers to grandfathers - plan to join about 200 others on the way to the Turkish border, which they hope to cross Thursday. They plan to reach Lebanon via Syria on the weekend.

A Turkish Foreign Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, would not say Wednesday if Turkey would allow them to cross. Iranians, however, can enter Turkey without a visa and stay for three months.

Iran says it will not send regular forces to aid Hezbollah, but apparently it will not attempt to stop volunteers.

During their meeting, Ahmadinejad, Rakhmonov and Karzai discussed regional security and prospects for economic cooperation and signed agreements on combating drug trafficking and terrorism as well as bolstering trade and other economic ties.

They agreed to meet annually, with next year's gathering in Kabul.

"Links between our three nations are rooted deep in history. We have the same religion, similar customs and interests, and we also face the same threats," Ahmadinejad said.

Karzai said Afghanistan wants to expand cooperation with the other two nations. "We need it very much," he said.

Karzai said Afghanistan also condemned the military action in Lebanon and favors a diplomatic solution. "This tragedy must end. We suffered through the horrors of war, and the pain of the Lebanese people is our pain," he said.

Earlier Wednesday, Ahmadinejad opened an Iranian-financed tunnel improving connections between impoverished Tajikistan's north and the capital region. Iran has sought closer ties with the former Soviet republics in Central Asia since they gained independence in 1991.

Tehran has focused mostly on transport and infrastructure projects and restoring historically close cultural ties. The three-mile tunnel cost $39 million, of which Iran provided $31 million, including a $10 million grant.

---

Associated Press writer Brian Murphy in Tehran and Parvina Khamidova in Tajikistan contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060726/wl_mi...ia_060726125851
Syria demands truce, prisoner swap in Lebanon crisis Wed Jul 26, 8:58 AM ET

Syria has called for a ceasefire, an exchange of prisoners and Israel's withdrawal from occupied Arab lands in order to resolve the current conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

"To resolve the crisis in the region it is necessary to decree a ceasefire, proceed with a prisoner exchange and for Israel to withdraw from all occupied Arab territory," Information Minister Mohsen Bilal said Wednesday.

Quoted by the official SANA agency, Bilal said such a withdrawal must encompass the Golan Heights, captured from Syria in 1967 and subsequently annexed, including the Shebaa Farms, now claimed by Lebanon with Syria's blessing.

Bilal also said the people of the Middle East would themselves define their region after Washington repeatedly called for "a new Middle East".

"The peoples of the region will define the Middle East that they want. No force can replace them. The people will determine their future," Bilal was quoted as saying.

His comments came after Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem said Syria could intervene in the ongoing crisis, laying down similar conditions in an interview.

"We are ready to intervene to play a positive role. We ask that the United States put pressure on Israel to accept a ceasefire and an exchange of prisoners," Muallem told Italian daily La Repubblica.

The minister, whose country is not taking part in Wednesday's international conference in Rome on the crisis, also reiterated denials that Syria supplies Hezbollah with arms.

"Hezbollah has an arsenal allowing it to fight for weeks, and the arms definitely do not go through Damascus," he was quoted as saying.

Muallem also rejected Israel's position that it could defeat the Shiite movement.

"It can't happen, because Hezbollah represents a third of the Lebanese population," he said.

He also said he regretted "not having been invited" to the 15-nation talks in Rome, although he "appreciated" Italy's initiative to host the meeting.




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http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/print...9927208,00.html
Rice warns Iran, Syria over ceasefire
From correspondents in Doha
27jul06

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has cautioned Syria and Iran that they face further isolation if they try to scupper US-led attempts to get a ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel.

Ms Rice was speaking to reporters flying with her from Rome where US, Arab and European ministers agreed to work with the "utmost urgency" to get a ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel but disappointed Beirut and others by not demanding an immediate end to hostilities.
The top US diplomat urged Iran and Syria not to "torpedo" any attempts to stop the fighting between Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon and Israeli forces in a two-week conflict that has killed more than 400 people in Lebanon and over 50 in Israel.

"This needs to be between Lebanon and Israel," Ms Rice told reporters en route to Malaysia to meet Asian ministers.

She said Syria, which backs Hezbollah, and pulled out of Lebanon last year after decades of occupation, should not be allowed to return to Lebanon and influence events there and neither should Iran, which Ms Rice accused of supporting "extremist elements".

The United States is also at loggerheads with Iran over its nuclear program and Ms Rice has spearheaded an international campaign to sanction Tehran over its nuclear ambitions.

"It is therefore very important that a message go to Iran that they will deepen their isolation if they become an enemy of peace for the Lebanese people and for the Israeli people. I think there are plenty of people to send that message," Ms Rice said.

In Rome, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan promised the United Nations would get involved in dealing with Iran and Syria and Ms Rice said she hoped he could get the two US foes to behave responsibly.

Two senior US officials from Ms Rice's delegation have returned to the Middle East to try to negotiate with Lebanon and Israel over conditions for a ceasefire and Ms Rice left open the possibility she could return to the region on her way home from Asia.

"I'm flexible about what I should do. Stay tuned," she said when asked whether she planned to return to the Middle East this weekend. "I would expect to be in the region many more times."

Ms Rice said she was pleased with the outcome of the Rome meeting and strongly rejected suggestions the United States was alone in not seeking an immediate ceasefire.

"It was not all countries calling for an immediate ceasefire and the United States saying 'no, we need to have an urgent and sustainable ceasefire'," said Ms Rice, who declined to name which countries had supported her view.

The United States fought hard and won language in the final communique that excluded a call for an "immediate ceasefire", arguing that conditions needed to be right otherwise such a truce would quickly break down.

"The fields of the Middle East are littered with broken ceasefires and every time there is a broken ceasefire there is destruction and misery," Ms Rice said.

The Rome conference agreed on an international force to secure the border area between Lebanon and Israel, and Ms Rice said that while this force would not enter "under hostile fire" it should have a very robust mandate.

The United Nations is holding a troop contribution meeting over the next week. Ms Rice reiterated Washington did not plan to offer troops for such a mission.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/742752.html

Proposed multinational force won't disarm Hezbollah of its rockets

By Aluf Benn, Amos Harel, Shlomo Shamir and Jack Khoury

The role of the international force that will be sent to Lebanon following a cease-fire will be to assist the Lebanese army to deploy in the south, ensure that Hezbollah does not rebuild its positions there and ensure that quiet is maintained along the Israeli-Lebanese border, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert agreed yesterday.

However, government sources said, this force will not be responsible for disarming Hezbollah nor will it be stationed at the border crossings between Lebanon and Syria in order to halt the flow of weapons from Syria to Hezbollah.

Israel has thereby in effect conceded its initial demands that any cease-fire deal include stripping Hezbollah of its rockets and ensuring that it is not rearmed.




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Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces took up positions near the South Lebanon town of Al-Khiam last night. The incursion was preceded by a heavy artillery barrage.

Also last night, a Druze Israel Defense Forces battalion was active near Maroun Ras. A platoon commander was lightly wounded during that battle. Lebanese sources reported that a senior Hezbollah operative was killed by an unexplained explosion in Itaroun; Israel declined to comment.

The Lebanese government wants any international force to be a United Nations force, while Israel prefers that it operate under a UN mandate, but not be under the UN's command. The U.S. government is currently drafting a new Security Council resolution that will define the force's goals and powers. That resolution would replace Resolution 1559, which called for disarming Hezbollah and deploying the Lebanese army in the south. The new resolution will also call for Hezbollah's disarmament, but it is not clear who will enforce this provision.

The international force will be deployed in two stages: an intervention force that will arrive within 60 days, followed later by the main force. CNN, citing Lebanese sources, said that the force will initially comprise 10,000 Turkish and Egyptian soldiers, and will later expand to 30,000 troops from several countries.

Due to the talk about a new international force, the Security Council is likely to extend the mandate of UNIFIL, the current UN force in Lebanon, by only another month, instead of the usual six months, UN sources said. UNIFIL's current mandate expires on July 31.

Today, Rice will attend an international conference in Rome to discuss the Lebanon crisis. Government sources predicted that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan will tell the conference that any new arrangement in Lebanon must resolve the problem of Shaba Farms, a piece of Israeli-occupied territory that Beirut claims is Lebanese, but the UN says is Syrian. Rice raised this issue with Olmert yesterday, noting that the Lebanese government uses Israel's continued control over Shaba to excuse its weakness.

The IDF General Staff is currently considering expanding its Lebanon operation to include seizing control of territory, instead of just raiding villages.

That would require an additional call-up of the reserves. However, such an expansion has not yet been approved.

Defense Minister Amir Peretz said during a visit to the North yesterday that Israel intends to set up a "security zone" in southern Lebanon.

However, his office later said that what he meant was not a permanent Israeli presence, but a kilometer-wide strip north of the border that Hezbollah operatives would be forbidden to enter following the IDF's withdrawal. The ban would be enforced by firing from IDF positions within Israel.

Also yesterday, Hezbollah fired more than 100 Katyusha rockets at Israel, killing a 15-year-old girl.

The IDF believes that despite Israel's ongoing offensive, Hezbollah will be capable of firing rockets for many days to come.

The IDF also completed its takeover of Bint Jbail, in southern Lebanon, yesterday. Army sources believes that some 25 Hezbollah gunmen were killed in the fighting, but dozens more escaped through a narrow corridor that the IDF left open to enable civilians to flee