The New Front For Israel

For those of you who may have been at work all day and are just catching up on the news of the day I'm gonna provide a quick summary of the Israeli situation, which is threatening to become a much bigger deal then it has in many many years

At 2300hrs PST two armored Israeli jeeps were on patrol on the border fence carrying Israeli reservist soldiers. Hezbollah terrorists ambushed the jeep about 200 meters from the fence, on the Israeli side between Shtula and Zarit.

Three Isreali soldiers are killed, two are wounded and Hezbollah takes two of them captive. They are dragged into the Lebanon side where a vehicle awaited them and they drive north and out of view.

At 0000hrs PST the Israeli air force bomb bridges in the area to restrict the terrorist movements within Lebanon.

At 0100hrs PST The Israeli Defense Force sends tanks into Lebanon where one of them was hit by an IED killing all four crew members. The Air Force and the Navy begin attacking targets inside Lebanon close to Beirut.

At 0500hrs PST Israeli soldiers enter Lebanon to retrieve the dead soldiers bodies from the tank. One is killed while two are wounded.

From there the Israeli forces have vowed to take severe actions against Lebanon, which they seem to believe is responsible….not sure how they came to this conclusion since Lebanon kicked out Hizbollah and the Syrian troops but who knows what kind of intelligence they are getting. Take a look at the picture to the right which shows Lebanese cheering about the abduction of the Israeli troops, so maybe they are not that far off. But it would make more sense to me to involve Syria in this since they are the ones in control of that terrorist organization.

GOC Northern Command Udi Adam told reporters that Israel plans to "push back" Hezbollah guerrillas controlling southern Lebanon, adding that the IDF has "no intention at the moment of involving Syria," which has great influence over Hezbollah.

"We think at the moment the debate is beween us and the government of Lebanon," he said.

[…]Israel's cabinet on Wednesday authorized what it called a "severe" response after the cross-border attacks.

A statement issued by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's cabinet said Israel holds the Lebanese government responsible for the attacks and for the safe return of the abducted soldiers.

"Israel holds the sovereign government of Lebanon as responsible for the action which emanated from its territory and for the safe return of the abducted soldiers."

"Israel must act with appropriate severity in response to this attack and it will do so. Israel will respond in a forthright and severe manner against the perpetrators responsible and will act to prevent future efforts and actions directed against Israel."

Reserve troops called up
In the wake of the attack, IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz headed into the military's war room at the Defense Ministry complex in Tel Aviv, Channel 10 television reported.

During consultations, senior IDF officers called for an end to the restraint against Hezbollah and said Lebanon should be made to pay a heavy price.

Halutz ordered the IDF to mobilize a reserve infantry division that was expected to be sent to the northern border. General Staff exercises held over the past several years tested a number of possible responses to kidnapping scenarios.

One of these responses involves the massive incursion of IDF ground forces into Lebanese territory. Military sources told Haaretz that Israel is liable to act with the aim of "altering the rules of the game on the northern front."

Now what is the reasons for Hezbollah to kidnap these soldiers. Is this an order from Iran to provide some relief to the Gaza Strip?

Palestinians in Gaza welcomed the attack in Lebanon, hoping it would force Israel to shift its focus away from them.

"People are cheering this attack … because they view it as a kind of revenge and reprisal against what Israel has been doing in Gaza," said Salah Bardawil, a spokesman for Hamas in the Palestinian parliament. "Militarily, by opening a new front against Israel, it would ease the pressure on us. Israel is using a huge force in Gaza now. It will have to use part of its military capacity in Lebanon."

or is it just because Iran and Syria want a war with Israel, they mistakenly believe they can win it and these attacks are their efforts to pull Israel into a much wider conflict while telling the world that it's Israel's fault (as usual).

This will get much worse before any sort of peace can begin once again. The terrorists to the South and now the North have begun the march, it's time for Israel to end it. Israel didn't start this thing and as Hugh Hewitt reminds us, this should be brought up often:

The Islamists to Israel's south and now north "would make war" rather than let Israel survive.

Israel will accept war rather than let itself perish.

And so the war has come again. I suspect that it will get much, much worse before peace approaches the region again. And it is the obligation of Western media to again and again announce clearly that it was not Israel's choice, but the Islamists.

The key here is Syria, for now. Destroy that Baathist regime and you will significantly destroy Hizbollah. For those thinking that one side is going to blink on this matter, think again. Israel is fighting to survive while these groups are fighting to destroy. Remember 1948, 1956, 1967, or 1973?

I love this comment:

Hey, do you think that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is now going to get to write a column for the Washington Post like Hamas Ismail Haniyeh just did? That’s the deal right – kidnap and kill Israeli soldiers, get a column? Or do you think that the WaPo won’t take Nasrallah because his thugs didn’t manage to murder any Israeli soldiers in their attack like Haniyeh’s managed to do? That might be the question: Is Nasrallah not a successful enough terrorist for the Washington Post to turn over column inches to him?

And this one :

Army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz warned that the assault would widen, Israeli TV reported. If the soldiers are not returned, he said, the military would target infrastructure and "turn back the clock in Lebanon by 20 years."

You know what else is the deal? Terrorists kidnap and kill your citizens and you get blamed for attacking back. Gotta love the world we live in.

Oh, by the way…..where are all the lefty bloggers on this? Has anyone heard a peep out of them? Too busy defending Hezbollah and Hamas I guess.

UPDATE 1921hrs PST

Israel has just approved massive air strikes into Lebanon:

The Israel Defense Forces began preparing Wednesday night for a widespread aerial assault on Lebanon, after the cabinet approved a "severe" response to Hezbollah's attack on the northern border on Wednesday, which ended with eight soldiers dead and two kidnapped.

Although nothing is definitely known about the soldiers' condition, they are believed to be alive, since little of their blood was found at the scene of the attack.

The response will include a series of aerial attacks against Hezbollah, and particularly against the batteries of rockets aimed at Israel that the organization has stationed along the northern border. This operation is expected to last for several days. The IDF also recommended various operations aimed at the Lebanese government and strategic targets in Lebanon.

As they've already stated, they are going to bomb them back to the stone ages. No ground forces at this time but it appears they are coming to the realization that ground forces will be used shortly:

The IDF did not recommend moving ground forces into Lebanon at this time.

However, Hezbollah is likely to respond to the Israeli attacks with massive rocket launches at Israel, and in that case, the IDF might move ground forces into Lebanon, both to create a temporary buffer zone in the southern part of the country and to destroy Hezbollah's network of outposts and rockets along the border. The goal of any such operation would also be to ensure that this network could not be rebuilt.

UPDATE II 2200hrs PST

Israeli news is reporting that Hizbollah sent rockets into Israel wounding 12:

Twelve people were wounded – one seriously – when four Hizbullah-fired Katyusha rockets landed in central Nahariya on Thursday morning, Army Radio reported.

The attack was one of the deepest launched by Hizbullah into Israeli territory.

Also reports coming out that Israel bombed Beirut airport in the beginning stages of a massive bombing campaign:

IAF fighter jets bombed runways at Beirut International Airport early Thursday morning as part of a military campaign which it vowed would be harsh and quick against the Lebanese government and Hizbullah, which killed eight IDF soldiers and kidnapped two others along the northern border the previous day.

Al-Jazeera television network reported that 15 people were killed in the airstrike.

The IDF said that the airport was targeted because it was used by Hizbullah to import weapons.

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