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Re: Hello from Isarel!
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Originally Posted by jpsartre12
And it looks like Hezbollah is getting the shit kicked out of them despite claims to the contrary. First they say they're ready for a full-scale war, now they're ready to negotiate. My opinion. Pummel them into Hell. See how many virgins are really waiting for them.  |
Who is is getting the shit kicked out (to use your cynical phrase)? Please listen to the news.
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A well-planned Hizbullah ambush on the outskirts of the southern Lebanese village of Bint Jbail Wednesday devastated Battalion 51 of the Golani Brigade, leaving eight soldiers, including three officers, dead and 22 wounded.
Later, a paratrooper officer was killed and three of his men were wounded, two seriously, in a separate firefight on the outskirts of nearby Maroun al-Ras.
Dozens of Hizbullah gunmen armed with antitank missiles and machine guns and geared up in night-vision goggles and bulletproof vests set a trap for a force of Golani infantrymen led by Lt.-Col. Yaniv Asor, commander of Battalion 51. At 5 a.m. Wednesday, Asor and his men asked the Golani command center for permission to enter an area of the outskirts of Bint Jbail. Col. Tamir Yidai, commander of the brigade, gave the green light for the operation.
Asor and his men moved quickly through approximately 15 one-story homes. But as the troops moved through the narrow alleyways, a strong Hizbullah force sent a wave of gunfire and missiles at the force, killing and wounding several soldiers in the first moments of the fight. As Asor and his men fought to regain control of the situation, other Hizbullah cells outflanked them and opened fire on the force as well as other IDF positions in the town.
The battle lasted for several hours during which Asor and his men sustained heavy casualties and killed at least 40 Hizbullah guerrillas, some in gunbattles at point-blank range. Then the evacuation of the wounded began, which lasted six hours due to incessant enemy fire. Four IAF helicopter pilots risked their lives by landing in enemy territory.
Men from the Golani's elite reconnaissance unit and from Battalion 51 carried stretchers with their wounded comrades for three kilometers to the helicopters, which landed for just under one minute at a time beneath a cover of smoke grenades and massive artillery fire before taking off to evacuate the wounded to Israeli hospitals.
Meanwhile at the Golani Brigade's command center, emotions ran high as word came in of the fierce gunbattle and the heavy casualties. Soldiers ran back and forth with maps and officers screamed into encrypted cellular phones coordinating the evacuation of the wounded.
At one point, Brig.-Gen. Gal Hirsh, commander of Division 91, stepped out of the command center to update Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz. "We can't land the helicopters," he said. "The fighting is too intense."
On Tuesday, things in the town had looked entirely different. The IDF, senior officers announced matter-of-factly, had it surrounded and were in control of the town. "The town is in our control," Hirsh said Tuesday. "The work is almost completed and the terrorists are fleeing." Some terrorists, however, seem to have remained, with deadly results.
The Golani's fight didn't end the combat Bint Jbail. Wednesday evening, after the IDF had once again declared it had secured the town, a Paratrooper force nearby was hit by a Sagger antitank missile.
One officer was killed and three soldiers were wounded in the attack and in the gunfight that ensued.
A high-ranking source in the Northern Command told The Jerusalem Post Wednesday that Bint Jbail could not be attacked by air since there were still several hundred civilians there. The officer said that the fighting in the town would continue at least for a day or two.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...cle%2FShowFull
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One-by-one the wounded were carried out on stretchers. One young soldier had blood streaming down his leg, which was bound with a tourniquet. Another lay still on a stretcher, only his twitching legs indicating that he was alive.
Having brought back his wounded comrades, a tank driver sat on the turret clutching his head between his gloved hands and crying while two crew members tried to console him.
Ambulances rushed the wounded over roads dug up by tank tracks. They drove past fields left charred and barren by fires from hundreds of Hezbollah rockets and through the empty streets of ghost towns — their inhabitants hiding in bomb shelters.
Helicopters airlifted the seriously wounded out of the area.
In the recovery room, another soldier, 21-year-old Yishai Green, lay in a bed with two large Israeli flags hanging next to him.
A group of French Jews on a solidarity visit tried to cheer him up with balloons, and another man went from room to room playing a guitar.
"It's a real mess and I am not allowed to talk about it," was all Green had to say about the battle for Bint Jbail
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060724/...ing_the_battle
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Israel's battle-weary Bokim Battalion, which lost two soldiers in Hezbollah ambushes Monday, returned from the fighting exhausted Tuesday afternoon, lounging in the shade of a kiwi grove and hanging their sweat-soaked uniforms out to dry. They described a complex attack in which one of their tanks, sent to evacuate wounded ground fighters, was pounded by three Hezbollah missiles. A second tank struck a mine or other explosive as it rushed to provide aid, they said.
"My radio only lets me hear people inside the vehicle, so I didn't realize right away that they had died. Then I just started to cry. I couldn't stop," said Avi Chai, 19, a tank driver whose hands and arms were still black with smoke and grease.
In recent days, Israeli news outlets, which had largely lined up behind the army's conduct of the war, have begun to ask why an army that once defeated the armies of several Arab neighbors in six days was finding it so difficult to push one militia off Israel's border.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...501400_pf.html
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Haaretz describes the situation as "Firepower versus brainpower" and concludes that the IDF "is not functioning", that Hezbollah has "the upper hand" against the IDF. Read the whole article here:
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Firepower versus brainpower
By Yoel Marcus
Two weeks after Israel set out to defeat Hezbollah, its military achievements are pretty limited. A country that stood up to seven Arab nations in the War of Independence, a war of the "few against the many," with an army that pulverized the invading forces of three Arab nations in the span of six days, is now facing an embarrassing role reversal: a war of the "many against the few" in which Israel is on the floorboards.
Who would have believed that a guerrilla organization with a few hundred regular fighters, something like a brigade and a half, could paralyze half a country, firing off hundreds of missiles every day? A total of 2,200 by Sunday morning, says the defense minister. Who would have believed that cities like Safed, Acre, Nahariya, Tiberias and especially Haifa, the capital of the North, would wake up every morning to the sound of sirens and deadly rocket fire that would turn tens of thousands of people into refugees and shut down life in a large part of the country? And that's even before Hezbollah has tried to use its long-range missiles on Tel Aviv.
Who would have believed that the Israel Defense Forces, the army that is prepared for large-scale wars, that Iran fears will attack its nuclear facilities, that can drop 23 tons of bombs in a single night, is incapable of stopping Hezbollah's missile fire? How is that as soon as the IDF announces Hezbollah's TV station has been bombed, Hassan Nasrallah pops up in blooming health to continue his taunts against us?
Israel went to war with the goal of wiping out Hezbollah, a hostile militia operating on its border, in response to provocation and the kidnapping of soldiers made possible by the sluggishness and routine that has become widespread in the IDF in recent months. It did so with international backing, with President Bush leading the pack, and the support of most Israeli citizens.
Bush and the public assumed that the army knew what it was doing, and that Israel, with its superiority in manpower, weaponry and technology, would be able to put an end to Hezbollah as a menace to Israel. Little by little, however, a worrying picture has begun to emerge: Instead of an army that is small but smart, we are catching glimpses of an army that is big, rich and dumb.
Take the bizarre appearances of IDF top brass on television: The commander of the Home Front, who stands there handing out high marks to the Israeli public, seemingly unaware that the moment people sense the army is not functioning, they will take to their heels - not only leaving their homes but fleeing the country, following tens of thousands of tourists who have already hightailed it out of here. The chief of staff, who had to say that "we're going to turn Lebanon back into what it was 20 years ago," and now threatens to blow up a 10-floor building for every missile. The district commander who declares: "We don't do body counts in the middle of a war," an improved version of the comment of Benny Gantz, who was a brigadier general in 2001: "When you chop down trees, splinters fly," totally forgetting that the splinters are human beings.
We have a chief of staff who looks like he gets up every morning and agonizes over what to wear - his blue uniform or his khakis. A chief of staff who delivers state-of-the-union addresses that should be the job of the prime minister, and spends whole days touring with Channel 2 correspondent Ronny Daniel. In his observations to the media, Brigadier General (res.) Rafi Noy is right when he says that Hezbollah, with its hidden arsenals, continues to enjoy the upper hand, while the mighty IDF still has far to go to knock it out of commission.
Unlike some of my colleagues, I believe that Israel is fighting a no-choice war that we must do everything possible to win. Air strikes, ground operations - whatever it takes so that Hezbollah, exhausted and beaten, pulls back and a multinational force is deployed along the international border together with the Lebanese Army, in keeping with Security Council Resolution 1559.
If Hezbollah does not cooperate with a UN-mediated agreement stipulating that it give up its heavy weapons, and refuses to stay north of the Litani River, the IDF will have no choice but to keep up the attacks and pound away at Hezbollah, crushing it outpost by outpost. The rules of the game dictated by Hezbollah are going to have to change. A status quo ante is out of the question.
The conflict with Hezbollah cannot be allowed to deteriorate into a war of attrition. It must not be expanded beyond its stated goals. And the Israeli public must not be overly put to the test, lest the "wonderful home front" blow up in the government's face.
The trouble is that we don't have all the time in the world. Condeleezza Rice is on her way. She will shuttle back and forth, back and forth, until the moment comes for a cease-fire agreement. We can only hope that the army reverts to its old self and has the wisdom and good sense to know what to do and when to do it, to produce the desired outcome.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/742261.html
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