TUESDAY AUGUST 1, 6:00 PM
Shalom from Jerusalem,
Israeli military commanders were given government permission late last night to widen their operations in southern Lebanon, with the goal to drive all Hizbullah ground forces and rocket launchers north of the Litani River. They hope to achieve this goal before Friday, when growing international diplomatic pressure to end the fighting is expected to reach a climax. Yasser Arafat’s PLO fighters were driven out of the same area—some 15 to 18 miles north of the Israeli border on average, and about 25 miles wide—in just a few hours in 1982, but they were not as heavily armed or well trained as the Iranian-backed Lebanese fighters.
To help accomplish the goal, up to 15,000 reserve soldiers received their call-up notices early today. Thousands more remain on alert to be drafted into the army on a moment’s notice. It is not clear if the IDF will enter the main town in the zone, the ancient port of Tyre, which is a major Hizbullah stronghold. Analysts say any attempt to do so would probably involve protracted fighting, unless Hizbullah commanders order a retreat in the face of overwhelming Israeli firepower. Many analysts say capturing the town is the only way to insure that Israel’s former “Security Zone” is emptied of Hizbullah rocket launchers.
Foreign news reports say three IDF soldiers were killed this morning when a Hizbullah anti-tank rocket struck their armored vehicle during intense fighting in the village of Ayta a-Shabn, near the town of Zarit. The IDF has so far not announced the reported deaths, but has admitted that some soldiers were wounded in the fighting. Israeli army commanders said at least 20 Hizbullah fighters have been killed in heavy clashes taking place in the central and western sections of south Lebanon over the past 24 hours, supported by constant Israeli artillery fire from across the border.
The IDF said it took total control today over the town of Taibeh, near to where the Litani River bends north. The town is located close to the main Maronite Catholic town in the south, Marjayoun, which is due north of Israel’s northernmost town, Metulla. Hizbullah TV admitted that fierce clashes were taking place in that town, and in several other portions of southern Lebanon. The Shiite militia lobbed several Katyusha rockets into Israeli territory by 5:00 PM, far less than on Sunday. IDF spokesmen say they believe they have destroyed most of the militia group’s rocket launchers, but admit that Hizbullah still probably has up to 9,000 rockets in its large arsenal, including some that could strike Tel Aviv. Home Front Command officials have warned over one million Israelis to stay close to their bomb shelters despite today’s relatively light rocket barrage. Meanwhile a total closure was quietly imposed overnight in Judea and Samaria, barring all Palestinians, apart from special cases, from entering Israel. Analysts said this was designed to lessen the chances of Palestinian terrorist attacks being launched inside of Israel while fighting rages in the north.
SYRIA ON FULL ALERT
With full ground combat now going on in many locations, Syrian dictator Bashar Assad announced today that his military forces have been placed on the highest state of alert. He said Syria could not stand by while “Israeli aggression destroys our brotherly neighbor of Lebanon.” This came as Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz warned that the IDF would fire at any vehicle carrying arms from Syria into Lebanon, as it did overnight. Another Air Force strike was reported near the border today, along with the bombing of several Hizbullah positions in the Bekaa Valley just west of Syria. Despite the action, Peretz added that Israel has no intention to enter a war with the Syrians, who possess a substantial air force, a large army and thousands of Scud ballistic missiles and chemical capability. Various media reports say Iranian missile batteries have recently been set up in central Syria which can strike most portions of Israel as well.
Military analysts here in Jerusalem continue to suspect that both Hizbullah and Iranian leaders are putting intense pressure on the Assad regime to open another war front on the stragtgic Golan Heights, captured from Syria during the 1967 Six Day war. Such concerns were intensified when Iran’s foreign minister flew to Beirut yesterday to hold “urgent talks” with his Lebanese counterpart. Afterwards he told a press confernce that the Islamic regime ruling Iran was offering its “full support to Lebanon’s efforts to confront the criminal Zionist agressors.”
TECHNICAL NOTE
I wish to thank again the many folks who have written to express appreciation for these daily war updates, which are now being read by tens of thousands of people around the world, including some government and media leaders. However, Israel has suffered a partial breakdown in its internet services since the beginning of the conflict three weeks ago, due to the extra heavy e mail traffic in and out of the country and multipled overseas visits to Israeli news sites every hour. Therefore I have not been able to update my own web site for several days, nor have I been able to read any of the mail that has come into my e mail list address since the middle of last week. So please forgive me if you have written and had no response.
My internet supplier, Israel’s largest, is located in Haifa. Repeated phone calls to see what might be done to rectify the situation have been met with a recorded notice that the provider is under tremendous extra pressure due to the sitution in the north, and will try to answer as quickly as possible. So far I have not succeeded in getting through. This is just one more tiny aspect of the war that is not apparent to most people around the globe.
Speaking of the situation in the rocket-blitzed north, I had to scratch my head while listening to an interview on Britain’s Sky lunchtime news on Monday. The interviewer asked a representative of the Oxfam charity what the needs were in southern Lebanon. After a very full and graphic description of the terrible suffering that many civilians are sadly enduring there, she was asked if the group was doing anything to aid Israeli civilians suffering under daily Hizbullah rocket fire just south of the international border.
The Oxfam representative totally ignored the question, launching instead into an impassioned description of current Palestinian suffering in the Gaza Strip! But the fact is that fully one-forth of Israel’s population has been directly affected by the conflict, if not as severely in most cases as Lebanese civilians living in the main battle zone. Still, to reside in a crowded bomb shelter for three weeks in the summer heat, to have normal life turned totally upside down, with most regular business and recreational activity suspended, to be ready to rush to a bomb shelter at a moment’s notice—none of that is easy to live with, especially for the thousands of children from families not able to evacuate the affected areas for financial or other reasons. I know exactly how it feels, since I lived under the very same conditions during 1981 and 1982.
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DAVID DOLAN is a Jerusalem-based author and journalist who has lived in Israel since 1980. His new DVD, titled “FOR ZIONS’S SAKE—REPORTING FROM THE LAND OF THE BIBLE,” is now available on both PAL and NTCS versions. Details are posted at his web site, www.ddolan.com