Israel is sending ``mixed messages" -- saying its target is not the Lebanese government, but at the same time hammering Lebanese infrastructure and accusing the government of harboring a terrorist group.
By hitting infrastructure, some analysts said, Israel is repeating a strategy it has used for years without winning peace: trying to press the wider population to disavow a militant group because of the punishment it attracts.
Israel has bombed roads and bridges, saying the purpose is to block arms shipments from Syria, but reporters have entered Lebanon from Syria along alternate routes that could just as well carry a truckload of missiles.
The punitive bombings continued today as downtown Beirut was struck for the first time.
2 comments:
how can youtell a Hisbullah terrorist ? He's the one with three babies trapped to him as a flack jacket, hiding in the middle of a group of women going to market.
note the "the truck was disguised as a civilian vehicle . . .
Time to start bombing Syria . . .
IAF foils rocket transports from Syria
While army continues to strike Hizbullah, limit its weapons resources, outside groups trying to rearm group. IAF manages to bomb trucks transporting missiles from Syria. IDF Maj.-Gen. Eisenkot: These rockets belong to Syrian army
Hanan Greenberg
Although Hizbullah has suffered a harsh blow from Israeli air force strikes which took out a good percentage of their available weapons, Syria was continuing to smuggle arms into Lebanon to rearm the group, IDF Operations Branch Head Major General Gadi Eisenkot said during a press briefing Tuesday.
Thus far, the IAF managed to intercept a number of trucks transporting rockets from Syria to Hizbullah, including trucks laden with the 220mm-diameter rockets with warheads like the one that hit the Haifa train depot Monday, claiming eight lives. Maj.-Gen. Eisenkot said he would be very surprised if official elements in Syria were unaware of these transports.
“These are rockets that belong to the Syrian army. You can’t find them in the Damascus market, and the Syrian government is responsible for this smuggling,” Eisenkot said, but stressed, “We are not operating against Syria or the Lebanese army.”
During the briefing, Maj.-Gen. Eisenkot said the IDF has hit over 1,000 targets, 180 of them Katyusha and rocket storage sites and 350 launch sites. Over 250 missile strikes were carried out with the aim of blocking traffic arteries, and 200 buildings used by Hizbullah were hit. According to Eisenkot, Israel’s offensive would continue without time limitations.
“With that, we always operate under the principle of a short fighting period. In the short term, this is a complicated reality for civilians
too, but in the long term this operation holds great importance for all of us,” he noted. He added that senior Hizbullah leaders were hiding out in underground bunkers. “We struck a number of mid-level operatives in the organization, and not in the numbers we wished, but our energies have been aimed at taking out weapons stores and rocket launchers,” he said.
'IDF learning enemy'
At the briefing, IAF Commander Brig. Gen. Amir Eshel presented footage of an army aircraft scoring a direct hit on a truck laden with rockets, and noted that the truck was disguised as a civilian vehicle in order not to be identified.
“We are faced with very complex operations here, which demand excellent intelligence information. To thwart this, we are blocking the Lebanon-Syria border, and warplanes are constantly flying over the area,” he said. He noted that as time passes, the air force was becoming familiar with the enemy and its operations were therefore becoming more sophisticated and efficient.
The IDF was continuing to destroy Hizbullah bases within one kilometer of the border that were built over the past six years since the army withdrew from Lebanon. Residents of southern Lebanese villages, where rockets were being fired from, had been asked to leave the area, officials noted at the briefing
simon says . . .
there will be no diplomatic solution, no peacekeeping force and no exchange of prisoners. It will fizzle as the IDF starts to visit targets way down the Targeting List. A ceasefire will be agreed with the Lebanese government brokering for Hezbollah and there will be a token deployment of Lebanese troops south of the Litani, which is probably bynow already a wasteland.
Any village or town known as Hezbollah strongholds are probably so much rubble. I would imagine that olive groves owned by Hez supporters are probably all burned out from WP bombardment. Irrigation etc. is probably wrecked and will nto be able to support any menaningful economic activity. I do beleive we have no real idea how much carnage has occurred in the regions bordering Isarel. I would imagine that the death toll and damage is much higher under sustained artillery bombardment.
The Shiite suburbs like Herik Hreit are now piles of rubble after systematic bombing so the places under artillery fire must be worse off.
Israel knows it cannot deliver a KO swing. These are body shots to weaken the other guy. The idea is to weaken Hez enough that it can no longer impose its will on the rest of Lebanon and thus change the internal dynamics that exist.
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