M.E.전쟁 #8

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DAY 16

First of all a summary from the latest developments (by Guardian, GB)

Israeli soldiers hold up a Hizbullah flag as their armoured personnel carrier pushes

across the border into Lebanon. Photograph: David Furst/AP

An Israeli cabinet minister today claimed "permission from the world" to press on with its Lebanon campaign as both sides launched attacks on enemy territory.

Hizbullah guerrillas fired at least 150 rockets at Israeli border towns, the highest daily total since the start of fighting, while Israel followed its highest one-day casualty toll in the fighting yesterday with air strikes on suspected Hizbullah positions across Lebanon.

Israel is also to call up three reserve divisions, but a meeting of senior Israeli cabinet ministers decided against expanding the ground offensive in Lebanon. The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said the goals of Israel's 17-day offensive were being met, participants said.

The ministers said the call-up of reserves, comprising thousands of soldiers, was intended to refresh troops in Lebanon.

Israeli attacks meanwhile killed three people in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian medical workers said, a day after fighting that left 24 Palestinians dead. Those who died included a 75-year-old woman, whose house was hit by a missile or shell. The identity of the other dead, aged 16 and 23, was not immediately clear.

A senior UN official said he feared an escalation in the fighting and warned there was a high risk the conflict might broaden.

"I do not feel confident that this war between Hizbullah and Israel has peaked yet," Terje Roed-Larsen, Kofi Annan's envoy on Syria-Lebanon issues, said. "There are apparently plans and threats to hit deeper into Israel and that will for sure lead to an escalation of the conflict."

This morning's Israeli air strikes also hit a Lebanese army base, a radio relay station and destroyed several roads. The series of raids in northern, eastern and southern Lebanon killed at least one person and wounded several others.

Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida's deputy leader, warned in a tape broadcast by al-Jazeera that his group would respond to the violence in Lebanon.

Thousands of civilians are believed to be trapped in villages across the border region in southern Lebanon, according to humanitarian officials who have toured the region. Americans who escaped a village near the focus of the ground fighting said many US citizens were still there.

The Israeli military's radio station in south Lebanon today warned that the army "will totally destroy any village from which missiles are fired toward Israel". The statement, aired on al-Mashriq radio, also told Lebanese not to use the road from Qleileh - which is near the Mediterranean coast - to Houlah in eastern Lebanon, across the border from Israel's Kiryat Shmona.

Israeli warplanes struck a road in Rayak, a few miles from the Lebanese-Syrian border early today, wounding two soldiers and a civilian, Lebanese officials said.

Israeli fighter jets also carried out more than 30 bombing runs in Iqlim al-Tuffah, a highland region where Hizbullah is believed to have offices and bases, officials and witnesses said. The airstrikes, which targeted mostly deserted houses allegedly belonging to Hezbollah activists, and roads linking villages in the region, caused a number of casualties, the officials said.

Ambulances and civil defence crews were unable to reach the targeted areas because of intense bombardment, witnesses said. A Lebanese policeman was killed when an Israeli missile struck his car as he drove in the eastern city of Zahle, security officials said.

At least 423 other people have been killed in Lebanon, including 376 civilians reported dead by the health ministry and security officials. The deaths of the soldiers yesterday brought to 51 the number of Israelis killed in the campaign, according to the military.

Israeli planes also attacked targets near the southern market town of Nabatiyeh, wounding at least three people.

An international conference in Rome yesterday to discuss the crisis ended in disagreement, with demands from 11 countries and the United Nations for an immediate ceasefire resisted by the US and British governments.

The Israeli justice minister, Haim Ramon, who is a close ally of the prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said Israel interprets this as a green light to continue its offensive. "We received yesterday at the Rome conference permission from the world ... to continue the operation, this war, until Hizbullah won't be located in Lebanon and until it is disarmed," he told Israel Army Radio. "Everyone understands that a victory for Hizbullah is a victory for world terror."

Israel yesterday suffered its heaviest casualty toll in a single battle in the 16-day campaign, with at least nine soldiers killed and 25 wounded in house-to-house fighting in Hizbullah strongholds in Lebanon. An Israeli military source said "several dozen" Hizbullah fighters had been killed in the fighting...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1831570,00.html

Al-Qaida No 2 calls for global war

Israel Decides Not to Expand Offensive

Iranian Envoy, Hezbollah Leader Meet

Israel 'can take its time' (Al Jazeera)

Scores killed in Gaza fighting (Al Jazeera)

Security cabinet okays mass call-up of reservists, but nixes expansion of south Lebanon operation (Haaretz)

The security cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, decided Thursday morning against expanding the Israel Defense Forces operation in southern Lebanon, but did okay a further, extensive call-up of reserve troops.

During the meeting, which came a day after nine IDF soldiers were killed in fierce battles with Hezbollah, the ministers decided that while the troops would be called up, they would not be deployed until further notice.

The decision, which was passed by 11 votes to one, takes into account "the need to prepare forces for possible developments," such as an expansion of the operation, but also takes into account the need to calm Syrian concerns that Israel could be preparing for an attack on its interests...

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/743489.html

Katyushas hit communities across north; seven wounded