Israel to UN: We'll do everything necessary to free our soldiers
By Gideon Alon, Aluf Benn, Amos Harel and Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondents and Haaretz Service
Israel has complained to the United Nations that Lebanon should be held responsible after Hezbollah guerrillas seized two Israel Defense Forces soldiers, its UN ambassador said on Wednesday.
The government has filed a complaint with the UN Security Council and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan saying that taking the soldiers was an act of war against Israel by Lebanon, Ambassador Dan Gillerman told reporters.
The complaint urges the international community to enforce council resolutions calling on the Lebanese government to disarm all militias within its borders and to extend its authority throughout its territory and specifically to southern Lebanon and its shared border with Israel, he said.
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There was no Israeli call at this time for an emergency meeting of the 15-nation Security Council or any other specific council action, Gillerman said.
Asked if Israel might now invade Lebanon, he responded that it would "react in every way it deems necessary" to obtain the soldiers' release and protect its border and its people.
While the government of Lebanon was the responsible party to be dealt with, "one cannot disregard the bloodstained fingerprints and the twisted minds of Iran and Syria, who are the main perpetrators, harborers, financiers and initiators of terror in this world," he added. Both countries are widely believed to support Hezbollah.
"This axis of terror must be stopped," Gillerman said. Iran, Syria and Hezbollah were threatening not only Israel's northern border "but the whole region and the world," including moderate Arab states, he said.
Gillerman spoke as the Security Council met in closed session to weigh a resolution put forward by Qatar, its sole Arab member, condemning a two-week IDF incursion in Gaza.
That draft measure would demand the unconditional release of an Israeli soldier captured earlier as well as Israel's immediate withdrawal from Gaza and the release of dozens of Palestinian officials detained by Israel.
Palestinian UN Observer Riyad Mansour said the council should view the Gaza incursion as a separate matter from the situation along the Israeli-Lebanese border. He said it should act quickly due to the deaths of more Palestinian civilians.
But John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Washington, Israel's closest ally, saw no need at this point for such a resolution. "We don't see anything productive coming from it," he told reporters.
PM Olmert calls Hezbollah border attack an 'act of war'
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Wednesday declared that Hezbollah's attack on the northern border earlier in the day, during which two Israel Defense Forces soldiers were kidnapped, was "an act of war."
The two were captured as rockets were fired at northern towns, during residents took to their bomb shelters.
Olmert, who was to hold an emergency cabinet meeting later Wednesday, said the attack was not an act of terror but an attack by a sovereign state on Israel.
He said that Israel held the Lebanese government responsible for the attack, vowing that the Israeli response "will be restrained, but very, very, very painful."
Defense Minister Amir Peretz also said that the responsibility for the sharp escalation on Israel's northern border lies with the Lebanese government.
Senior Israel Defense Forces officers said Wednesday that "if the abducted soldiers are not returned we'll turn Lebanon's clock back 20 years."
The IDF held a buffer zone in southern Lebanon for 18 years, from the outbreak of the Lebanon War in 1982 until the withdrawal of its last troops in May 2000.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. General Dan Halutz said that the abduction is a turning point in the region, and that the Lebanese government is responsible for the crisis.
NRP-National Union to join national emergency government
The National Union-National Religious Party announced Wednesday it would join a national emergency government with no preconditions and without receiving cabinet portfolios.
The leaders of the two parties said that as long as the security situation continues, they would support the government from outside. MK Avigdor Lieberman said: "In times like these there is no opposition and no coalition, we are one people, committed to restoring security for
Israel's citizens."
At the Knesset, rightist legislators called on the government to declare war in response to the abduction. Former Knesset speaker MK Reuven Rivlin (Likud) said "we cannot move on without responding after such an incident."
"We must come to grips with the fact that we are at war and act accordingly," he said.
MK Ariyeh Eldad (National Union-National Religious Party) said that the abduction of soldiers in the north and that of the soldier on the Gaza Strip border prove there is no escape from facing terrorism.
"Terror can only be stopped by going out to war in the north and in the Gaza Strip and destroying terror organizations," he said.
Likud faction chairman MK Gideon Sa'ar said "only very aggressive moves would rehabilitate Israel's weakened deterrence and the Likud will support such moves, if they are made."
MK Effi Eitam (NU-NRP) called on Peretz to resign. According to Eitam, all the warnings against fleeing from southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip have materialized.
"There is no other choice. War has been forced upon us, we must go out to war and break the siege of terror. We must carry out a response that would rock Lebanon and the Hamas government," Eitam said.
MK Avshalom Vilan of the leftist Meretz party said "something disconcerting is happening at the defense establishment. Events are recurring and the Israel Defense Forces is not finding the appropriate remedies."
Hamas: Capture of two more soldier strengthens our position
The spokesman of Hamas in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, said Hezbollah's seizure of two soldiers in a raid Wednesday strengthens the position of the Hamas as a whole, which captured an Israel soldier on June 25.
"We have proven to this enemy (Israel) that the one option is the release of Palestinian, Lebanese and Arab captives. All captives, without exception," Hamdan told Al-Jazeera television.
"What happened has strengthed the issue of the captives, and the enemy will submit to our choice, which is the exchange of the captives in return for the release of the soldiers," he said.
Hamdan did not say whether Hamas had consulted with Hezbollah over Wednesday's seizure. But he said they may be subsequent "coordination and an understanding" between the two groups, suggesting they might coordinate their demands.
Israel has carried out several prisoner swaps with Hezbollah in the past to obtain freedom for captured Israelis. In January 2004 swap, an Israeli civilian and the bodies of three IDF soldiers killed by Hezbollah were exchanged for 436 Arab prisoners and the bodies of 59 Lebanese fighters.
In 1985, three IDF soldiers captured in Lebanon in 1982 were traded for 1,150 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners.
Israel to UN: We'll do everything necessary to free our soldiers
