Israel Security Council OKs Wider Ground Offensive in Lebanon
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
JERUSALEM — Israel's Security Cabinet overwhelmingly decided on Wednesday to send troops deeper into Lebanon in a major expansion of Israel's ground war — an attempt to further damage Hezbollah and score quick battlefield victories before a Mideast cease-fire is imposed.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert spoke by telephone for half an hour during the meeting, Israeli officials said. Olmert told the ministers upon his return that the offensive will be accompanied by a diplomatic initiative, based on a U.S.-French truce proposal that would take Lebanon's concerns into account, one of the participants said.
Under the army's plan, troops would push to Lebanon's Litani River, about 18 miles from the Israel-Lebanon border. Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz will decide on the timing of the new push, said Trade Minister Eli Yishai, a member of the Security Cabinet.
"The assessment is it will last 30 days," Yishai told reporters after the meeting. "I think it is wrong to make this assessment. I think it will take a lot longer," added Yishai, who had abstained in the vote.
The decision came as at least four missiles fired from Israel ships off the Lebanese coast slammed into the south Beirut suburbs, as Israel continued its sporadic pounding of Shiite neighborhoods and Hezbollah strongholds in the area, police said.
There were no immediate reports of casualties, but live television pictures showed a huge cloud of smoke and dust rising over a several-square-block area.
Al-Jazeera reported that 11 Israeli soldiers were killed Wednesday in heavy fighting with Hezbollah guerrillas near the border in south Lebanon. The Israeli army declined to comment on the report but had said earlier that 15 soldiers were wounded in overnight clashes.
A Hezbollah statement said it killed or wounded 10 Israeli soldiers and destroyed a tank as it advanced toward the village of Qantara, north of the border.
The decision to widen the campaign — approved 9-0, with three abstentions — was fraught with risk. Israel could set itself up for new criticism that it is sabotaging diplomatic efforts, particularly after Lebanon offered to deploy its own troops long the border.
A wider ground offensive also might do little to stop Hezbollah rocket fire on Israel, while sharply increasing the already high number of casualties among Israeli troops. Arab satellite TV stations reported that 11 Israeli soldiers were killed Wednesday, in what would be the deadliest day for Israeli troops in Lebanon. Hezbollah fired more than 160 rockets at Israel by mid-afternoon.
In the six-hour meeting, Cabinet ministers were told a new offensive could mean 100 to 200 more military deaths, a participant said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters. So far at least 65 soldiers have been killed.
The offensive won't require a new reserves call up, Cabinet officials said.
The government approved a call up of some 30,000 reserve soldiers earlier this month. At the moment, more than 10,000 troops are in Lebanon, many of them regular soldiers. The soldiers are currently fighting in a four-mile stretch, and have encountered fierce resistance from Hezbollah.
The Security Cabinet met a day after the commander of Israeli forces in Lebanon was sidelined in an unusual mid-war shake-up — another sign of the growing dissatisfaction with the military, which has been unable to stop Hezbollah's daily rocket barrages.
The army denied it was unhappy with Maj. Gen. Udi Adam, but military commentators said the commander was seen as too slow and cautious to score a decisive victory against the guerrillas. The deputy chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Moshe Kaplinski, was appointed to oversee the Lebanon fighting.
Earlier this week, the Israeli military declared a no-drive zone south of the Litani and threatened to blast any moving vehicles as guerrilla targets. Country roads and highways were deserted throughout the area on Wednesday. In the Lebanese coastal city of Tyre, only pedestrians ventured into the streets.
In attacks Wednesday, Israel's military struck Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp, killing at least two people. In the eastern Bekaa Valley five people were killed and two feared dead in an Israeli raid.
Israeli airstrikes leveled a two-story building in Mashghara early Wednesday, trapping seven people from the same family under debris, security officials said. Five bodies were pulled out and the remaining two relatives were feared dead, officials said. The family's sole survivor was the 80-year-old father, Ahmed Ibrahim Sader, who suffered serious wounds, they said.
Also Wednesday, Israeli warplanes dropped leaflets over the southern port city of Tyre again, and over Beirut proper for the first time. The identical flyers criticized Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, saying he was "playing with fire" and that the Lebanese people were "paying the price."
Since the fighting began, at least 700 people have died on the Lebanese side of the conflict. The Israeli death toll stood at more than 100, including 36 civilians.
Diplomatic efforts were moving slowly.
Israeli Cabinet ministers pushing for the wider offensive said there's no guarantee a cease-fire deal would neutralize Hezbollah. Israel is particularly skeptical of a Lebanese proposal to dispatch 15,000 soldiers to south Lebanon after a cease-fire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces.
"We will not agree to a situation in which the diplomatic solution will not promise us stability and quiet for many years," Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz told visiting German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier before the Security Cabinet meeting.
Lebanon's proposal to deploy troops on the border appeared to have taken Israel by surprise.
Israel has long demanded a deployment of Lebanese forces in the border area, but only coupled with a serious effort by the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah.
Israel believes Lebanese forces are not strong or determined enough to do the job alone, and would like to see a multinational force in the area, as well.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora praised Hezbollah's resistance, but said it was time for Lebanon to "impose its full control, authority and presence" nationwide — as directed in previous U.N. resolutions that also called for the government to disarm Hezbollah.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the proposal was significant, but President Bush warned against leaving a vacuum into which Hezbollah and its sponsors are able to move more weapons.
While Bush said a U.N. Security Council resolution was needed quickly, the council put off for at least one day voting on a U.S.-French cease-fire proposal. The delay was to allow three leading Arab officials to present arguments that the resolution was heavily tilted in favor of Israel and did not "take Lebanon's interest and stability into account."
Both the U.S. and French envoys to the U.N. indicated there might be room for limited compromise.
"Obviously we want to hear from the Arab League ... and then we'll decide where to go from there," U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said.
French U.N. Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere promised to take Lebanon's stance into account.
Israel Security Council OKs Wider Ground Offensive in Lebanon
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