Re: 15 Israeli soldiers killed by Hezbollah today in fierce clashes
**There are burnt-out tanks, but few Israeli troops to be seen **
It is perhaps the world’s most dangerous road, snaking up and down through boulder-strewn hills and wadis along the Lebanese-Israeli border. By Israel’s account, its forces are moving between seven and 10 kilometres beyond it to take control of a long strip of Lebanese territory before the UN security council votes for a cessation of hostilities. But reporters travelling along the border road last Saturday found few signs of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), let alone of its successes. People in only one village had seen Israeli troops recently. Elsewhere there was evidence of failures: burnt-out or crippled tanks. Despite the message of success Israel’s generals and politicians are giving their public, the reality on the ground appeared mixed. At the western end of the border road just inland from the headquarters of the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon (Unifil) at Naqura, Hizbullah fighters were launching Katysuha rockets from positions within 5km of Israel. Driving east through Aalma ech Chaab and Dhaira, there were clusters of antennae and army huts on the Israeli side of the border but no sign of any incursion. At Marwahin, where the road offers a clear view of the Israeli community of Zarit only 200 metres away, the ground was scarred with tank tracks. A broken towing cable lay on the ground, an apparent sign of a mishap. Nearby were bits of caterpillar track. A kilometre or so further at the junction of the side-road to Debel, a burnt-out Merkava tank was stuck in the trees, its cannon pointing downward. Here the border runs on top of a hill where a heavily fortified Israeli base sits cheek by jowl alongside UN monitoring position 5…#8209;42, a collection of white trailers and a watchtower inside blast walls.
The road to Debel was littered with more broken tracks. Hizbullah’s resistance had clearly made its mark. Beyond the Debel turnoff, reporters could hear a fierce battle for the village of Aita ech Chaab. Israeli shells and tank rounds were pounding it and setting fire to bushes on the hillsides to deny Hizbullah fighters cover. It was the only place on the north-south border where Israel seemed to be trying to advance. Israel has not sought to penetrate the next village, Rmeish, which has a Christian population of several hundred. The last portion of the border before it turns north towards Metulla - centre of the fighting - contains the towns of Bint Jbeil and Aitaroun, which Israeli forces tried to take in the first days and then withdrew after losing nine men. The trip along the border road became possible when Israel allowed a UN convoy to bring food aid to the isolated Christian village of Debel. This was the first access to border villages for 10 days. With one white armoured personnel carrier in front and another at the back, three UN food lorries set off from Naqura. The thump of outgoing Israeli tank and artillery rounds provided a constant accompaniment. Before the convoy set off from UN headquarters, monitors said Israeli forces came in by day but pulled back at night, remaining a few hundred metres inside the border. As a claim to control territory this seemed unconvincing. Israeli troops were still being shot at, the observers said.
The deepest Israeli presence inside Lebanon the convoy encountered was at Jibbain, a Sunni village 3km from the border. Last Sunday Israeli commandos landed near Mansouri on the coast north of Naqoura, killing a Lebanese army intelligence official and wounding seven soldiers. The purpose may have been to squeeze the Hizbullah launch teams between Jibbain and Mansouri. If so, it would confirm that, rather than an occupation of south Lebanon, the Israelis are going for limited gains. The head of Unifil, the UN’s monitoring mission in Lebanon, believes that any attempt to deploy international troops to disarm Hizbullah by force would turn Lebanon into another Iraq. “It is always the same when you have to fight against guerrillas. You will have a kind of Iraq situation,” Major General Alain Pellegrini said last weekend. **The French general, who has commanded the contingent of 2,000 armed monitors from eight countries for two years, said that Israel’s air campaign had failed to destroy all of Hizbullah’s installations. **“On the ground the Israelis are pushing slowly towards the Litani river. They’re clearing the area between the Blue Line [the de-facto border] and the river to destroy all known Hizbullah positions and stockpiles, but not to occupy it,” he said. Israel had not expected the amount of resistance Hizbullah had put up, the general said. He was sceptical of the optimism coming from the UN suggesting that Israel would accept a ceasefire soon. Unifil was set up in 1978 to confirm the withdrawal of Israeli troops who had invaded Lebanon to try to destroy Palestinian guerrillas. Hizbullah did not then exist. The Bush administration and Israel claim Unifil has failed because it has done nothing to prevent Hizbullah from building a network of tunnels and caves in the Lebanese hills and inserting huge caches of weapons. Gen Pellegrini vigorously rejected the accusation. “Unifil is a peace-keeping force. It was set up to monitor respect for an agreement between two parties. As long as the parties respect it, it w orks. When you are in a state of armed confrontation, Unifil cannot work,” he said.