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Israel Decides Against Expanded Offensive
Morning Edition: July 27, 2006
Israel Decides Against Expanded Offensive
DON GONYEA, host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Don Gonyea, in for Steve Inskeep.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
And I'm Renee Montagne.
The Israeli government and the leadership of its army are taking stock of the conflict with Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon after Israel suffered its bloodiest day in the two-week campaign. Nine soldiers were killed yesterday in two southern Lebanese towns that generals had claimed were in Israel's control. The losses illustrate that this war against Hezbollah will not be as quick and easy as many in Israel had thought.
We'll take a closer look at Hezbollah and its ghost fighters in a moment.
Here, NPR's Mike Shuster reports from northern Israel.
MIKE SHUSTER reporting:
Eight Israeli infantrymen died in Bint Jbeil, a Lebanese town of about 20,000 two and a half miles north of the border. At dawn yesterday Israeli soldiers walked into the town. They had left their tanks behind because anti-tank mines have already destroyed two of their tanks. At once, Hezbollah guerillas opened fire on them from the right, left and the center. Quickly, eight soldiers were killed. Soon another 22 Israeli soldiers were wounded, some of them in firefights with Hezbollah guerillas inside houses.
The Israelis say they killed about 40 of their attackers. The battle lasted for six hours, and during that time, Israel's army was unable to evacuate its wounded or its dead. Some of the wounded said it was a well-planned ambush. One officer said the soldiers had stepped into a wasp's nest.
Only Tuesday an Israeli general had declared Bint Jbeil under the army's control. Yesterday evening General Udi Adam, commander of Israel's northern army, conceded it is not.
General UDI ADAM (Israeli Army): No, it's not in the Israeli control. We control the area. On the village, we don't want to occupy the village. And we act tactic, and not occupy this village.
SHUSTER: The same can be said to some extent about Maroun al-Ras, the first village the Israelis seized several days ago. Yesterday one more Israeli soldier died there in fighting with Hezbollah guerillas, and all afternoon artillery strikes on the village were visible from the adjacent Israeli town of Avi Bim.
These events have produced something of a shock in Israel. It was the single bloodiest day of the war, and the overwhelming support of the Israeli public for the war may be starting to crack. General Adam was asked whether these losses might jeopardize support for the war among Israelis.
Gen. ADAM: They know what war is, and they know that in war we have casualties. We try to eliminate the casualties, but you know, in war, you act like in war. So I believe that we have all the support of the Israeli population.
SHUSTER: Still, Israel's political and military leaders are uncertain how to pursue this war and unclear right now about the war's goals. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with his security cabinet this morning to consider the losses at Bint Jbeil.
The government has gone from declaring that Hezbollah will be destroyed to much vaguer declarations about reducing its capacity to attack Israel with rockets. That hasn't diminished yet. One hundred thirty rockets hit Israel yesterday, wounding ten.
Israel's environment minister, Gideon Ezra, visited the northern front yesterday. A former security official who had extensive experience in southern Lebanon during Israel's occupation in the '80s and '90s, Ezra insisted the government here knew precisely what it was doing when it attacked Hezbollah two weeks ago.
Mr. GIDEON EZRA (Environment Minister, Israel): We knew and we said that the war can be for a few weeks. We said it from the beginning. But, you know, in the past, we were used - the war was very short. And now we are already two weeks. And I can't tell you how long it will take, but we should succeed in our target. There is no other way.
SHUSTER: In a front page editorial this morning in the influential daily newspaper Maariv, the paper's editor urged the government and the military to get tougher. We should not be frightened to harden our hearts, he wrote, this is not a time for delicacy.
And yet many, like Environment Minister Gideon Ezra, acknowledge that Hezbollah is a very tough guerilla fighting force that can't be completely destroyed.
Mr. EZRA: I don't think that we can destroy Hezbollah. The aim is that Hezbollah won't be a threat to Israel anymore.
SHUSTER: How precisely that can be accomplished is not yet clear.
Mike Shuster, NPR News, near the Israeli-Lebanese border.
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