Tuesday 15 August 2006

"It didn’t take long for the IDF to reach the Litani..."

Michael Totten has blogged his latest from the Israel-Lebanon front line -- filed now at his 'Middle East Journal,' written just before the ceasefire: The Storm before the Calm. [Hat tip Samizdata].

METULLA, ISRAEL – Israel scrapped the proposed ceasefire agreement on August 11 and launched a full-scale ground invasion of Lebanon. Presumably the Israeli Defense Forces wanted to rapidly snap up territory between the border fence and the Litani River before agreeing to the real cease-fire that’s tenuously in effect at the time of this writing. The ceasefire does not require an Israeli withdrawal. Instead it puts their military operations in Lebanon into a holding pattern.

It didn’t take long for the IDF to reach the Litani...
RELATED: Israel, War, Politics-World

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Control of the Litani River - No way!!

What did my Belgian economist friend say(which you dissed) a few weeks ago?

Thank hard now Peter.

Deadman said...

All Israel has ever kept is territory that gives them a necessary defensive edge. They've even given some back. Your Belgian economist friend is still full of shit, Ruth.

Anonymous said...

extract from Israeli journalist report

"Olmert, Peretz and Halutz wanted to create "a picture of victory", as was openly stated in the media. On this altar the lives of 33 soldiers (including a young woman) were sacrificed.

The aim was to photograph the victorious soldiers on the bank of the Litani. The operation could only last 48 hours, when the cease-fire would come into force. In spite of the fact that the army used helicopters to land the troops, the aim was not attained. At no point did the army reach the Litani.

For comparison: in the first Lebanon war, that of Sharon in 1982, the army crossed the Litani in the first few hours. (The Litani, by the way, is not a real river anymore, but just a shallow creek. Most of its waters are drawn off far from there, in the north. Its last stretch is about 25 km distant from the border, near Metulla the distance is only 4 km.)

This time, when the cease-fire took effect, all the units taking part had reached villages on the way to the river. There they became sitting ducks, surrounded by Hizbullah fighters, without secure supply lines. From that moment on, the army had only one aim: to get them out of there as quickly as possible, regardless of who might take their place.