Hezbollah Dares Israel Into An Attack
In the past week, Lebanese troops have been deployed to the Israeli border, ready to do absolutely nothing but stand around and watch Hezbollah rearm. The French have decided they support a multinational force, they just don't want to have anything to do with one, and the UN has gone begging for troops. I think the problem is that suddenly the UN forces are expected to do something about the vicious and heavily armed force infecting south Lebanon. It's hard to convince countries to send troops when those troops are actually under threat of violence, and can't indulge their usual predilections.
It may be too late, because what every sensible person expected has started to happen, and Israel didn't wait around to do something about it.
An IDF officer was killed during a commando operation in eastern Lebanon early Saturday morning.
Another officer was seriously wounded and a third sustained light wounds. The two were taken to an Israeli hospital to receive medical treatment.
Hizbullah claimed that it had foiled an IDF commando raid near the town of Baalbek.
[...]
The army said its commandos entered Lebanon "to prevent and interfere with terror activity against Israel, especially the smuggling of arms from Iran and Syria to Hizbullah." The army said the force completed its mission successfully, and that such operations would be carried out until a multinational force is in place to prevent Hizbullah's rearmament.
Of course Hezbollah claims a victory. That's what they do: make a provocation, throw up cannon fodder, ignore their own numbers that are killed, complain to the world about aggression, then claim victory regardless of the result. They have no one to answer to but their paymasters in Tehran, so why bother with the truth. Their attempts at resupply were as much intended to draw an Israeli response as they were to actually rearm their own forces.
Any sort of resupply is an immediate violation of resolution 1701, yet Kofi Annan's concern seems to be that Israel is acting like all of the resolution's provisions matter, not just the ones that ask Israel to stop firing. Israel takes a different view of the matter.
Lebanese prime minister, Fuad Siniora described the raid as a flagrant violation of the cease fire. Left unnoticed by Siniora was the flagrant violation of allowing Hezbollah to be resupplied at all.
Via Airborne Combat Engineer, which has more on the raid from DEBKAfile.
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