It Ain't Over
Israel Expands Ground Forces Inside Lebanon
By CRAIG S. SMITH and STEVEN ERLANGER
MISGAV AM, Israel, Wednesday, Aug. 2 — Israel sent up to 7,000 troops into Lebanon on Tuesday, a significant increase in a ground offensive aimed at pushing the Hezbollah militia back from the border before a cease-fire is declared and a multinational force deployed.The troops, backed by air support, tanks and armored bulldozers, entered at four places along the border, moving up to 4.5 miles inside to engage Hezbollah fighters and destroy their outposts and structures.
The Lebanese media reported that at least one helicopter with Israeli commandos landed near Baalbek, in eastern Lebanon, a Hezbollah stronghold well north of the Litani River, marking a deeper, if limited, invasion.
The Hezbollah television station Al Manar said its fighters repelled the Israeli troops. The Israeli Army said early Wednesday that its soldiers “arrested several Hezbollah figures,” shot others in a firefight and then returned with no injuries, but provided no further details.
[At least 10 civilians — five from the same family — were killed and several others wounded in an Israeli airstrike during the fighting near Baalbek, Reuters reported.]
Israel continued its promised 48-hour “partial suspension of aerial activity,” as the army called it, but there were numerous sorties. The air force flew missions in support of ground troops and to hit Hezbollah targets that included, the army said, two groups of fighters who were launching rockets; missile launchers; missile-launching sites; “access routes” in the Bekaa used to bring weapons from Syria, and “Hezbollah structures and headquarters.”
At least one truck suspected of carrying weapons was bombed near the Syrian border, the Israeli Army said. Lebanese said there were repeated airstrikes in the area, where the highway from Damascus crosses the Bekaa, especially in the Shiite area of the valley known as the Hermil, where a pickup truck with canisters of cooking gas was rocketed.
In northern Israel, red and white tourist buses arrived along the border filled with soldiers who had been waiting weeks for orders. They moved into Lebanon through corridors cleared by bulldozers, tanks and engineering units.
There were house-to-house battles with hundreds of Hezbollah fighters in Lebanese towns and villages close to the border, especially around Aita al-Shaab, northeast of Shtula, Israel, where Hezbollah fighters breached the border on July 12, capturing two Israeli soldiers and killing three, and igniting this 20-day-old conflict.
This has become a battle of retribution. Such don't get over early.