Israel expands ground operations

This seems to be a week for good news. First Castro seems to be circling the bowl and now we hear that Israel is not allowing the international community to arm-twist it into backing down from its campaign to crush Hezbollah. The Washington Post is reporting the following:

ZARIT, Israel, Aug. 2 -- Thousands of Israeli soldiers streamed into southern Lebanon on Tuesday, as clashes with Hezbollah fighters in at least half a dozen towns marked an intensified ground campaign to dislodge Hezbollah strongholds that have withstood three weeks of aerial bombardment.

Israeli troops carried out an operation in the eastern city of Baalbek early Wednesday, "hitting a number of terrorists and arresting several," an Israeli military spokeswoman said Wednesday morning. She said all of the Israeli forces returned to the bases safely.

Hezbollah said on its al-Manar television station that its fighters battled Israeli commandos who launched a raid on a hospital in the city beginning at about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday.

The Israeli military said it also planned to resume wide-scale air attacks after a 48-hour slowdown following an airstrike Sunday that killed more than 50 civilians, most of them children, in the Lebanese village of Qana.

All I can say here is, "Thank God for the internet". If it weren't for the 'net how many of you would know that the building which collapsed and killed those "more than 50 civilians, most of them children" in Qana was still standing hours after the Israeli air raid? It is getting harder and harder for the Islamofascists to manufacture atrocities for propaganda purposes.

Israeli officials said both air and land attacks would accelerate in the next few days as the military pushes deeper into southern Lebanon in an effort to clear a broad swath of villages and towns of Hezbollah fighters and the equipment they use to fire missiles into Israel. Israel has ordered its army to punch all the way to the Litani River, Israeli officials said.

Israeli military leaders said they were bracing for some of the toughest fighting in the 21-day campaign against Hezbollah.

"They are very hard to identify, very hard to know where they are," Brig. Gen. Shuki Shachar, deputy commander of the Israeli army's northern forces, told reporters Tuesday. "And it's very hard to hit them and not hit the population that they use in a cynical way."

They are hard to identify because they don't wear uniforms and they operate within the civilian population like Mao's proverbial "fish through water". They use occupied civilian homes as armories and launching pads for their rockets in the HOPE that counter battery fire will kill civilians, especially children.

Even the Nazis did not hide behind German children.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told graduates of the National Security College near Tel Aviv, "We have said we would agree to a cease-fire once we know with certainty the conditions in the field will be different than those that led to the eruption of this war."

He added: "Every additional day is one that erodes the power of this cruel enemy. Every additional day, the Israeli army reduces their ability to fire and also their ability to strike in the future."

I have not been a fan of Olmert and his plans to surrender land to the Palestinians, but he seems to "get it" in this case.

In some quarters much is being said about Dr. Rice's statements relating to a cease-fire:

Meanwhile in Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on the PBS "NewsHour" that she saw a cease-fire in Lebanon coming in a matter of "days, not weeks."

Rice is giving out the message designed to comfort the European Union, meanwhile the expanded ground operations in Lebanon are showing what the United States' real position is. There is simply no way that Olmert would be widening the war without assurances from the White House that the US stood behind him 100%.

I'm sure that I join with most of you in wishing the IDF good luck and good hunting.