Posted on 07/28/2006 4:07:37 PM PDT by SmithL
A top UN peacekeeping official on Friday said he feared the war in southern Lebanon would continue until the end of August and voiced fears Israel would flatten Lebanon's southern villages and destroy the port of Tyre "neighborhood by neighborhood" if Hizbullah rockets keep slamming into the Jewish state.
At UN peacekeeping headquarters in Naqaura, barely a stone's throw from Israel, political affairs officer Ryszard Morczynski said Tyre would become a target of intense Israeli attacks because Hizbullah was firing rockets from the city's suburbs into Haifa.
"I have no doubt that Israel will flatten Tyre if civilian casualties continue in Haifa. Tyre will be taken off neighborhood by neighborhood," Morczynski warned. "I think Israel is contemplating flattening villages, flattening every single house to deny Hizbullah any advantage of urban fighting in the streets."
He estimated that 80 percent of the roughly half-million people who live in Southern Lebanon, demarcated by the Litani River, have already fled the embattled area. He also said he feared the civilian death toll in Lebanon was more than 600, well more than the official count of 400-plus.
"Hizbullah are still strong" 17 days into the conflict, peacekeeping chief, Maj. Gen. Alain Pellegrini told The Associated Press.
And according to Morczynski's calculation roughly 800 Hizbullah fighters operate in the southern region on any given day.
"They are mobile, well-prepared, devoted and willing to act. When there is shelling ... they are not sitting in their bunkers."
The Hizbullah stronghold of Bint Jbail attests to Hizbullah's tenacity.
"In Bint Jbail it looks like the Israelis have pulled out and are now preparing the ground to come in again," Morczynski said, after Hizbullah fighters had pushed the limited Israeli ground force to the southern edges of the town.
Also, he said, there was evidence Hizbullah's communications were intact and their fire-and-run tactics were still effective. There was no sign that their supply of rockets was dwindling and Israel has had limited success in targeting their launchers, often crude and mobile.
Morczynski said the peacekeepers occasionally intercept Hizbullah communications. He recalled a typical such exchange: "Allah is great. My brothers this is number 13 and we are going to operation number 7. We hope that our brothers are safe for the day." Hizbullah uses numbers and letters as codes to identify the fighter and the location.
Hizbullah firepower would seem to be a combination of sophisticated missiles and the older Katyusha rockets, Morczynski said. Some are launched from the back of trucks, while the small, older rockets are ferried on motorcycles and launched from portable triangular shaped launchers.
"They have thousands of them. They are scattered everywhere - in caves, houses, bushes, abandoned buildings. They aren't all in one, two or three depots that you can hit and say now we have wiped them out," he said adding Israel wanted to clear Hizbullah from a two kilometer strip along its northern border.
"The only way to prevent the launch of rockets is to erase all launching positions of Hizbullah. That is the only solution," Pellegrini said. "But it is difficult."
Despite the sophistication of the Israeli military machine, the advantage seems still to lay with Hizbullah, said Morczynski. While it only takes the Israelis about two minutes to target the origin of a Hizbullah rocket and retaliate, it hasn't stopped the rocket fire and it is very unclear how many fighters have been hit.
The thrust of the Israeli attack is still with its air force but Morczynski said he anticipated a large scale invasion if the hostilities continued.
"It is clear that if the pace of the war continues as it is today it will continue until the end of August," said Morczynski. While Israel is reluctant to wage a ground assault, he said it would be unavoidable in another two weeks because the Israeli Defense Force will need a victory.
"Now the war is going on too long without any big success. Something has to happen soon because they have to show some success to the Israeli public," he said.
Rarely does a day pass, Pellegrini said, that his compound and its environs in Naqaurna isn't hit by Israeli artillery. His headquarters is in a dangerous position because Hizbullah fighters get close to the UN compound to fire their rockets putting the headquarters in the crossfire.
Pellegrini said his worst experience was 1984 - also in Lebanon.
So, according to the UN, the rockets are OK, but trying to stop them isn't.
They better act fast. Bush (administration) is losing it's backbone again.
Who cares what the U.N. thinks? Why should anyone care? They are filthy corrupt and useless, proven time and time again. The AP and its minions whining again.
Ping.
The Israelis need to tell the world they are not prepared to sit still while anyone shoots at them. If a missile - rocket - artillery piece shoots at them from any given ground, then they will take that ground and it will become part of Israel. That way, they will not be occcupying foreign soil. They can then remove any opposition and have a safe environment. This would not be occupation but acquisition. Once acquired, the land will NEVER revert to its previous occupants. The land will now be part of Israel.
This is a simple solution. It might require acquisition of considerable territory, but, Oh, Well.
Flattening Hiroshima and Nagasaki worked, 61 years ago.
Anything short of wiping out Hezbollah will be a victory for Hezbollah.
Uh, there's no indication of that whatsoever.
Sounds like an effective plan to me.
The difference between a liberal and a conservative.
A liberal worries about what the world will think. A conservative says "Screw world opinion. Git er done."
Funny, cause I fear just the opposite. I am afaid Israel will NOT flatten Lebanon's southern villages and destroy the port of Tyre.
so by flattening tyre, hezbollah will have difficulty shooting rockets close to a pile of rubble as opposed to shooting them from close to a home?
Well, duh! So what's the solution? Disarm Hezbellah. End their capacity to terrorize and otherwise threaten Israel. Until this happens, every person harmed and all property destroyed is the moral responsibility of Hzebellah and their enablers in Lebanon, Syria, and Iran.
Wasn't Tyre razed like 2,000 years ago once?
Oh well, if it wasn't, it coming unless the Lebanese don't kick out Hezbollah.
Unlikely. I understand that fighting terrorists among rubble is more dangerous and difficult than house-to-house.
Duh!
That's because they're not strong enough!
Unfortunately it appears this is correct. I was hoping that this would not be the case.
Israel is now giving signals that it will back off and allow a "peace keeping" force in place. IF this happens, it will be a significant turning point, a turn for the worse.
Hezbollah (and Iran) will have WON this battle and that may prove to be the first loss on the way to a disaster for Israel.
The West, including President Bush lately, has once again slid into the :
Talk tough, talk tough, talk tough, then
Back off and appease.
All terrorists in the world are watching and learning. They now know that the West will limit itself to fighting in a PC manner and will self distruct from inside due to political ambitions and maneuverings.
The next few years will be very difficult for the West.
hezbollah arent civilized, at least the japanese had just a hint of respect for life. hezbollah are entering towns in the south and threatening people and if they say anything back they are labeled as traitors, their aim is to get the civilian death count on a high level because the more lebanese civilians die the more support they will get from retarded nations around the world. flattening tyre will not hinder their capabilities whatsoever and will only bolster their support that much more.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.