Posted on 08/14/2006 10:56:48 PM PDT by Nachum
They hiked over 40 kilometers, killed close to 20 Hizbullah guerrillas and spent 32 days in Lebanon without a single casualty. But on Monday, soldiers from the Herev Battalion emerged from battle, sweaty, dusty and tired making history twice - as the first battalion to enter Lebanon and the one to spend the longest amount of time deep in enemy territory under Operation Change of Direction.
The battalion, consisting strictly of Druse soldiers from northern Israel, was on its way to take control of the northern border with Lebanon on July 12, when Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser were kidnapped in a cross-border Hizbullah attack. Commanded by Lt.-Col. Wajdi Sahran, the battalion secured the area of the kidnapping and assisted in the evacuation of the dead soldiers from the scene of the attack. Little did he know that the kidnapping would change his battalion forever.
Several days later, OC Northern Command Maj.-Gen. Udi Adam decided to send Sahran and his men into Lebanon, making Herev the first full battalion to invade Hizbullah strongholds during this war. Days earlier, the elite Maglan and Egoz Units suffered heavy casualties during clashes in Lebanon and Adam sent in Herev, a battalion known for its vast experience in Lebanon and intimate familiarity with the tough terrain.
The battalion went into Lebanon during the first week of the war and was first sent to Marwahin, a known Hizbullah stronghold in the central sector of southern Lebanon. There it spent three days before being sent off to Maroun a-Ras, scene of heavy clashes between Maglan, Egoz and Hizbullah just days earlier. The battalion spent 10 days there until it was again sent off to Itoran for another week.
In every village, the routine was the same, recalled Maj. Shadi Abu Fair, the battalion's deputy commander on Monday from the lobby of the Ginossar Hotel on the banks of the Kinneret, taken over by the IDF and used to give soldiers respite before returning to battle.
Why did Herev succeed where so many other battalions appeared to have failed? "We are a strong unit that has always fought in the North," Abu Faris explained. "While other units went to fight in the West Bank we stayed in the North and are the battalion with the most experience and time in Lebanon."
Due to its success following 32 days in Lebanon, Abu Faris revealed that the Northern Command was now considering turning the battalion into an elite unit like Egoz known for its expertise in fighting Hizbullah.
For Herev, the war in Lebanon was not just a war against a fierce enemy but was a war in defense of their home - not just the State of Israel, but their homes in the literal sense. All of the soldiers, without any exception, Abu Faris said, live in northern Israel and their homes came under the incessant Hizbullah Katyusha rocket attacks during the past 30 days of fighting.
"There are soldiers here whose homes were hit by Katyusha rockets," explained one of the soldiers, St.-Sgt. Eitan Agmi, whose relative was Wasim Nazil, one of the eight soldiers killed in the July 12 cross-border Hizbullah attack that sparked the war in Lebanon. "A mother of one of the soldiers was even hospitalized for several days after she was injured in a rocket attack."
If they are Israeli, they fight for their country. There are probably even some Muslim, Palestinian Israelis who are loyal to Israel (though they would probably be an extreme minority).
It is proper to let them give their own opinions, but those opinions don't have to be agreed upon.
Is Druse more common than Druze? Druze is used on the BBC, but they also use Shia instead of Shiite. Hezbollah also has various spellings in the Roman alphabet.
I attribute the different spellings to there not being exact equivalents between Arabic and Roman alphabets.
Nope...Mormons are not Christians in the strictest sense....they are a cult.
Use Google man if you want to know the truth. Type in "Mormon Cult" lots of information there as to why Mormons are Not Christians...especially as regarded by real Christians.
Read the last chapter of the Christian Bible....
Rev. 22:18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
Rev. 22:19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
Some years ago, I met a Druze man on the internet in Lebanon, and he told me that their leader had disappeared, and he told me that his faher had just died, and that he had no hope of life after death. Many consider Druze as a form of Islam. After listening to the Druze man, I did not really consider him to be anything but a confused man. I saw no reason to dislike him. Somehow, I was left with sympathy for te Druze.
"Just wondering, why does the Druze fight for Israel?"
Because they're Israelis!
"I did not really consider him to be anything but a confused man."
An ancient religion reduced to nothing in a single patronising sentence...
Sounds Gnostic...
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