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Critical Analysis
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Israeli
Invasion of Lebanon, 2006: Fact and
Fiction
By Brian Harring
Apr 5, 2007,
16:05
Editorial Note: Israel's
foray into Lebanon last year resulted a
resounding military defeat for the Zionist
state. According to a confidential French
Foreign Office report, seen by Brian Harring,
far from losing from 116 to 120 men, as it
claims, IDF losses totalled 2300 -
Ranimar
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Author's Note: On a business trip to
Moscow for a conference with my publishers, I
stopped
in Paris for four days for business,
research and sightseeing.
During that time,
one of my French friends in their Foreign Office
gave me a copy of an
official report and
summary of the causes, actions and losses of the
Israeli invasion of
Lebanon in 2006.
This document runs to over three hundred
pages and is complete with charts, graphs and
many photographs. Here is a translation and
condensation of that report for your interest.
- Brian
Harring
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Subject: Causes of the
attack
Both the State of Israel and the
United States viewed Syria as a potentially
dangerous enemy. Joint intelligence indicated
that Syria was a strong supporter of the
Hezbollah Shiite paramilitary group. Israel had
planned a punitive military operation into
Lebanon both to clip Hezbollah's wings and send
a strong message to Syria to cease and desist
supplying arms
and money to the anti-Israel
group.
Because of its involvement in
Iraq, the United States indicated it would be
unable to supply any ground troops but would
certainly supply any kind of weapon, to include
bombs, cluster bombs and ammunition for this
projected operation.
A casus belli was
created by the Israeli Mossad's assassination of
Rafik Haarri, a popular Lebanese politician and
subsequent disinformation promulgated and
instigated by both Israel and the United States
blamed Syria for the killing.
The IDF
was being supplied faulty and misleading
intelligence information, apparently originating
from Russian sources, that gave misinformation
about Hezbollah positions and strengths and
therefore the initial planning was badly flawed.
In full concert with the American
president, the IDF launched its brutal and
murderous
attack on July 12, 2006 and
continued unabated until the Hexbollah inflicted
so many
serious casualties on the Israeli
forces and also on the civilian population of
Israel, that
their government frantically
demanded that the White House force a cease fire
through
the United Nations.
This was
done for Israel on August 14, 2007 and the last
act of this murderous and unprovoked assault was
when Israel removed their naval blockade of
Lebanese ports.
The contrived incident
that launched the Israeli attack was an alleged
attack by Hezbollah into Israeli territory where
they were alleged to have 'kidnapped" two
Israeli soldiers and subsequently launched a
rocket attack to cover their retreat.
The conflict killed over six thousand
people, most of whom were Lebanese, severely
damaged Lebanese infrastructure, displaced
700,000-915,000 Lebanese, and 300,000-500,000
Israelis, and disrupted normal life across all
of Lebanon and northern Israel. Even after the
ceasefire, much of Southern Lebanon remained
uninhabitable due to unexploded cluster bombs.
As of
1 December 2006, an estimated 200,000
Lebanese remained internally displaced or
refugees
During the campaign Israel's Air
Force flew more than 12,000 combat missions, its
Navy fired 2,500 shells, and its Army fired over
100,000 shells.
Large parts of the
Lebanese civilian infrastructure were destroyed,
including 400 miles
of roads, 73 bridges,
and 31 other targets such as Beirut
International Airport, ports,
water and
sewage treatment plants, electrical facilities,
25 fuel stations, 900 commercial
structures,
up to 350 schools and two hospitals, and 15,000
homes. Some 130,000 more homes were
damaged.
Israeli Defense Minister Amir
Peretz ordered commanders to prepare civil
defense plans.
One million Israelis had to
stay near or in bomb shelters or security rooms,
with some
250,000 civilians evacuating the
north and relocating to other areas of the
country.
On 26 July 2006 Israeli forces
attacked and destroyed an UN observer post.
Described
as a nondeliberate attack by
Israel, the post was shelled for hours before
being bombed.
UN forces made repeated calls
to alert Israeli forces of the danger to the UN
observers,
all four of whom were killed.
Rescuers were shelled as they attempted to reach
the post.
According to an e-mail sent
earlier by one of the UN observers killed in the
attack,
there had been numerous occasions on
a daily basis where the post had come under fire
from both Israeli artillery and bombing.
The UN observer reportedly wrote that
previous Israeli bombing near the post had not
been deliberate targeting, but rather due to
"tactical necessity," military jargon which
retired Canadian Major General Lewis MacKenzie
later interpreted as indicating that Israeli
strikes were aimed at Hezbollah targets
extremely close to the post.
On 27 July
2006 Hezbollah ambushed the Israeli forces in
Bint Jbeil and killed eighteen soldiers. Israel
claimed, after this event, that it also
inflicted heavy losses on Hezbollah.
On
28 July 2006 Israeli paratroopers killed 5 of
Hezbollah's commando elite in Bint Jbeil. In
total, the IDF claimed that 80 fighters were
killed in the battles at Bint Jbeil.
Hezbollah sources, coupled with
International Red Cross figures place the
Hexbollah total at
7 dead and 129
non-combattant Lebanese civilian deaths.
On 30 July 2006 Israeli airstrikes hit
an apartment building in Qana, killing at least
65 civilians, of which 28 were children, with 25
more missing. The airstrike was widely
condemned.
On 31 July 2006 the Israeli
military and Hezbollah forces engaged Hezbollah
in the Battle of Ayta ash-Shab.
On 1
August 2006 Israeli commandos launched Operation
Sharp and Smooth and landed
in Baalbek and
captured five civilians including one bearing
the same name as Hezbollah's leader, "Hassan
Nasrallah". All of the civilians were released
after the ceasefire.
Troops landed near Dar
al-Himkeh hospital west of Baalbeck as part of a
widescale
operation in the area.
On
4 August 2006 the IAF attacked a building in the
area of al-Qaa around 10 kilometers
(six
miles) from Hermel in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon.
Sixty two farm workers, mostly Syrian and
Lebanese Kurds, were killed during the
airstrike.
On 5 August 2006 Israeli
commandos carried out a nighttime raid in Tyre,
blowing up a water treatment plant, a small
clinic and killing 187 civilians before
withdrawing.
On 7 August 2006 the IAF
attacked the Shiyyah suburb in the Lebanese
capital of Beirut, destroying three apartment
buildings in the suburb, killing at least 120
people.
On 11 August 2006 the IAF
attacked a convoy of approximately 750 vehicles
containing Lebanese police, army, civilians, and
one Associated Press journalist, killing at
least 40
people and wounding at least
39.
On 12 August 2006 the IDF established
its hold in South Lebanon. Over the weekend
Israeli forces in southern Lebanon nearly
tripled in size. and were ordered to advance
towards the Litani River.
On 14 August
2006 the Israeli Air Force reported that they
had killed the head of Hezbollah's Special
Forces, whom they identified as Sajed
Dewayer,but this claim was never proven..
80
minutes before the cessation of hostilities, the
IDF targeted a Palestinian faction in the
Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp in Sidon, killing
a UNRWA staff member. Sixty two refugees had
been killed in an attack on this camp six days
prior to the incident.
During the
campaign Hezbollah fired between 3,970 and 4,228
rockets. About 95% of these were 122 mm (4.8 in)
Katyusha artillery rockets, which carried
warheads up to 30 kg (66 lb) and had a range of
up to 30 km (19 mi). An estimated 23% of these
rockets hit built-up areas, primarily civilian
in nature.
Cities hit included Haifa,
Hadera, Nazareth, Tiberias, Nahariya, Safed,
Afula, Kiryat Shmona, Beit She'an, Karmiel, and
Maalot, and dozens of Kibbutzim, Moshavim, and
Druze and Arab villages, as well as the northern
West Bank.
Hezbollah also engaged in
guerrilla warfare with the IDF, attacking from
well-fortified positions. These attacks by
small, well-armed units caused serious problems
for the IDF, especially through the use hundreds
of sophisticated Russian-made anti-tank guided
missiles (ATGMs).
Hezbollah destroyed 38
Israeli Merkava main battle tanks and damaged
82. Fifteen tanks
were destroyed by
anti-tank mines. Hezbollah caused an additional
65 casualties using
ATGMs to collapse
buildings onto Israeli troops sheltering inside.
After the initial Israeli response,
Hezbollah declared an all-out military alert.
Hezbollah was estimated to have 13,000
missiles at the beginning of the
conflict.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz described
Hezbollah as a trained, skilled, well-organized,
and highly motivated infantry that was equipped
with the cream of modern weaponry from the
arsenals of Syria, Iran, Russia, and China.
Lebanese satellite TV station Al-Manar reported
that the attacks had included a Fajr-3 and a
Ra'ad 1, both liquid-fuel missiles developed by
Iran.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah
defended the attacks, saying that Hezbollah had
"started
to act calmly, we focused on
Israel[i] military bases and we didn't attack
any settlement, however, since the first day,
the enemy attacked Lebanese towns and murdered
civilians — Hezbollah militants had destroyed
military bases, while the Israelis killed
civilians and
targeted Lebanon's
infrastructure." Hezbollah apologized for
shedding Muslim blood,
and called on the
Arabs of the Israeli city of Haifa to flee.
On 13 July 2006 in response to Israel's
retaliatory attacks in which 43 civilians were
killed, Hezbollah launched rockets at Haifa for
the first time, hitting a cable car station
along with
a few other buildings
On
14 July 2006 Hezbollah attacked the INS Hanit,
an Israeli Sa'ar 5-class missile boat enforcing
the naval blockade, with a what was believed to
be a radar guided C-802 anti-ship missile. 24
sailors were killed and the warship was severely
damaged and towed back to port.
On
17 July 2006 Hezbollah hit a railroad repair
depot, killing twenty-two workers. Hezbollah
claimed that this attack was aimed at a large
Israeli fuel storage plant adjacent to the
railway facility. Haifa is home to many
strategically valuable facilities such as
shipyards and
oil refineries.
On 18
July 2006 Hezbollah hit a hospital in Safed in
northern Galilee, wounding twenty
three.
On 27 July 2006 Hezbollah ambushed
the Israeli forces in Bint Jbeil and killed
forty one soldiers, and destroyed 12 IDF
vehicles and destroyed three armored vehicles
and seriously damaged eight more. Israel claimed
it also inflicted heavy losses on Hezbollah.
On 3 August 2006 Nasrallah warned Israel
against hitting Beirut and promised retaliation
against Tel Aviv in this case. He also stated
that Hezbollah would stop its rocket campaign
if Israel ceased aerial and artillery
strikes of Lebanese towns and villages.
On 4 August 2006 Israel targeted the
southern outskirts of Beirut, and later in the
day, Hezbollah launched rockets at the Hadera
region.
On 9 August 2006 twenty three
Israeli soldiers were killed when the building
they were
taking cover in was struck by a
Hezbollah anti-tank missile and collapsed.
On 12 August 2006 24 Israeli soldiers
were killed; the worst Israeli loss in a single
day.
Out of those 24, five soldiers were
killed when Hezbollah shot down an Israeli
helicopter, a first for the militia. Hezbollah
claimed the helicopter had been attacked with a
Wa'ad missile.
One of the most controversial
aspects of the conflict has been the high number
of civilian deaths. The actual proportion of
civilian deaths and the responsibility of it is
hotly disputed.
Amnesty International and
Human Rights Watch blamed Israel for
systematically failing to distinguish between
combatants and civilians, which may constitute a
war crime,
and accused Hezbollah of
committing war crimes by the deliberate and
indiscriminate
killing of civilians by
firing rockets into populated areas.
On
24 July 2006, U.N. humanitarian chief Jan
Egeland said Israel's response violated
international humanitarian law, but also
criticized Hezbollah for knowingly putting
civilians in harm's way by "cowardly
blending...among women and children".During the
war, Israeli jets distributed leaflets calling
on civilian residents to evacuate or move north.
In response to some of this criticism,
Israel has stated that it did, wherever
possible,
attempt to distinguish between
protected persons and combatants, but that due
to
Hezbollah militants being in civilian
clothing (thus committing the war crime of
perfidy this
was not always possible.
Direct attacks on civilian objects are
prohibited under international humanitarian law.
The United Nations Development Program
(UNDP) initially estimated about 35,000 homes
and businesses in Lebanon were destroyed by
Israel in the conflict, while a quarter of the
country's road bridges or overpasses were
damaged.
Jean Fabre, a UNDP spokesman,
estimated that overall economic losses for
Lebanon from the month-long conflict between
Israel and Hezbollah totaled "at least $15
billion, if not more."] Before and throughout
the war, Hezbollah launched over 4000 unguided
rockets against
Israeli population centers,
seeking to terrorize the Israeli population.
This was in direct
response to Israel's
attack on residental sections and the deliberate
targeting of civilians.
Amnesty
International published a report stating that
"the deliberate widespread destruction of
apartments, houses, electricity and water
services, roads, bridges, factories and ports,
in addition to several statements by Israeli
officials, suggests a policy of punishing both
the Lebanese government and the civilian
population," and called for an international
investigation of violations of international
humanitarian law by both sides in the conflict.
Israel defended itself from such
allegations on the grounds that Hezbollah's use
of roads and bridges for military purposes made
them legitimate targets. However, Amnesty
International stated that "the military
advantage anticipated from destroying [civilian
infrastructure] must be measured against the
likely effect on civilians."
Human Rights
Watch strongly criticized Israel for using
cluster bombs too close to civilians because of
their inaccuracy and unreliability, suggesting
that they may have gone as far as deliberately
targeting civilian areas with such munitions.
Hezbollah was also criticized by Human Rights
Watch for filling its rockets with ball
bearings, which "suggests a desire to maximize
harm to civilians"; the U.N has criticised
Israel for its use of cluster munitions and
disproportionate attacks.
Amnesty
International stated that the IDF used white
phosphorus shells in Lebanon. Israel later
admitted to the use of white phosphorus, but
stated that it only used the incendiary against
militants. However, several foreign media
outlets reported observing and photographing "a
large number" of Lebanese civilians with burns
characteristic of white phosphorus attacks
during the conflict.
Hezbollah casualty
figures are difficult to ascertain, with claims
and estimates by different groups and
individuals ranging from 43 to 1,000.
Hezbollah's leadership claims that 43 of
their fighters were killed in the conflict,
while Israel estimated that its forces had
killed 600 Hezbollah fighters. In addition,
Israel claimed to have the names of 532 dead
Hezbollah fighters but when challenged by
Hezbollah to release the list, the Israelis
dropped the issue.
A UN official estimated
that 50 Hezbollah fighters had been killed, and
Lebanese government officials estimated that up
to 49 had been killed.
The Lebanese
civilian death toll is difficult to pinpoint as
most published figures do not distinguish
between civilians and militants, including those
released by the Lebanese government. In
addition, Hezbollah fighters can be difficult to
identify as many do not wear military uniforms.
However, it has been widely reported that the
majority of the Lebanese killed were civilians,
and UNICEF estimated that 30% of those killed
were children under
the age of
13.
The death toll estimates do not
include Lebanese killed since the end of
fighting by land
mines or unexploded
US/Israeli cluster bombs. According to the
National Demining Office,
297 people have
been killed and 867 wounded in such
blasts.
Official Israeli figures for the
Israel Defense Forces troops killed range from
116 to 120.
The Israel Ministry of Foreign
Affairs gives two different figures – 117 and
119 – the latter
of which contains two IDF
fatalities that occurred after the ceasefire
went into effect.
In September 2006, two
local Israeli news papers released insider
information ensuring that the israeli military
death toll might climbed to around 540 soldiers.
Israel refuses any outside agency access to its
lists of the dead and wounded but an examination
of all the accurate information available as of
January 1, 2007 indicates that Israeli Defense
Forces lost a total
of 2300 killed with 600
of these dying in militatry hospital facilities
subsequent to the conclusion of the fighting and
an additional 700 very seriously wounded.
Hezbollah rockets killed 43 Israeli
civilians during the conflict, including four
who died of
heart attacks during rocket
attacks. In addition, 4,262 civilians were
injured – 33 seriously,
68 moderately, 1,388
lightly, and 2,773 were treated for shock and
anxiety Last month,
(March, 2007) the Israeli
comptroller had planned to release an interim
report that was
expected to accuse the army
and Olmert of leaving Israeli civilians
virtually defenseless
during last summer's
Lebanon war, in which Hezbollah guerrillas fired
a barrage of rockets
and missiles at
northern Israel.
Source: http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a2660.htm#001 |
