Things Are Slowly Shaping Up On Israel’s Two Fronts!
July 25, 2006
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
I indicated in previous blogs Israel would capture Bint Jbeil but, as I also indicated, they would find very little in the way of hidden rockets or any other form of military hardware, because they would have been whisked away to safer environs once the fall of Bint Jbeil was evident.
Begin Jerusalem Post Article 1
IDF controls ‘terror capital’ Bint Jbeil
Yaakov Katz, THE JERUSALEM POST
July 25, 2006
Col. Amnon Eshel Assulin, Commander of the IDF Armored Brigade, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday IDF troops operating in the village of Bint Jbeil, considered the “capital of terror” in southern Lebanon, had proven their ability to reach any location in Lebanon, and could even enter Beirut if the government decided on that course of action.
Assulin told the Post that that IDF had taken control over Bint Jbeil and had so far killed at least 40 Hizbullah guerrillas
“The town is completely controlled by us,” Asulin said, adding that dozens of Hizbullah guerrillas had been killed in clashes with Golani troops, paratroopers, and tanks.
Soldiers, Assulin said, took several guerrillas captive during the fighting. He said that there were still pockets of resistance on the outskirts of the village, and most of the Hizbullah guerrillas left inside, just under 100, were hiding in the Kasbah marketplace.
The IDF was still encountering Hizbullah gunmen who were shooting from inside mosques, hospitals, and schools. They take advantage of the population, Assulin said, “But the IDF has high moral values and does its best to avoid harming anyone uninvolved.”
The operation in Bint Jbeil, initially slated to take 48-72 hours, would last as long as necessary to kill all the Hizbullah terrorists and destroy the infrastructure there, Assulin said.
“Two tank battalions fought bravely, killed terrorists, and evacuated their wounded comrades from the battlefield,” Assulin told the Post when describing the fighting in Bint Jbeil since early Monday. He said that infantry battalions were working cohesively with tanks, and that “one could not exist without the other.”
Also on Tuesday, Lt.-Col. Avi Mano, commander of the Keren artillery battalion, told the Post that his cannons had fired 3000 shells at Bint Jbeil since the beginning of operations there earlier this week.
Mano said artillery cannons were capable of making direct hits on houses and other targets, while causing more damage than Katyusha rockets cause in Israel.
The artillery battery is stationed along the northern border in conjunction with an artillery officer who accompanies infantry troops into Lebanon to provide coordinates for artillery fire.
“One of our significant accomplishments is that we are helping infantry troops in Lebanon fulfill their mission by providing them with artillery cover fire,” Mano said.
End Jerusalem Post Article 1
Hizbollah would love to see Syria become involved in their conflict with Israel, but Syria has no desire to do so.
Both Syria and Iran are using Hizbollah as an experimental pawn to manipulate for the accumulation of intelligence information on Israel’s strengths and we
aknesses, which will be used against her when the two are part of a future Arab Jihad.
Begin Jerusalem Post Article 2
MI: Syria, Israel uninterested in Clash
Sheera Claire Frenkel, THE JERUSALEM POST
July 25, 2006
Neither Syria nor Israel are interested in a direct military clash, although the Syrian military has been put on its highest state of alert, IDF Intelligence Chief Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin told the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Tuesday.
Calling the current situation “explosive,” Yadlin expressed concern that any “mistake” or “misfire” could ignite the situation between Israel and Syria.
He explained that Hizbullah operatives were firing at the Golan Heights, where an errant attack could entangle Syria in the fighting.
“Hizbullah is trying to instigate, to force, another front for Israel with Syria,” Yadlin said. He added that Syria has freely supplied weapons to Hizbullah until now, and that several of the rockets that have killed civilians in Haifa had originated in Russia and been given to Syria before making their way to Hizbullah.
Yadlin also said that Hizbullah receives more than $100 million in funds from Iran via Syria each year. Hizbullah’s dependence on Iranian and Syrian support and weaponry has given those countries a level of oversight over Hizbullah’s tactics, added the military intelligence chief. It was highly possible, said Yadlin, that Syrian and Iranian officials were staying Hizbullah’s hand from launching several longer-range missiles capable of reaching major Israeli towns in the Dan region.
“They don’t want to deplete their forces and use all their weaponry too quickly, they want this fight to be drawn out as long as possible,” said Yadlin. “They know that it will be difficult to get more weapons in, they need to make due with what they have.”
Yadlin also dismissed the claims made by several cabinet ministers that the IDF had been surprised by Hizbullah’ s force
s in south Lebanon.
“We were aware of Hizbullah’s deployment in the south and passed that information along to the cabinet,” said Yadlin.
Committee Chairman MK Tzahi Hanegbi seconded Yadlin’s claim, adding that he was “insulted” by politicians who claimed that they had not known about Hizbullah’s forces.
End Jerusalem Post Article 2
The following Excerpt from our Blog of 23 July, 2006, which asked two questions, had both answered in Jerusalem Post Article 3, which follows it.
Begin Excerpt from Previous Blog
Could This Be True
? Is the Answer in Damascus
?
July 23, 2006
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Anyone, who has attempted to predict what is going to happen in a given situation in Middle East dealings, learns quickly the prediction usually has more questions than answers.
If, by some miraculous chance, this latest attempt to being a temporary false peace between Israel and the Palestinians should succeed, it will only do so if the real leader of the Hamas terrorist government, Khaled Meshal, who resides in Damascus, sanctions the Egyptian-brokered deal.
Fatah Claims Hamas willing to accept Deal with Israel
By Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondent
July 22, 2006
Senior Fatah sources in Gaza said on Saturday Hamas is ready to accept a deal that involves freeing abducted soldier Gilad Shalit, a joint cease-fire and an end to IDF actions in the Gaza Strip.
What is not clear is whether Khaled Meshal, the Hamas leader in Damascus, will sanction the Egyptian-brokered deal.
The initiative, proposed by Egypt and discussed by Palestinian leaders in Gaza in the last few days, consists of freeing Gilad Shalit, a joint cease-fire and the cessation of the IDF’s assassinations in the Gaza Strip and freeing Palestinian prisoners later on.
The deal also includes understandings to set up a national unity government.
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas met Hamas parliament members and leaders in Gaza, urging them to accept the deal before American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s arrival this week.
Most Palestinian factions, including the Hamas leadership, agreed to the deal in principle, but argued that Israel is not ready for a cease-fire as long as Shalit is held captive. Fatah’s leadership also rejects a unilateral cease-fire at this stage.
End Excerpt from July 23 Blog
Begin Article 3 from Jerusalem Post
Hamas Leader firm on Prisoner Swap
JPost Staff and AP, THE JERUSALEM POST
July 25, 2006
The IDF soldiers held by Hamas and Hizbullah will only be released as part of a prisoner swap, a top Hamas official in Syria said Tuesday.
Cpl. Gilad Shalit, 19, of Mitzpe Hila, was captured on June 25 in an attack on IDF troops near the Kerem Shalom cross
ing at the Gaza border. The attack was coordinated by at least three different Palestinian terror organizations.
Reservists Ehud Goldwasser, 31, from Nahariya and Eldad Regev, 26, from Kirtyat Motzkin, were kidnapped on July 12 when Hizbullah operatives ambushed an IDF patrol along Israel’s northern border, an act that sparked the current violent conflict between the IDF and Hizbullah.
Mohammad Nazal, member of Hamas’ political bureau in Damascus, also raised the possibility of teaming up with the Shi’ite terrorist group Hizbullah to negotiate terms that would lead to the release of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in Israel in exchange for the three soldiers – two held by Hezbollah and one by Hamas.
“The only grounds for dealing with the two Israeli detainees held by the Lebanese Hizbullah party and the Israeli solider captured by the Palestinian militants, is an exchange of prisoners,” Nazal said in a telephone call. “There will be no talk about any other deal.”
End Jerusalem Post Article 3
It may seem that things in the Middle East are not “shaping up” in the midst of all the current turmoil, but they are slowly heading in that direction. Events in the Middle East have a long establish pattern that follows a certain trend. The major question during each reoccurrence of this pattern is always: “How Much Longer Will This Last?” The repetitive cycle “Pattern” is as follows:
1. A period of ever increasing threats and incidents against Israel.
2. Incident occurs that puts Israel in what I call “the Popeye mode.”
3. The Popeye mode is – “I can’t stands no more.”
4. Israel blasts the perpetrators of what put her in that mode.
5. World community says, “Now you’ve hurt ‘Bluto’ enough.”
6. Some sort of a face saving deal is worked out for a cease fire.
7. Number 1 kicks in again as the threats and incidents begin.
People are always asking, “When do you think the ‘Big One’ is going to shake California to its foundations?” My guess is that it will occur during the same time I think it likely that a great Jihad will be launched against Israel, which is at some point in time between 2008 and 2012. I believe the next time Israel pushes north into Lebanon will be three and one half years before the battle of Armageddon.
FAIR USE NOTICE: Th is site
contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more detailed information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. You may use material originated by this site.
However, if you wish to use any quoted copyrighted material from this site, which did not originate at this site, for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner from which we extracted it.