Three IDF soldiers killed in heavy clashes in south Lebanon

[bemildred]

Three Israel Defense Forces soldiers were killed and four others wounded in fierce fighting with Hezbollah militants Monday in southern Lebanon.

Two soldiers were killed Monday afternoon when they were hit by an anti-tank missile in fighting in the southern Lebanon village of Bint Jbail.

Another soldier was killed Monday morning in the village. He was later named as Staff Sergeant Malko Mosha Ambao, 22, of Lod.

Note the location.

---

About 30 commandos landed by helicopter on a southern hilltop south of Tyre, overlooking Ras al-Biyada, a Lebanese security officials said. They were mired in fierce fighting with Hezbollah, and there was no word on casualties, an official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

Haaretz

[xultar]

1. I wonder what the families of the fallen IDF are thinking about this

whole thing. Why it started and the proportionality of the response, etc.

I feel about fallen IDF the same way I feel about our fallen in Iraq. IDF soldiers are dying because of lack of planning, lack of forethought, underestimating the enemy and well I think they are dying for a lie. The premise for both wars are WRONG. The war on terror won't work. If the Israeli government had TV & could see what was going on in Iraq and still did this shit...they should be tried for the murder of the IDF soldiers and the civilians on both sides.

[Flagg]

2. shit happens

[daleo]

3. I noted the location

Bint Jbail - haven't they been trying to take this village for about 10 days now?

[alcibiades_mystery]

4. Oh, they took Bin Jbail in the first days of this mess...

:eyes:

[bemildred]

5. Yup. Taken it several times now.

I have not counted them up, but lots of casualties too. It's some sort of "stronghold".

[IndianaGreen]

11. Like Vietnam: take a hill, leave the hill, come back to hill

This is day 27 of this war. Hezbollah is now admired throughout the Middle East for its resiliency. Israel should have gone for a ceasefire on the first week of the war.

[bemildred]

13. Shoulda never started it.

But yeah. What really surprises me is that the ground forces bogged down immediately, they are still stuck within a mile or two of the border, no forward progress at all. I did not expect that. You have the feeling that Olmert and his fuckwit minions are getting ready to up the ante, but you have to wonder if that will work either. I read another piece that suggests they are going to have to go into the hills to try to stop the rockets, and that is going to make this look like patty-cake.

[Minstrel Boy]

7. bintjbeil.com

Look at the photo album under "Stopping the barbarian at the gate": http://www.bintjbeil.com/index.en1.html#

Thermopylae, move over, Bint Jbeil is coming in! Bishop Philip of Antioch compared the leveling of this small Lebanese town with the destruction of Stalingrad, but these cities are also comparable by courage of their defenders.

http://www.bintjbeil.com/articles/2006/en/0807-shamir.html

[bemildred]

12. Makes me think of "A Fistful of Dollars" somehow, those pictures. nt

[daleo]

16. I am reminded a bit of Monte Casino as well

The ruins made excellent fortifications for the Germans, once the Allies had bombed them. Something similar could be happening here.

[bemildred]

17. I have seen that analogy drawn before here.

I think it may be a good one, in some respects, although I will be surprised if Hezbullah makes a stand anywhere in large numbers. I think they will play whack-a-mole with RPG-29s until the cows come home, or the Israelis go home. And keep firing rockets.

[daleo]

18. Yeah, some "they shall not pass" stand wouldn't make sense

Monte Casino dominated the way to Rome, so it made sense for the Germans to hold it for as long as they could. Plus, the terrain guaranteed that Allied assaults would be much worse on the attacker than the defender. These things don't apply in the Lebanese case, as far as I know.

[bemildred]

23. I think they took more than the tunnels from the VietCong.

They put the rockets (artillery) up in the hills like at Dien Bien Phu, got the high ground, can't get at them very well. I read a piece today about some reporters that drove over to the East from Tyre to deliver supplies and look around. They talked to a guy that said they would use mules to haul the rockets in if they needed to. You have to wonder at this point who the brains behind this was.

[bemildred]

6. Casualties Reported in Fighting in Southern Lebanon

Still going on, it seems ...

(IsraelNN.com) An unspecified number of IDF soldiers were wounded in fighting west of Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon on Monday night. The wounded were transported to a hospital in Israel.

http://www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=109458

[IndianaGreen]

8. Haaretz news crawler is a never ending report of casualties

06:53 IDF sustains some casualties in fighting in south Lebanon village of Dabel (Army Radio)

06:01 Exchanges of fire between IDF and Hezbollah continue in Bint Jbail (Israel Radio)

This is nothing but a slug fest. This war has lasted longer than all of Israel's previous wars combined!

[bemildred]

9. Yup. There don't seem to be much forward progress, either.

Looking to have a boxing match with a patsy and walked into a street fight.

[breakaleg]

10. One of the things I find so offensive in the reporting..

is that they always list the names of the Israeli soldiers but never those on the other side - whether it be Palestine (ok, rarely) or in Lebanon.

And of course it's not just Haaretz, but most major new organizations. Either it's because they don't care to find out, or it's because there is no PR machine helping to get that information out. Either way, it's completely unbalanced and depicts a picture that's inaccurate. One side is humanized and the other is just a number.

[bemildred]

14. They are all partisan. Objectivity is a fiction.

The good ones are distinguished by not making shit up.

[breakaleg]

15. how blunt (and sadly accurate)!! **can't stop laughing**

[muryan]

19. or because rarely

do the family want the names of the dead published in a paper. The government or hezzbollah is not going to supply the names of the dead to reporters like the IDF is doing.

[breakaleg]

20. I was thinking more of the civilians - women and children.

and this is also true for the Palestinians. There have been huge numbers of civilian deaths this last few months and they also don't get any press.

[muryan]

29. I know you dont mean the american press

because the pictures and videos of dead palestinians and people from lebanon have dominated the news. To be honest they get way more air time than any of the israeli casualties, the only difference is they say the names of the israelis.

[frankieT]

24. Hezbollah is providing on a regular basis

the names of its fallen fighters, at least some of them. Check this site http://www.ghaliboun.net/eindex.php, it's obviously partisan.

"With honour and pride the Islamic resistance happily announces to all its honourable people of believers the two martyred combatants Ahmad Enaisy (Habib) and his son Ali Ahmed Enaisy (Karrar).
Martyr Ahmad Enaisy
Born in Sh'hour in 1952, married with 5 children.
Joined the mobilization forces in Hizbullah in 1997, received several courses in military training and participated in various resistance missions.
Martyr Ali Enaisy
Born in Sh'hour in 1988, single.
Joined the mobilization forces in Hizbullah in 2004, received several courses in military training resistance missions.


Source:Special, August 7, 2006, (At 15:08). Date: 07/08/2006 Time 17:06 "

[evox]

21. That's because most of the media

is controlled by Israeli-friendly people/organizations which are meant to serve Israeli interest, and so they'll care less of who died from the other side, or if they do, they can't, because it will uncover the fact that most of the casualties are civilians.

[Scurrilous]

22. Soldier killed in south Lebanon

Soldier killed, many injured during exchanges of fire with Hizbullah gunmen in village of Debel near Bint Jbeil, in southeastern Lebanon; troops evacuated to Israel

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3287969,00.html

<snip>

"An Israel Defense Forces solider was killed and five were injured on Tuesday in clashes with Hizbullah terrorists in the village of southern Lebanese village of Dibel, west of Bint Jbeil, the army said.

During the fire exchanges, an antitank missile was fired at the force. IDF forces evacuated the soldiers to Israel. Additionally, a number of troops have been hurt in an incident that took place early Tuesday morning in the western sector of the region.

Also early Tuesday, a number of soldiers were injured in clashes between the IDF and Hizbullah in the village of Labouna in southwestern Lebanon.

Clashes occurred also in the southwestern Lebanese village of Yatrun."

[Olive]

25. (NEW)Three soldiers killed, six hurt in heavy fighting in southern Lebanon

Three Israel Defense Forces soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon, where heavy exchanges of fire continued between IDF troops and Hezbollah late Monday and early Tuesday.

Two reservist soldiers were killed overnight in fighting in the southern Lebanese village of Labouna, another soldier was moderately wounded and a fourth sistained light injuries.

On Monday night, a soldier was killed when Hezbollah fighters fired an anti-tank missile at an IDF "Puma" armored personnel carrier in the village of Dibel, close to Bint Jbail. Five other soldiers were lightly wounded.

(more)

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/747820.html

[DoYouEverWonder]

26. If the Israelis can't even take and hold one small town

how the hell are they supposed to take on Iran and Syria?

[Nihil]

27. Psst!

> If the Israelis can't even take and hold one small town
> how the hell are they supposed to take on Iran and Syria?

That's where you come in!

Olmert lights the blue touchpaper, hands it to Bush and then
retires to a safe distance to enjoy the fireworks.

[DoYouEverWonder]

28. Us?

We're not doing much better either. Our performance in Iraq is not any better then Israel's performance in Lebanon. One more reason why wars of aggression are a bad idea. The enemy gets to see what your real capabilities are and so far they are not impressed.

[bemildred]

30. Seven IDF soldiers hurt, one moderately, by anti-tank fire in Bint Jbeil

20:41 Aug. 08 2006 Haaretz crawl

[bemildred]

31. Four Israeli troops killed in Lebanon battles

TYRE, Lebanon, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Hizbollah guerrillas, firing anti-tank rockets, mortar bombs and assault rifles, fought pitched battles with Israeli armoured and infantry units in south Lebanon on Tuesday, killing four soldiers.

The Israeli army said anti-tank missiles fired by Hizbollah guerrillas killed one soldier and wounded five other troops near the town of Bint Jbeil, the scene of fierce fighting in which three soldiers were killed on Monday.

Describing the latest incident, an army spokesman said missiles struck army engineering vehicles and infantry troops. He said soldiers had killed 15 Hizbollah fighters in the area over the past several days.

The army said two more soldiers were killed in an exchange of fire with guerrillas in the village of Labbouna, just east of the coastal frontier town on Naquora. An army spokesman later said a soldier wounded in the fighting had died. There were no further details.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L08886612.htm

[bemildred]

32. As Israeli death rises over 100, PM wavers over ground ops

---

Olmert fears that the plan presented by the defense establishment will result in hundreds of casualties, and therefore, wants to subject it to a careful cost-benefit analysis. In Tuesday's fighting in Lebanon, five soldiers were killed and 23 others wounded, two of them seriously.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/748019.html