IDF operations in Lebanon continued to expand on Saturday. Israeli government officials said IDF operations would not stop until the IDF's goals were reached, despite the passage of UN Security Council resolution 1701. Let's hope they will expand it so much that South Lebanon will become a huge Hezbollah graveyard...
Early Saturday, the IDF was ordered to take over all areas in south Lebanon from which rockets have been fired at Israel.
It's about time !
Defense Minister Amir Peretz, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz and senior IDF officers visited the Northern Command headquarters in Safed overnight Friday in order to oversee the beginning of the IDF incursion meant to carry out the government's order.
According to the IDF, troops were advancing north and west in south Lebanon toward the Litani River, some 30 kilometers from Israel. Taking the territory would take several days, the army said, following which the IDF would operate in the area to remove the terror infrastructure and to destroy rocket launchers.
According to Northern Command Chief of Staff Brig.-Gen. Alon Friedman, the last part of the operation could take several weeks. In an interview with Israel Radio on Saturday, Friedman said the IDF could expand its operations past the Litani if it was ordered to do so by the government, and emphasized that the IDF would continue to operate in south Lebanon until the cabinet gave different instructions.
A senior IDF source said on Saturday morning that the army believed the operation to clear launchers from south Lebanon would last several days. Senior government officials reportedly have said that the IDF could succeed in taking all the territories from which rockets had been fired despite the short timeline given to continued military operations by the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1701.
On Friday, as many as 40,000 troops were still massed on Israel's northern border. It was not immediately clear how many of them would join the fighting in Lebanon.
Israeli officials expressed satisfaction with the resolution, and the government was scheduled to vote on the cease-fire at its weekly cabinet meeting Sunday morning.
As of early Saturday morning, the IDF was still engaging Hizbullah in south Lebanon. Troops advanced northward from the security zone they have been occupying there, headed for the Litani River. IDF forces have killed at least 20 Hizbullah fighters in Saturday fighting, the IDF said. There were media reports of IDF casualties in fierce gun battles raging in south Lebanon, but no confirmation was immediately available from official sources.
The IDF began a widened operation in south Lebanon after Wednesday's cabinet decision that authorized the army to carry out a massive ground offensive "to deal with the Hizbullah positions in south Lebanon, from which barrages of missiles continue to be launched against the Israeli civilian population," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said. "Our action does not exclude a diplomatic option," Regev said before the Security Council vote. "But... it is incumbent upon the government to defend its citizens."
According to military sources, close to 70 percent of the Katyusha rockets raining down on Israel are fired from just south of, and north of the Litani river. It is in these parts of Lebanon that the Hizbullah's Nasser Unit is waiting with thousands of fighters and functioning command and control centers.
IDF sources said that even with a cease-fire in place, Israel should try to improve its position militarily - to push to the Litani to drive back Hizbullah and push its rocket launching capabilities from away from the northern border.
