Middle East War Report for Tuesday, August 8

Updated November 30, 2008:

The IDF said they killed 30 Hezbollah fighters today.

14 Lebanese civilians were killed by IDF air raids and bombardments, all in an attack on Ghazaleyeh. A funeral procession was going at the same time, but it was not hit.

4 IDF soldiers were killed and 22 more were wounded in fighting against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

At least 20 Israeli civilians were wounded by Katyusha rockets fired by Hezbollah.

102 Israelis have been killed in the war so far, 65 soldiers, 36 civilians in Israel and 1 Israeli in Diaspora.

Over 1,000 Lebanese have been killed so far. About 770 civilians, 200 Hezbollah fighters and 29 Lebanese soldiers have been killed.

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170 Katyusha rockets hit northern Israel, focusing on Safad, Tiberias, Maalot, Nahariyah, Accra, Ramot Navtali, Dan, Dovev, Gesher Haziv, Shamerat, Carmiel, Gonen, Kfar Geladi, HaGosherim, Yuval, Even Menahem, Metulla and Kiryat Shemona.

Fires are burning in Kiryat Shemona, Accra, Nahariyah and Maalot, and buildings were damaged. Homes were damaged in Safad and Metulla. The IDF military base at Eilabun was also hit.
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Heavy fighting was reported across the border region in Lebanon. 5 Hezbollah fighters were taken POW after they fell asleep. The IDF claims they killed 12 other Hezbollah fighters.

In the village of Ain Ebel, west of Bint Jbeil, 1 IDF soldier was killed and 7 more were wounded in heavy fighting. The soldiers were hit by anti-tank fire that hit their tank and destroyed it. Heavy fighting is continuing in Bint Jbeil. In addition to the locales listed below, heavy fighting was reported in Taybeh and Aitarun.
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11:30 PM: Hezbollah fired yet another rocket barrage at Nahariyah and Kiryat Shemona. There were no casualties.

10 PM: Hezbollah fired a rocket at Fasouta, a town in the Western Galilee. The rocket made a direct hit on a home, wounding 2 Israelis.

8:45 PM: Hezbollah fired 4 rockets at Kiryat Shemona.

8:15 PM: The IDF arrested a Hamas guerrilla in Beit Jala, a mostly Christian village north of Bethlehem.

7:45 PM: Hezbollah fired a 7-rocket barrage at Nahariyah, but all of the rockets landed in open areas.

4:09 PM: 85% of factories in northern Israel are continuing to operate, up from 67% in the first week of the war. 20 factories have been slammed by Katyusha rockets and sustained damage. Fool Warren Buffet just spent $4 billion to buy the Iscar Corporation, an Israeli business with a large plant in the north.

4:03 PM: Hezbollah fired another rocket barrage at Safad and Maalot, with most of the rockets hitting Safad. 17 Israelis were wounded in the blitz.

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4 PM: 1 seriously wounded IDF soldier from the fighting early in the morning in Bint Jbeil had been treated at the scene and left inside a building for 10 hours because it was too dangerous to try to get him out. An IDF force returned to evacuate him and during the evacuation, ran into heavy Hezbollah fire and one of the evacuating soldiers was also seriously wounded.

The originally wounded soldier was injured again. Both wounded soldiers were evacuated to a tank, and from there to a helicopter. Both wounded soldiers died en route to the hospital. 1 more soldier was wounded in the fighting.
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3:24 PM: Hezbollah fired a wave of Katyusha rockets at Safad and the Golan Heights. One rocket landed next to a home in Safad but most hit open areas. Several fires were burning.

2:21 PM: Hezbollah fired a Katyusha rocket that landed next to the Sieff Hospital in Safad while Israeli Home Front officials were visiting. The building was damaged but there were no casualties. The commander of the Internal Front was visiting the hospital at the time of the attack.

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1:13 PM: The Indonesian Islamofascist Islamic Defenders Front, associated with Jemaa Islamiyaa and Al Qaeda, said that they sent 20 fighters to Lebanon, where they are reportedly undergoing training supervised by Hezbollah.

It is odd that Sunni Salafists or Salafist-Takfiris would even admit to fighting next to Hezbollah at all. On the other hand, I suppose Hezbollah is willing to take all the armed allies it can at this point.

See Jeffrey Cozzens' interesting piece for more on that. Cozzens, a Zionist and supporter of US imperialism who is no friend of Arabs or Islam, makes the logical point that any Al Qaeda-Hezbollah collaboration flies in the face of logic, and allegations of such must be taken with a huge grain of salt.

I concur completely. It sickens me to see this endless Zionist-imperialist propaganda in the past 3 weeks equating Al Qaeda and its spinoffs with the Shia Hezbollah.
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11:53 AM: Hezbollah fired a 10-Katyusha rocket barrage at Kiryat Shemona. There were no casualties but there are fires burning around the city and damage has been reported to a number of buildings.

11:49 AM: Hezbollah fired 2 Katyusha rockets at Tiberias, but they landed in open areas. There were no casualties and there was no damage.

11:07 AM: Hezbollah fired 4 Katyusha rockets at Nahariyah, but they landed in open areas. There were no casualties and there was no damage.

8:35 AM: There is heavy fighting between IDF forces and Hezbollah in a number of villages near the border.

8:19 AM: Palestinian guerrillas fired on IDF forces near Kabatiya, an Arab village which is near Qalqilya. There were no casualties. There has been a lot of guerrilla activity near Kabatiya lately.

8:08 AM: The IDF fired artillery at the Palestinian guerrillas who fired a Qassam rocket at Miflasim in Israel earlier.

7:47 AM: Palestinian guerrillas fired a mortar round at IDF forces in southern Gaza in the Dahaniyeh area. There were no casualties.

7:46 AM: Hezbollah fired 3 rockets at Safad. There were no casualties and there was no damage.

7:44 AM: Palestinian guerrillas launched 2 Qassam missiles at Kibbutz Nahal Oz near Gaza. There were no casualties and there was no damage.

6:04 AM: Palestinian guerrillas launched a Qassam missile at Kibbutz Miflasim near Gaza. There were no casualties and there was no damage.

6 AM: The IDF killed 4 Hezbollah fighters in a battle in Bint Jbeil. Fighting is ongoing in Bint Jbeil.

5 AM: 2 IDF soldiers were killed and 2 more were wounded in heavy fighting for the village of Labouna. Labouna is right on the border in the far western sector, 2 miles east of the ocean, and right across from the Israeli town of Bassa.