Middle East War Report for Wednesday, August 2

Updated November 30, 2008:

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On the Israel-Lebanon War Wednesday, Israel suffered 2 killed and 144 wounded. Most of the casualties were from Katyusha missiles. 1 IDF soldier was killed and 20 more were wounded. 1 IDF soldier was killed and 18 more were wounded in fighting in Lebanon. 2 more soldiers were wounded by a rocket attack along the border inside Israel.

1 Israeli civilian was killed and 124 more were wounded. 1 civilian was killed in rocket attack on a kibbutz near Nahariyah. 123 were wounded in a brutal Katyusha missile barrage on northern Israel, the worst so far. 1 more Israeli was wounded when a Qassam missile hit Ashkelon.

66 Israelis have been killed in the war so far, 36 soldiers and 28 civilians.
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An incredible barrage of at least 230 rockets rained down on northern Israel on Wednesday, the heaviest barrage ever. 1 civilian was killed and 123 more were wounded and air raid sirens sounded all over Israel.

32 rockets fell on battered Kiryat Shemona, 20 on Nahariyah, 15 on Safat, 11 on Tiberias and 6 on Accra. The fatality was a cyclist who was killed when a rocket hit Kibbutz Saar near Nahariyah at 2 PM.

Metulla, Rosh Pinna and Karmiel came under heavy attack. 7 long-range missiles landed at the northern entrance to Afula. Maalot and Hatzor were attacked and one rocket fell in Occupied Golan Heights. Fires are burning across the area and there is widespread damage to homes and cars.

Fires were burning in the city of Tiberias. More fires are burning all around Nahariyah. A home in Nahariyah suffered a direct hit and went up in flames. Another home in Accra was also hit. Northern Israel was in chaos.

Rockets hit far to the south in Beit Shean, a new record for a rocket that was not a rangefinder. Beit Shean is near the Jordan River and the West Bank. At 1:40 PM, that record was broken by a rocket that actually reached into the West Bank village of Pqua near Jenin, to the cheers of Jenin residents.

The IDF believes that these rockets are older Syrian 302mm rockets, some of which are being referred to disgustingly as Khaibar-1 rockets. It is a Syrian-made variation on the Iranian Fajr-5. It contains 170 pounds of explosives and has a range of 46-62 miles.

During the height of the barrage, radio reports were interrupted every 4-5 minutes with more reports of incoming rockets, in a reminiscence of the Blitz of London in World War 2.
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Early on Wednesday, August 2, several helicopters full of IDF Special Forces landed in the Bekaa Valley in a town east of Baalbeck deep inside Eastern Lebanon, only 7 miles from the Syrian border, where the Hezbollah commander for the Bekaa Valley has turned a local hospital into a headquarters for his forces. Israeli forces successfully dropped in, then raided the hospital and started asking for ID's inside.

A major Hezbollah force invaded the hospital and the IDF and Hezbollah and IDF were both in the hospital fighting in close quarters, often face to face. Hezbollah claimed to have trapped the IDF force inside. Many Israeli jets circled overhead and carried out a number of bombing missions.

This penetration is deep into the heartland of the nation. It also has a serious risk to draw Syria into the fight.

The latest information is that the commando force was evacuated out of the area with no casualties. They reportedly captured several Hezbollah operatives, but the Lebanese government said they were just low-level fighters, not high-ranking members. The IDF is claiming that they have taken high-ranking members POW.

Hezbollah is claiming that those captured were just civilians. 12 persons were said to have been killed in this mission, all civilians, including a number of civilians. The IDF is claiming that they killed 10 Hezbollah in this raid.
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This just in - earlier in the war, Hezbollah rocket barrages hit IDF Northern Operations Headquarters on Mount Meron and IDF Northern Command Headquarters in Safad were hit a number of times.

No one reports this because all reports out of Israel have to go through Israeli censors, and any information about any strategic targets in Israel is blacked out. The notion that Hezbollah is aiming only to wantonly attack Israeli cities and towns to hurt or kill Israeli civilians is not completely true.

A certain number of the rocket attacks are basically terrorist in nature, but many others are actually trying to hit either IDF troop concentrations, bases - headquarters or Israeli arms factories. Many of these strategic facilities have been cynically located near Israeli Arab cities and towns in order to use the Israeli Arab population as unwitting human shields in case of attack by Israel's enemies.
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Wednesday:

8 AM: IDF forces in the West Bank were attacked with 3 homemade bombs in Kabatia, near Nablus. There were no casualties.

8:30 AM: 11 more IDF were reported wounded in heavy fighting in various places along the Lebanese-Israeli border. That puts IDF casualties for about the last 24 hours at 3 killed and 41 wounded. The IDF claimed that 10 Hezbollah were killed in this fighting.

9 AM: A Qassam rocket from Gaza slammed into Ashkelon, wounding 1 Israeli .

2:42 PM: Rocket attack on Israeli troops on the Israel-Lebanon border wounded 2 soldiers.

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3 IDF were killed and 29 more were wounded in heavy fighting in Ayta al Shaab Tuesday. Hezbollah ambushed an IDF force, again, as they did in Bint Jbeil earlier, as the IDF entered town. This time Hezbollah fired a very heavy anti-tank missile barrage, heavy sniper fire and rockets.

IDF forces had to evacuate their wounded by hand under heavy fire. The 3 killed could not be evacuated for hours due to very heavy fire. 10 Hezbollah were reportedly killed, according to the IDF.

There is considerable evidence that Ayta al Shaab, inside Lebanon, was where the initial July 12 incident that set off the war occurred. In other words, the purported Hezbollah cross-border raid may not have even occurred. As of 7 AM on Wednesday, small arms exchanges were again reported in the area of Ayta al Shaab and A-Haviv.

According to the Lebanese police, Hezbollah and numerous media outlets, this is where the IDF patrol was attacked in the original July 12 incident that set off the war. Israel said that the attack was a cross-border raid that struck between Zarit and Shetula. I do not yet feel that it has been conclusively proved one way or the other that the attack occurred on either the Lebanese or the Israeli side.

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5 more IDF soldiers were wounded in a Hezbollah mortar attack on IDF troop concentrations on the Lebanon-Israel border. The attack occurred at 11 PM on Tuesday night.

Rockets landed in Metulla, the Galilee and Nahariyah on Tuesday. There was damage but no casualties.

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More Lebanese armed groups have joined fight against Israel - the Lebanese Communist Party militia, the Amal Shia militia (Amal is the other major Shia party in Lebanon and is a rival to Hezbollah. They are generally more secular than Hezbollah), the PFLP-GC, Jamaa Islamiya, and the Islamic Action Group.

There are now seven armed guerrilla groups fighting Israel. In addition, the Lebanese military is occasionally fighting the IDF and the Syrian military has carried out a couple of attacks - one on an IDF drone on the Lebanon-Syria border and the other an apparent detonation of a mine on the Syria-Golan Heights border. Hence, there are at least nine armed forces who are fighting the IDF, at least occasionally:

1. Syrian military - Very minor involvement described above.
   
2. Iranian military - Some Revolutionary Guards are advising Hezbollah.
   
3. Lebanese military - Minor involvement, but they have suffered significant casualties.
   
4. Lebanese Communist Party militia - Full activation. They have already lost some fighters in Sarifa.
   
5. Jabhat al-Amal al-Islami (Islamic Action Group) - A very fundamentalist Sunni group that has just decided to take up arms and fight alongside Hezbollah. Supposedly it is an amalgam of numerous Sunni groups from all over Lebanon.
   
6. Al-Jama Al-Islamiya - An Sunni Islamist group, the Lebanese Muslim Brotherhood, representing South Lebanese Sunni villages on the border - Full activation and heavy combat. They are currently operating alongside Hezbollah in their Sunni villages.
   
7. Amal militia - Declaration of war. They have suffered some casualties are are currently fighting alongside Hezbollah in a location called Kfar Kila.
8. Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC) - Declaration of war, but their involvement in the fighting is not known. This group is very closely aligned with Syria and is believed by some to be almost an arm of the Syrian government.
   
9. Hezbollah - Full activation, very heavy combat and heavy casualties.

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Druze leaders in Syria are itching for a fight against Israel in the Golan Heights - the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights consists mostly of Druze villages.

In a meeting the other day, they petitioned Syrian President Assad to allow them to open a front on their own (without the Syrian military) on the Golan-Syrian border. Lawmaker Marwan Habash and cleric Sheik Asad Kopertu are among those advocating opening up this front.
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Earlier, in an operation similar to the one currently ongoing, Israel attempted to land troops via helicopter near Baalbeck in the Bekaa Valley of eastern Lebanon, but they were beaten back by heavy fire from the Lebanese military.

Recently, Syria shot down an Israeli drone over the Lebanon-Syria border.

A mine went off on the Golan Heights border, but there were no Israeli casualties. The suggestion is that Syrian forces triggered this mine..

Israel bombed a border post on the Lebanon-Syrian border, killing several border guards.

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According to a recent poll, 87% of Lebanese support Hezbollah - 80% of Christians, 80% of Druze, 89% of Sunnis and apparently over 90% of Shia. This is simply a disaster for Israel. In the beginning, many Lebanese were furious at Hezbollah, especially Maronite Christians. Sectarian violence saw a serious upswing early in the Israeli operation.

Shia refugees heading into Sunni districts were taunted and berated by local Sunnis. Druze leader Walid Jumblatt openly attacked Syria and two major Maronite leaders openly backed the Israeli operation.

Later, as the IDF proceeded to begin to destroy Lebanon as a nation, that turned around. Interviews with former Phalangists in Christian districts of Beirut said they were training to fight both Israel and Hezbollah. Local Druze opened their districts to Shia refugees fleeing the fighting.

In recent days, as you can see by the survey above, Israel has succeeded in uniting Lebanon around a common enemy. That 80% of Druze and Christians are supporting Hezbollah is simply stunning and shows a serious failure of this US-British-Israeli operation. The Anglo-Zionist Coalition failed to consider a basic human tendency - nationalism.
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Israel is ferociously shelling, bombing and rocketing Southern Lebanon. In many cases, IDF helicopters are deliberately rocketing ambulances, obvious civilian vehicles with white flags flying from them and any humans who happen to be in the area, even people swimming in rivers. It's pretty much a free-fire zone and they are often just shooting at anything that moves in many areas.

Map detailing the targets Israel has been bombing in its destruction of Lebanon and the number of attacks on each target.

The US, for some bizarre reason, is pushing hard on Israel to attack Syria, but Israel is reluctant to do that. Tell me why the US is more anxious to attack Syria than Israel itself?

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Hezbollah is making very good use of anti-tank missiles in this combat and has damaged or destroyed quite a few of the IDF's state-of-art Merkava tanks, one of the best tanks in the world. The Merkava-4, the latest iteration, is particularly good. Hezbollah is using the following Soviet-made anti-tank missiles:

• AT-3 Saggers (An Iranian variant called the Raad)
• AT-4 Spigots (via Syria)
• AT-14 Kornets - the best of all - also via Syria.

These are all doing some fairly serious damage to IDF Merkava tanks, considering how well-protected a Merkava is. When it comes to attacking Merkavas, Kornets are best and Saggers are more problematic. With the Sagger, you have to hit the Merkava at certain precise places.

In December 2005, Hezbollah attacked some IDF Merkavas with Saggers, but the results were disappointing because the tanks were not hit in their vulnerable places, and Hezbollah was using Saggers and Spigots, which are not the top-of-the-line Soviet technology.

Iranian advisors reviewed the results of the battle and went back to Iran to study the Merkava, determine where its vulnerable points were, and to upgrade the Saggers and Spigots with higher-grade missiles, in particular the Kornets.

In this war so far, Saggers, Spigots and Kornets are all doing fairly well against Merkavas (considering how impervious it is), and quite well against armored vehicles and especially dismounted troops. This indicates that Hezbollah has learned from its mistakes and has learned where the vulnerable places on the Merkava are. Also, Hezbollah seems to have a very large supply of these AT-variants, especially the Saggers.

This is apparently a photo of a Hezbollah guerrilla with an anti-tank missile. I assume that the missile is an AT-variant such as an AT-3 Sagger, AT-4 Spigot or an AT-14 Kornet. The photo is from the Arabic edition of Al Arabiya on August 3. Since I can't read Arabic, I am guessing at the subject of the photo.

All three of these missiles are guided anti-tank missiles. They can be launched either by hand or by a ground-based launcher. The missile is fairly slow - it is not like a bullet in that you can actually see it launch and then follow it with the eye as it heads towards its target.

The attacker launches the missile and then guides it along the path to the tank via a wire-guided missile system. In that way, if the tank starts to move, the attacker can follow the tank's maneuvers and adjust the missile along the path of the moving tank.

The IDF has a variety of means to deal with these missiles - one of them is to shoot a plume of smoke as soon as they see the missile launch in order to make it difficult for the launcher to see his target.

The Iranians also reportedly make a version of the top-notch US anti-tank missiles, the TOW and Dragon missiles. Little is known about these knock-offs except for a claim in Al Arabiyah that these knockoffs are proving to be the most effective of all of the anti-tank missiles that Hezbollah is using.
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Hezbollah has lost possibly 120 fighters so far, maybe more. Hezbollah casualties are difficult to determine because the totals they release seem too low. The IDF typically releases very high figures for Hezbollah KIA, but US intelligence sources say that Israel has grossly exaggerated the number of Hezbollah killed.

Looking at Hezbollah's homepage here, you can see that they have announced the names of 22 KIA's just in the past day or two, so they are obviously not shy about reporting their KIA's. However, in some cases, there seems to be a long delay in Hezbollah announcing the names of those who have fallen. Right now, some of the KIA's they are announcing fell around 10 days ago.
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IDF claims of having degraded 50% of Hezbollah's fighting capability, killing 40% of its force (400 KIA out of a supposed 1,000 man fighting force) and having wiped out 75% of their potent Zilzal missiles (which can reportedly reach Tel Aviv) are meaningless. The IDF has no way whatsoever of knowing what missile capacity Hez has or how much is degraded or destroyed. These are all just wild-ass guesses (WAGS).

Hezbollah apparently hit another Israeli ship with a missile off the coast of Sidon Monday. The missile damaged the ship but did not sink it. The IDF is denying that a ship was hit, but an excellent source, the Lebanese National Police, said that the ship indeed was hit.

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Hezbollah claimed that they fired the missile in response to the many civilian deaths after an Israeli bombing in Qana, which killed 28 civilians who were sheltering on the ground floor of a building. An IDF airstrike hit a target near the building but did not hit the building itself around 12:30 AM on the night of the incident. The attack left a large hole in the street near the building.

This damage to the street apparently rocked the foundation of the building. Those inside apparently went back to sleep after the air raid. The weakened building appears to have collapsed 7 1/2 hours later. Charges that the IDF deliberately attacked a building full of civilians are false.

Similarly, variations of desperate Israeli and Phalangist propaganda about the incident are also false.

One of these fog of war tall tales is that the Qana incident was actually a controlled blast carried out by Hezbollah in order to kill their own people so as to create an international incident and hopefully stop the fighting.

Another is that the entire incident was faked, with previously dead bodies placed in the rubble so as to make it appear they were killed in the air raid.

Pro-Israeli allegations that the photographed aftermath of the incident had the air of theater are valid, but it appears that the dead were actually killed in the building collapse, and that the building collapse was caused, as noted above, by a nearby IDF air raid 7 1/2 hours earlier, which weakened the building foundation and caused it to belatedly collapse.
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So far, the Lebanese High Relief Committee is reporting a shocking 828 dead and over 3,200 wounded. It is not known how many fighters are amongst the dead. The toll does not include those who are still buried under rubble.