Premier's Directive Could Be Rescinded After Cabinet Action on U.N. Resolution
By Molly Moore and Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, August 12, 2006
JERUSALEM, Aug. 11 -- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Friday authorized the military to expand its ground operations against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, but will ask his cabinet Sunday to accept a U.N. Security Council resolution for ending the fighting, according to government officials.
Olmert's decision to increase ground combat came as Israeli public criticism of both the government and the military leadership escalated, with a new poll showing that only 20 percent of Israelis surveyed believe they are winning the war and one of the nation's most prominent newspapers declaring in a front-page headline: "Olmert must go."
Government officials said Olmert told the military to begin preparations for accelerated ground operations at about 5 p.m. Friday after seeing a draft of the U.N. resolution that he said he could not accept.
"What really triggered this decision was that apparently the Lebanese government -- under the pressure of Hezbollah -- managed to change the draft of the U.N. resolution in the afternoon," said Avi Pazner, a senior Israeli government spokesman.
But Olmert did not reverse the orders to the military after agreeing to a revised draft circulated later in the evening, according to a senior Israeli official.
"Right now the military has the green light," the official said.
Israeli government officials said the directive could be rescinded Sunday, depending on the cabinet action. It is unlikely the military could escalate ground combat operations significantly before Sunday because of the time required to move troops into new positions in the hilly terrain of southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah fighters are putting up fierce resistance.
In Lebanon, Israeli warplanes Friday evening strafed a column of cars and trucks evacuating people out of the southern town of Marjayoun, killing four people and wounding more than 23, according to George Kettaneh, head of the emergency rescue unit of the Lebanese Red Cross. The Associated Press reported seven deaths in the attack.
Before they were hit, a group of about 350 soldiers and Lebanese police from the Marjayoun barracks had begun a carefully orchestrated evacuation early Friday with peacekeepers of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, according to international relief workers and Gen. Adnan Daoud, who accompanied the convoy from Marjayoun. He said Interior Minister Ahmed Fatfat had insisted that civilians wishing to evacuate be allowed to accompany the convoy.
"When the shelling began, contacts were made with UNIFIL to put an end to the intense strafing," said Kettaneh of the Red Cross.
"We don't know of anything that was attacked there. We're still checking," an Israeli military spokeswoman said Friday night.
Israeli troops engaged in gun battles across a thin strip of territory along the Lebanese border where they have been fighting for weeks.
Hezbollah fired 124 rockets into Israel, slightly injuring five people. The number of rockets landing in Israel has steadily declined from more than 200 a day earlier in the week.
A half-dozen booms echoed across Beirut at dawn, then sporadically again during the early part of the day as Israeli warplanes hit the southern Beirut suburbs where Hezbollah leaders once had offices and homes, along with many of their Shiite supporters. The area has been mostly vacated of its residents, however, because of repeated bombings over the past month.
Several booms sounded as C. David Welch, the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, was in Lebanon's Ottoman-era government headquarters conferring with Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and other officials about the U.N. Security Council proposal to end the fighting.
Israeli jets also bombed north of the capital, taking out a bridge in the Akkar region and hitting roads near a border crossing into Syria at Abudiyeh. Lebanese media reported that 12 persons were killed and that the crossing was closed.
[Early Saturday, Israeli warplanes struck several targets in north and south Lebanon, the AP reported. Security officials said warplanes destroyed a power station in the southern port city of Sidon. There was no immediate word on casualties. Local media also reported airstrikes in Akkar province, 60 miles north of Beirut, and in Tyre, according to AP.]
The bombings Friday were part of a campaign to close down Hezbollah's resupply operations, preventing munitions and other supplies from reaching fighters in the south. Syria has been the principal conduit for weapons and other equipment allegedly supplied to Hezbollah by Iran.
The southern ground battles again centered on Marjayoun, a Christian town occupied without resistance by Israeli forces Thursday. Israeli forces attacked surrounding Hezbollah guerrillas with artillery and airstrikes along roads between Marjayoun and Khiam, a Shiite-inhabited town where Hezbollah fighters remain entrenched. Hezbollah's al-Manar television said a number of Israeli soldiers were killed and wounded in the clashes when an advancing 60-ton Merkava tank was destroyed.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said she could not confirm the reports of soldier deaths.
Hezbollah said its militia sank an Israeli naval vessel off Tyre in southern Lebanon, identifying it as a Super Dvora patrol boat. The 12 crew members were killed or wounded, the Shiite Muslim movement said. It was the third time Hezbollah has reported hitting an Israeli warship with guided missiles. The Israeli military, which denied that any of its ships was struck Friday, has said only one was hit, shortly after the war began July 12.
Meanwhile, the unity evident in Israeli society and government in the early days of the conflict appears to have shattered.
"If Olmert runs away now from the war he initiated, he will not be able to remain prime minister for even one more day," the daily newspaper Haaretz said in a front-page analysis. "You cannot lead an entire nation to war promising victory, produce humiliating defeat and remain in power. You cannot bury 120 Israelis in cemeteries, keep a million Israelis in shelters for a month and then say, 'Oops, I made a mistake.' "
In a poll published by Haaretz, 20 percent of the respondents said they believed that if the war ended now, Israel would be the winner. Thirty percent said Israel is losing the war, and 43 percent said there were no winners or losers.
Although surveys by different polling groups cannot be compared precisely, a poll last week by TNS/Teleseker for the Maariv daily newspaper found that nearly 55 percent of those asked believed Israel was winning and 38 percent said neither side was winning.
The majority of respondents in all polls favor expanding military operations and fault the government and the military for not taking more forceful ground action earlier in the war.
Military generals reportedly had been chafing that Olmert had not allowed them to expand military operations in southern Lebanon -- two days after the security cabinet gave him the authority to do so.
Soldiers who have been waiting for days for orders to move inside Lebanon are losing their edge, according to many officers.
Israeli television Channel 2 reported Friday night that several of the country's most senior military officials wrote a letter to the chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, complaining that war plans were in chaos and did not conform to the combat training soldiers and officers have been receiving.
Israeli newspapers are filled with reports of soldiers complaining about food, water and equipment shortages in southern Lebanon. The military was having so much trouble moving supplies over the rough terrain that it experimented with using llamas as pack animals. The experiment failed when an entire train of llamas sat down on the job, forcing the military unit to abort an expedition, according to several news reports.
The Israeli military has allowed few journalists to accompany troops into southern Lebanon. Nahum Barnea, one of the country's leading political commentators, has been reporting the misfortunes of a unit he accompanied into southern Lebanon.
"The battle between the IDF and Hezbollah is reminiscent of the famous Tom and Jerry cartoons by Hanna-Barbera," Barnea wrote, using the abbreviation for Israel Defense Forces. "Tom is a strong, ambitious cat. Jerry is a weak but clever mouse. Jerry teases Tom. Tom fights back. In every conflict between them, Jerry wins."
"There is no sense investing in a lost cause," Barnea continued. "Adding more ground forces to those already stuck in Lebanon will not bring about the hoped-for turnabout in the Lebanese gamble. With American support, Israel still has a chance of getting out of this war with decent accomplishments. Take what they're offering you, Ehud Olmert. Take it and run."
Cody reported from Beirut. Correspondent Nora Boustany in Beirut contributed to this report.
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