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40,000 soldiers await word to enter southern Lebanon By Yaakov Katz

Jerusalem Post 9 Aug 2006

Tens of thousands of IDF troops amassed along the northern border Wednesday evening in preparation for Israel’s largest and deepest ground incursion into southern Lebanon since the beginning of Operation Change of Direction last month.

The security cabinet on Wednesday approved a plan presented by IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz, under which military forces by the thousands will head up to the Litani river over 20 kilometers from Israel and beyond in an effort to prevent the incessant Katyusha rocket attacks on northern Israel.

Some 7,000 IDF troops were operating in southern Lebanon Wednesday, clashing with Hizbullah guerrillas in several villages while holding and maintaining position along a 10-kilometer-deep security zone the IDF had created. An additional 40,000 IDF troops and reservists were waiting along the northern border in preparation for the major push to the Litani.

A high-ranking IDF officer and member of the General Staff told The Jerusalem Post Wednesday that it would take the military at least one week to reach the Litani and beyond, and to set up position and begin taking control of the area.

The officer said that it would then take four to six weeks to clear out southern Lebanon, from the Litani river south, of the Hizbullah presence and to destroy the thousands of Katyusha rockets and rocket launchers believed to be in that area.

The IDF estimates that the area between the Litani river and the security zone that military forces are currently maintaining is home to 70 percent of the Katyusha rockets launched at northern Israel.

In the plan approved by the cabinet on Wednesday, the IDF was also granted permission to cross the Litani river into areas like Nabatiyeh, from where Hizbullah has been firing rockets at the upper Galilee, as well as Haifa and other coast-lying cities.

Hizbullah’s Nasser Unit, in charge of southern Lebanon, was still operational, the high-ranking officer said, and numbered several thousand Hizbullah fighters, including reservists, which the guerrilla group had called up in anticipation of Israel’s planned massive ground incursion.

Hizbullah, the officer said, still retained its command and control abilities throughout Lebanon and had fighters deployed in between 100-130 villages from the Litani south. North of the river, the officer said, Hizbullah had a smaller presence, but one that still numbered several thousand fighters.

In southern Lebanon, within the security zone the IDF had created, soldiers were still battling in two Hizbullah strongholds – Bint Jbail and Ayta a-Shaab, scenes of heavy fighting between IDF troops and Hizbullah gunmen on Wednesday.

Copyright 1995-2006 The Jerusalem Post

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This entry was posted on 10 August, 2006 by in Empire, War and Terror, Israel, Israel Watch, Lebanon.

Timely Reminders

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-- Aldous Huxley

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for lack
of what is found there"
-- William Carlos Williams, "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower"


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