Today's Situation

Now it’s a two-front conflict Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Israel now faces a two-front conflict and the close ties between Hamas and Hizbollah means the capture of two more soldiers, complicates an already complex situation. Israeli troops were being sent north, and Defense Minister Amir Peretz has announced that Israel regards the Lebanese government as responsible for the safety of the two soldiers.

Hamas and Hizbollah will now coordinate their postures regarding releasing the soldiers in exchange for prisoners being held by Israel, which has so far publicly refused to consider any such exchange for the return of Corporal Gilad Shalit. The Hizbollah action will be met by an angry Israeli response, possibly included attacks on Lebanese infrastructure as punishment of the Lebanese government for not reining in the Hizbollah, and perhaps even an attack on Syrian targets of some kind, as Syria is regarded as Hizbollah’s main patron outside of Iran. Given the massing of troops on the northern border, it appears a ground incursion is also not being ruled out.

Since Israel’s withdrawal from south Lebanon in May 2000, Hizbollah -- not the Lebanese Army -- has taken up positions right on the border with Israel. Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has never made a secret of his ambition to kidnap Israeli soldiers to trade for prisoners held by Israel.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was convening an emergency session of the security cabinet and issued a statement saying that Israel’s enemies were ‘testing Israel’ and would ‘pay heavily’ for their actions.

The fire in the north came as Israeli forces in Gaza bisected the besieged Palestinian territory, cutting off the north from the south. Israel says its ongoing raids in and out of Gaza are meant to put the squeeze on Hamas to release captured IDF Corporal Gilad Shalit and to curtail launches of the primitive Qassam rockets into Israel. Several civilians, including a mother and two children, were killed in the bombing attack on the Gaza building where Israel said the Hamas Military Council -- a kind of general staff of the Hamas military wing -- was meeting in Gaza City.

But the failed attempt to wipe out the top tier of Hamas military commanders was quickly overshadowed by the Hizbollah fire, which began with rocket fire along the western sector of the Lebanese-Israeli border. Israeli Air Force planes were striking at Hizbollah and infrastructure targets -- roads and bridges -- in south Lebanon.

Hizbollah said the soldiers were in a safe place and its TV station Al Manara began broadcasting calls for Israel to release prisoners it is holding in exchange for the two soldiers. Katyushas and mortars wounded 11 Israelis in addition to soldiers who were wounded in the attack on the Hummer jeeps that had been carrying the captured soldiers.

Meanwhile, in the south, two Qassams landed on the southern outskirts of Ashkelon, making somewhat of a mockery of the Israeli operations in northern Gaza, where troops have been pulled out but cannon fire continues to pound open areas where Qassams are launched into the western Negev or north, toward Ashkelon. Def is infamous in Israeli security circles as both a master bomb-maker and as surviving several attempts on his life. Killing him would be a moral booster for the IDF, which is increasingly frustrated by its failure to halt the Qassam fire, and still believes that pressure on the Palestinian population will lead to them rising up against their leadership.

The military flare-up came as Qatar introduced a UN Security Council resolution calling for the Palestinians to release Gilad Shalit and end Qassam fire into Israel and for Israel to end its operations in Gaza. The new resolution was far more moderate and balanced than a previous resolution that Iran and Algeria tried to push into the UNSC. But U.S. Ambassador John Bolton reportedly said the Qatari resolution was still too unbalanced for American support.

Meanwhile, the scandal involving President Moshe Katsav continues to snowball. Half a dozen women have reportedly come forward to complain about him sexually harassing them, while a letter he sent to Attorney General Menachem Mazuz yesterday indicated that Katsav does not want a police inquiry into either his original allegations he was being victimized by an extortionist, or into his behavior behind closed doors with women who worked for him both as president and before, when he was a parliamentarian and occasionally a minister. But it’s too late to stop the inquiry. Mazuz has already called in the police and this morning, top investigators were to be named responsible for probing all sides of the case.

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