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chicagotribune.com >> Nation/World
CONFLICT IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Israeli casualties, war doubts on riseSummit ends without deal to stop fightingBy Joel Greenberg, Tribune foreign correspondent. Tribune correspondent Cam Simpson contributed from RomePublished July 27, 2006
JERUSALEM -- On a day of heavy Israeli casualties and failed international talks to end more than two weeks of fighting, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert faced growing domestic doubts Wednesday about the army's tactics and the overall wisdom of Israel's offensive in Lebanon.As televised images of wounded soldiers raised haunting memories of Israel's 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon, Olmert told lawmakers of plans for a new 1.2-mile-deep buffer zone there as critics began raising questions about the army's performance and credibility in the face of determined resistance by Hezbollah.
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Putting up a stronger fight than expected, Hezbollah guerrillas inflicted heavy losses on Israeli troops, killing nine soldiers and wounding 25 in the worst single-day toll for the Israelis since the start of the campaign.In Rome, world leaders disbanded a meeting on the crisis without agreeing on how to end the fighting, which has claimed more than 460 lives. While the United Nations, European Union and others wanted an immediate cease-fire, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insisted on the U.S. position that any truce be accompanied by a wider agreement that includes Hezbollah's disarmament.Pleading for "an immediate and comprehensive cease-fire," Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora warned the diplomats that only despair and fanaticism would emerge from Lebanon's rubble, and he accused Israel of war crimes."Is the value of human life less in Lebanon than that of citizens elsewhere? Are we children of a lesser God?" Siniora said, according to a copy of his remarks. "Is an Israeli teardrop worth more than a drop of Lebanese blood?"The world leaders signed a final statement pledging to "work immediately" toward a cease-fire, and Rice said it would be used to help draft a UN Security Council resolution in the coming days on the need for an international force to separate the warring sides. She said a separate meeting would be convened among nations interested in sending troops for such a force.In Washington, White House spokesman Tony Snow said two ranking U.S. diplomats would remain in the region to consult "with partners and allies on how to move forward . . . to make conditions proper for a cease-fire."In addition to the intense ground fighting Wednesday, Hezbollah fired more than 150 rockets into northern Israel despite the army's continuing offensive to stop such launches, the army said. The rockets wounded more than 30 people and damaged property.Bint Jbeil, the hill town where the army suffered its heavy losses, is a key stronghold of Hezbollah about 2 miles from the border with Israel. It has been the focus of an Israeli ground push into Lebanon that the army says is meant to kill the group's fighters and destroy its bunkers and rocket stocks in villages near the frontier.Most of Bint Jbeil's 30,000 residents have fled, but several hundred are believed to remain in the town, along with an unknown number of Hezbollah guerrillas dug in among the homes.Maj. Gen. Udi Adam, chief of the Israeli army's northern command, said several dozen Hezbollah fighters ambushed troops from the crack Golani brigade as they advanced into the town. The guerrillas set off explosives and opened fire at the soldiers, killing eight and wounding 22, an army spokeswoman said.The soldiers killed most of the attackers, and the Israeli casualties were evacuated under fire to helicopters, Adam saidThe military said that an additional soldier was killed and three others were wounded when guerrillas fired an anti-tank rocket at a house occupied by troops in the neighboring village of Maroun al-Ras, which the army said previously that it had taken."I assume there will be more days like this, regretfully, and these days can happen," Adam said.The general said troops would carry out raids in Bint Jbeil and neighboring villages but would not occupy them."The definition of the operation was to seize high ground in the Bint Jbeil area and not capture the entire town; it is too big a town, and we decided that there is no reason right now to occupy it," Adam said. "We are free to act in the whole area, and that is the mode of operation, that is, we go in and out of all kinds of places, not only Bint Jbeil."But the number of casualties in Wednesday's fighting, coming after losses in similar clashes in recent days, led some critics to question army tactics."When [the army] falls into ambushes time after time, and is surprised each time anew, this series of events has to be stopped," Rafi Noy, a retired general and former chief of staff in the army's northern command, told Channel Two television. "It's not good when this happens to an army that is so trained and so professional."The losses in Bint Jbeil also were a blow to the army's credibility after some senior officers announced in media interviews Tuesday that resistance in the town had been broken and that it was under the control of Israeli forces."The war is leading us by the nose to sink deeper in the Lebanese mud. . . . The moment the army will be in Lebanon for an extended period, it will be hell for us in there," said Ran Cohen, a dovish lawmaker and reserve army colonel, The Associated Press reported. "The deeper we get drawn in, the worse it will be."The leader of Hezbollah, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, said in a televised speech early Wednesday that his group would wage a guerrilla war against the Israelis in southern Lebanon. "What's important in the ground battle is the degree to which we inflict casualties on the Israeli enemy," Nasrallah said.Olmert told a parliamentary committee Wednesday that Israel wanted to establish a 1.2-mile-deep buffer zone in southern Lebanon that would be free of Hezbollah guerrillas and deter rocket attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians.However, Olmert indicated that Israel would not go back to an occupation similar to the "security zone" it maintained in southern Lebanon in the '80s and '90s. Defense Minister Amir Peretz spoke Tuesday of controlling the area with firepower to prevent the entry of guerrillas.In the southern Lebanese city of Tyre on Sunday, an Israeli bombing hit an empty building where Hezbollah's commander in the south has offices, wounding 13 people nearby, AP reported.A total of 51 Israelis have been killed since the start of the military campaign, 33 of them soldiers. More than 400 Lebanese, most of them civilians, have been killed in Israeli attacks.----------jogreenberg@tribune.com
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
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