Border war descends on Israeli community

Israeli soldiers stand next to a mobile artillery unit firing 155 mm shells towards a Hezbollah target in southern Lebanon in the border between northern Israel and southern Lebanon. Blasts echoed through the deserted streets of the Israeli community of Zarit on the border with Lebanon, plunged into conflict after two soldiers were snatched by Hezbollah.(AFP/Menahem Kahana)

July 12, 2006

by Michael Blum

ZARIT, Israel (AFP) - Blasts echoed through the deserted streets of the Israeli community of Zarit on the border with Lebanon, plunged into conflict after two soldiers were snatched by Hezbollah.

Zarit's 64 families, mostly agricultural workers, were hiding in bomb shelters or reinforced rooms, digging in under fire from rocket and mortar attacks from across the border.

The sound of children sobbing could be heard above ground, through air pipes from the underground concrete shelters built in residents' back yards.

"This time, we are going to have war," said Amram Arviv, as he glanced towards Lebanon's hills where pillars of white smoke rose high in the afternoon sky after Israeli attacks.

The combined assault on Lebanon, launched from the air, ground and sea, in a bid to retrieve the two soldiers evoked memories of Israel's disastrous invasion of its neighbour where soldiers were caught in a deadly quagmire.

"We have gone back to the time when Israel was still in Lebanon," before it withdrew in May 2000, sighed his 40-year-old wife Efrat who has spent half of her life in Zarit.

She points to a spot where one of the Hezbollah shells exploded a few feet from her comfortable home.

Poised to intensify its operation in southern Lebanon which the Israeli army quit six years ago after almost two decades of occupation, the military on Wednesday called up 6,000 reserve troops to northern Israel.

The evening skies turned red over the green, rolling Galilee hills amid heavy exchanges of fire.

In Zarit, a security jeep operated by the village drove slowly through the empty streets, with it loudspeaker mounted on the roof urging residents not to venture outdoors.

"It's so difficult living on the front line," said a weary 65-year-old Bida Lev, one of the first people to have moved into the moshav agricultural community and who is used to security alerts on the flashpoint border.

Apache assault helicopters chopped through the skies headed for Lebanon. Tanks and armoured troop carriers hurtled full speed ahead toward the border, kicking up clouds of dust.

Several hundred metres (yards) away, across the border, Israeli forces were searching for the two servicemen, who were snatched by Hezbollah fighters while on a routine patrol along the border in their heavily-armoured Hummer jeeps.

Three other soldiers, also in the US-manufactured vehicles at the time, were killed in the attack.

Shortly afterwards, four more soldiers were killed when their tank was blown up by a massive 300-kilogram (660-pound) bomb while searching for the abducted soldiers inside Lebanon.