Hezbollah 'foils Israeli raid'

Hezbollah fighters inspect the site of the Israeli operation

19 August 2006

Aljazeera

Hezbollah fighters are said to have foiled an Israeli commando raid west of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon, after clashes that left one Israeli soldier dead and two others wounded.


Media reports quoted Lebanese security sources as saying on Saturday that Israeli aircraft and commandos raided the village of Budai, west of the ancient city of Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley, at dawn.

The sources said that Israeli warplanes and helicopters attacked unidentified targets during the air drop of the commandos.

Al-Manar TV reported that fighters from Hezbollah clashed with Israeli commandos near Budai and forced them to fly out under the cover of air strikes.

The Hezbollah-run station said the Israeli unit landed before dawn and was driving into the village when it was intercepted by the fighters, who forced it to retreat under the cover of warplanes.

It said the fighters had inflicted "certain casualties" among the Israeli forces.

Hezbollah account

Lebanese security sources said that three Hezbollah fighters were also killed in a firefight. Bassam al-Qadiri, Aljazeera's correspondent in Lebanon, said that a Hezbollah information official source in Bekaa denied that any of the movement’s fighters had been killed or injured in the airdrop operation. The source told Aljazeera that six Israeli soldiers were injured during clashes between the fighters and Israeli troops.

Baalbek was the target of aprevious Israeli commando raid

A Lebanese security source said the Israeli airdrop operation sought to target Hezbollah leader Muhammad Yazbek.

The Israeli army later confirmed that it had carried out the operation, making it the broadest violation yet of the five-day-old UN-brokered ceasefire that ended 34 days of its attacks on Lebanon.

The army said the raid was to prevent arms being delivered to Hezbollah by Iran and Syria.

"Special forces carried out an operation to disrupt terror actions against Israel with an emphasis on the transfer of munitions from Syria and Iran to Hezbollah," the army said.

"The operation achieved all its aims and Israel will continue to prevent and thwart such shipments to Hezbollah until they are stopped."

The army said one of the soldiers wounded was in a serious condition and the other suffered light injuries.

Interpretations

Lebanon's prime minister accused Israel of violating the UN-brokered ceasefire and said he would take up the issue with Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general.

"The landing carried out by the Israeli occupation forces today in the Bekaa was a flagrant violation of the cessation of hostilities announced by the Security Council," Fuad Siniora said in a statement.

Siniora called the raid a flagrantviolation of the ceasefire

He added that he had complained to a UN delegation that visited him Saturday, and would take up the matter with Annan.

Fawzi Sallukh, the Lebanese foreign minister, said that he discussed the issue with Vijay Nambiar and Terje Roed-Larsen, the visiting UN envoys. He said they pledged to ask Israel to stop violations of Lebanese territory.

"They promised to raise the issue with Israel to ask them to stop the violations," Sallukh said after a meeting with the envoys who did not wish to comment.

Nambiar and Roed-Larsen were in Beirut to try to ensure that both sides implemented the truce resolution "without delay", a UN source said.

Update:

UN concerned about Israeli truce violation

________________________

Commentary:

Tell a Lie Shame on You

August 20, 2006

by Housewife4Palestine


It is kind of interesting when a day late and a dollar short Israel comes up that they committed a commando raid west of Baalbek because it was suspected that Hezbollah was receiving arms across the Syrian boarder, especially when this was never mentioned by Israel till the next day to justify them breaking the UN truce with Lebanon.

I am not saying that Hezbollah was or wasn’t at the boarder because I was not there, but usually a person or in this case Israel being caught with their pants down by the world once again came up within twenty-four hours a reason to justify their violation of the truce.

I been reading here and their mostly people that seems to be with Israel biting at the bit saying how Hezbollah was wrong after reading an article a in Haartez online newspaper, without being reminded they are reading and article after the truce violation.

It is like a Palestinian family being almost wiped out on a beach by a mysterious attack and a few days later under alleged investigation Israel hollering they didn’t do it when all the evidence really showed otherwise.

When a simple woman can analyze material and come up with an unbiased conclusion that Israel was at fault doesn’t stand to reason they really did shoot themselves in the foot once more?