Encyclopedia
The
2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, known in Lebanon as the
July War and in Israel as the
Second Lebanon War was a military conflict in
Lebanon and northern
Israel, primarily between
Hezbollah paramilitary forces and Israel. It started on 12 July 2006 and ended when a
United Nations-brokered ceasefire went into effect on 14 August 2006.
The conflict began when Hezbollah fired
Katyusha rockets and mortars at Israeli military positions and border villages to divert attention from another Hezbollah unit that crossed the border and captured two Israeli soldiers and killed three. Israel responded with massive
airstrikes and
artillery fire on Lebanese civilian infrastructure, which Israel said Hezbollah was using, an air and naval blockade, and a ground invasion of southern Lebanon. Hezbollah in turn launched rockets into northern Israel and engaged the
Israel Defense Forces in
guerrilla warfare from hardened positions.
The conflict killed over 1,500 people, mostly Lebanese civilians, severely damaged Lebanese infrastructure, displaced about one million Lebanese and 500,000 Israelis, and disrupted normal life across all of Lebanon and northern Israel. Even after the ceasefire, 256,000 Lebanese remained internally displaced
Background
The
Palestinian exodus in 1948 and the mass expulsion of Palestinians from
Jordan in 1971 after the events of Black September resulted in a huge demographic shift for Lebanon from a balanced
Maronite Catholic-
Shi'a Muslim majority nation to a country whose
southern region became the home of hundreds of thousands of
Palestinian Arab refugees. The
Lebanese Civil War was expedited, if not caused, by these shifts, and created a troublesome border with various forces coordinating attacks against Israel and calling for its destruction. Ultimately,
Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 to forcibly expel the
Palestine Liberation Organization , and largely succeeded, but was forced by international pressure to withdraw to a slim borderland buffer zone. New militias rose up to fill the void left by the PLO, some allied with Israel, like the
South Lebanese Army , some with shared interests, like
Amal, and others in violent opposition to
Israeli occupation of Lebanese territory. Though the Lebanese civil war ended and most other warring factions laid down their arms in 1991,
Hezbollah refused and eventually forced the surrender of the SLA and an early Israeli withdrawal in 2000 from all of Lebanon but the disputed
Shebaa farms area. Hezbollah continued its campaign intermittantly over the next six years, seeking to win freedom for Lebanese citizens in Israeli prisons, while Israel conducted military operations to weaken Hezbollah. Several prisoner exchanges were arranged between the two parties.
Beginning of conflict
At around 9:00 AM local time , on 12 July 2006, Hezbollah initiated a diversionary
Katyusha rocket and mortar attack on Israeli military positions and border villages. At the same time, a ground contingent of Hezbollah crossed the border into Israeli territory and attacked two Israeli armoured
Humvees patrolling on the Israeli side of the Israel-Lebanon border, near the village of Zar'it, killing three, injuring two, and capturing two Israeli soldiers. Five more Israeli soldiers were killed later on the Lebanese side of the border during an attempt to rescue the two kidnapped soldiers.
Hezbollah's attack was named "
Operation Truthful Promise", after a "promise" by its leader
Hassan Nasrallah to kidnap Israeli soldiers and swap them for Arab prisoners in Israeli jails. It also include some of the four Lebanese prisoners in Israel, including convicted murderer
Samir Kuntar. Nasrallah declared: "No military operation will return the Israeli captured soldiers…The prisoners will not be returned except through one way: indirect negotiations and a trade of prisoners."
Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert described the capture of the soldiers as an "act of war" by Lebanon, said that Israel was attacked by a sovereign country, and promised Lebanon a "very painful and far-reaching response". Israel quickly blamed the Lebanese government for the raid, as it was carried out from Lebanese territory and Hezbollah had two ministers serving in the Lebanese cabinet at that time. The
Israel Defense Forces began hammering Lebanon with artillery and airstrikes hours before the Israeli Cabinet met to discuss a response. Israel's
chief of staff Lt. Gen.
Dan Halutz said "If the soldiers are not returned, we will turn Lebanon's clock back 20 years" and the head of Israel's Northern Command Maj. Gen. Udi Adam said "This affair is between Israel and the state of Lebanon. Where to attack? Once it is inside Lebanon, everything is legitimate -- not just southern Lebanon, not just the line of
Hezbollah posts." This same day the Israeli Cabinet authorized "severe and harsh" retaliation on Lebanon. In response, Lebanese Prime Minister
Fouad Siniora denied any knowledge of the raid and stated that he did not condone it. An emergency meeting of the Lebanese government reaffirmed this position. Later Prime Minister
Olmert explained that "the war [had] started not only by killing eight Israeli soldiers and abducting two, but by shooting
Katyusha and other rockets on the northern cities of Israel on that same morning. Indiscriminately." A retired Israeli Army Colonel explained that the rationale behind the attack was to create a rift between the Lebanese population and Hezbollah supporters by exacting a heavy price from the elite in
Beirut.
Israeli action
During the campaign, Israel's
Air Force flew more than 12,000 combat missions. The
Navy fired 2,500 shells, and the
Army fired over 100,000 shells , destroying large parts of the Lebanese civilian infrastructure. 400 miles of roads, 73 bridges and 31 targets such as
Beirut International Airport, ports, water and sewage treatment plants, electrical facilities, 25 fuel stations, 900 commercial structures, up to 350 schools and two hospitals were destroyed, as well as some 15,000 homes. Some 130,000 more homes were damaged.
Early on 13 July 2006 Israel sent
IAF jets to bomb
Beirut International Airport, forcing its closure and diversion of incoming flights to
Cyprus.
Israel subsequently imposed an air and sea blockade on Lebanon, and bombed the main Beirut–
Damascus highway.
On 23 July 2006 Israeli land forces crossed into Lebanon in the
Maroun al-Ras area, which overlooks several other locations said to have been used as launch sites for Hezbollah rockets.
On 25 July 2006 IDF forces attacked Bint Jbeil, an important Hezbollah stronghold opposite the Israeli border.
On 26 July 2006 Israeli forces attacked and destroyed an UN observer post. Described as a nondeliberate attack, the post was shelled for hours before being bombed. UN forces made repeated calls to alert Israeli forces of the danger to the UN observers, all four of whom were killed. Rescuers were shelled as they attempted to reach the post. According to an e-mail sent earlier by one of the UN observers killed in the attack, there had been numerous occasions on a daily basis where the post had come under fire from both Israeli artillery and aerial bombing. The UN observer reportedly wrote that previous Israeli bombing near the post had not been deliberate targeting, but rather due to "tactical necessity," military jargon which retired Canadian Major General Lewis MacKenzie later interpreted as indicating that Israeli strikes were aimed at Hezbollah targets near the post.
On 27 July 2006, Hezbollah ambushed the Israelis there and killed eight soldiers. Israel says it also inflicted heavy losses on Hezbollah.
On 28 July 2006 Israeli
paratroopers killed 26 of Hizbullah's
commando elite in Bint Jbeil. In total, the IDF claims that 80 fighters were killed in the battles at Bint Jbeil.
On 30 July 2006, Israeli airstrikes hit an apartment building in Qana. Human Rights Watch has later confirmed that at least 28 died, of which 16 were children, with 13 more still missing.
On 1 August 2006 Israeli commandos landed in
Baalbek in
Operation Sharp and Smooth, and captured five civilians including one bearing the same name as Hezbollah's leader, "Hassan Nasrallah". All of the civilians were released after the ceasefire. Troops landed near Dar al-Himkeh hospital west of Baalbeck as part of a widescale operation in the area.
On 5 August 2006 Israeli commandos carried out a
raid in Tyre.
On 12 August 2006, one day after United Nations Security Council had approved Resolution 1701, the IDF established its hold in Lebanon. Over the weekend Israeli forces in southern Lebanon nearly tripled in size. and were ordered to advance towards the
Litani River.
On 14 August 2006, moments before the ceasefire went into effect, the Israeli Air Force reported that they had killed the head of Hezbollah’s Special Forces, whom they identified as Sajed Dewayer, while Hezbollah denied this claim. On the same day, the IDF targeted what it said was a Palestinian faction in the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp in Sidon. Two missiles were fired into a civilian residential area which killed UNRWA staff member Abdel Saghir. Two civilians had been killed in this camp a few days prior to the incident.
Hezbollah action
Hezbollah fired between 3,970 and 4,228 rockets, and even though only 23% of them hit built-up areas, these were primarily civilian in nature. It also hit a hospital in
Safed in northern
Galilee on 18 July, wounding eight. One of the attacks hit a railroad repair depot, killing eight workers. Hezbollah claimed that this attack was aimed at a large Israeli fuel storage plant adjacent to the railway facility. Haifa is home to many strategically valuable facilities such as shipyards and oil refineries.
Hezbollah also engaged in
guerrilla warfare from well fortified positions with the IDF. These attacks by small, well-armed units caused serious problems for the IDF, especially where hundreds of sophisticated Russian-made
anti-tank guided missiles were used. They enabled Hezbollah to completely destroy 14 Israeli
Merkava main battle tanks, and damage 50. Hezbollah destroyed six tanks using anti-tank mines. Hezbollah caused additional casualities using ATGMs to collapse buildings onto Israeli troops sheltering inside. Lebanese satellite TV station
Al-Manar reported that the attack had included a
Fajr-3 and a
Ra'ad 1, both liquid-fuel missiles developed by Iran.
After the initial Israeli response, Hezbollah declared an all-out military alert, and said it had 13,000 rockets capable of hitting towns and installations far into northern Israel. As a result, Israeli Defense Minister Peretz told commanders to prepare civil defense plans, and around half of the million civilians living in Northern Israel were sent to bomb shelters or fled their homes to other parts of the country.
Hezbollah continued to fire rockets into northern Israel's towns, cities, and numerous small agricultural villages.
On 14 July 2006 the IDF bombed Nasrallah's offices in Beirut.Nasrallah addressed Israel, saying “You wanted an open war, and we are heading for an open war. We are ready for it.” Hezbollah successfully attacked an Israeli warship enforcing the blockade of Lebanon with a radar guided
C-802 anti-ship missile. 4 sailors were killed and the
Sa'ar 5-class missile boat was severely damaged and was towed back to port.
On 3 August 2006 Nasrallah warned Israel against hitting Beirut and promised retalation against Tel Aviv in this case. He also stated that Hezbollah would stop its rocket campaign if Israel ceased aerial and artillery strikes of Lebanese towns and villages.
On 9 August 2006 nine Israeli soldiers were killed when the building they were taking cover in was struck by a Hezbollah anti-tank missile and collapsed.
On 12 August 2006 24 Israeli soldiers were killed; the worst Israeli loss in a single day. Out of those 24, five soldiers were killed when Hezbollah apparently shot down an Israeli helicopter, a first for the militia.. Hezbollah claimed the helicopter was attacked with a Wa'ad missile.
Initial reviews of the conflict after the ceasefire
Following the UN-brokered ceasefire, there were mixed responses on who had gained most in the war. Iran and Syria proclaimed a victory for Hezbollah while the Israeli and United States administrations declared that Hezbollah lost the conflict. Initially, in a poll by an Israeli radio station, Israelis were split on the outcome with the majority believing that no one won.. By 25 August, 63% of Israelis polled wanted Olmert to resign due to his handling of the war.
The Economist concluded that by surviving this unsymmetrical military conflict with Israel, Hezbollah effectively emerged with a military and political victory from this conflict. They cite the facts that Hezbollah was able to sustain defenses on Lebanese soil and inflict unmitigated rocket attacks on Israeli civilians in the face of a punishing air and land campaign by the IDF. Also, Israel's stated goals entering the conflict were to retrieve its two captured soldiers and destroy the military capability of Hezbollah - neither goal was accomplished. Hezbollah is leading the rebuilding effort in south Beirut and Lebanon using "unlimited" support from Iran, thereby awarding Hezbollah further political clout. However, given the response from Israeli military forces, which caused widespread destruction in southern Lebanon, as well as a new UN force to occupy what was formerly a Hezbollah controlled area, the conflict is generally seen as weakening Hezbollah militarily. Proponents of both sides claim victory, although from a statistical standpoint, neither side achieved their goals. On 27 August Hassan Nasrallah apologised to the Lebanese people for the incident that sparked the war, saying "Had we known that the kidnapping of the soldiers would have led to this, we would definitely not have done it." This was the day before
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's visit to Lebanon,
On 22 September, some eight hundred thousand Hezbollah supporters gathered in Beirut in the Hezbollah's Beirut stronghold for a "divine victory" rally over Israel declared by its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. Nasrallah walked through the crowd greeting people and shaking hands before starting his speech, and said that Hezbollah should celebrate the "divine and strategic victory."
In contrast, Israeli Prime Minister Olmert admitted to the
Knesset that there were mistakes in the war in Lebanon, though he framed UN Security Council resolution 1701 as an accomplishment for Israel that it would bring home the kidnapped soldiers, and said that the operations had altered the regional strategic balance vis-à-vis Hezbollah. Israeli chief of staff Dan Halutz, has publicly admitted to failings in the conflict. On 15 August, Israeli government and defense officials called for Halutz' resignation following a
stock scandal in which he admitted selling stocks hours before the start of the Israeli offensive. The magnitude of the affair is considered linked to the lack of a "clearcut victory" for Israel.
On 21 August, a group of demobilized Israel reserve soldiers and parents of soldiers killed in the fighting started a movement calling for the resignation of Ehud Olmert and the establishment of a national commission of inquiry. They set up a protest tent opposite the Knesset and grew significantly in numbers, reaching over 2,000 by 25 August and including support from the influential Movement for Quality Government. The political and military committees were to be headed by former director of
Mossad, Nahum Admoni, and former
Chief of Staff, Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, respectively. Critics argued that these committees amount to a whitewash, due to their limited authority, limited investigatory scope, their self-appointed basis, and that neither would be headed by a retired judge. On 12 September, former defense minister
Moshe Arens spoke of "the defeat of Israel" in calling for a state committee of inquiry. Asked what questions he thought should be addressed, he said that Israel had lost "to a very small group of people, 5000 Hezbullah fighters, which should have been no match at all for the IDF." He stated that the conflict could have "some very fateful consequences for the future." Disclosing his intent to shortly resign, Ilan Harari, the IDF's chief education officer, stated at a conference of senior IDF officers that Israel lost the war, becoming the first senior active duty officer to publicly reveal such an opinion.
US President George W. Bush has questioned Hezbollah's declarations of victory "when at one time [they] were a state within a state, safe within southern Lebanon, and now [they're] going to be replaced by a Lebanese army and an international force." It seems unlikely, however, that the army or the international force will attempt to disarm Hezbollah.
The American and Lebanese relationship has been strained by the war. After the attack on Qana, the typically pro-American Siniora snubbed US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice by cancelling a meeting with her and thanked Hezbollah for its "sacrifices for the independence and sovereignty of Lebanon." Many Lebanese condemned the United States government for stalling the ceasefire resolution in the UN and its support of Israel. In a poll conducted on 28 July, only 8% of Lebanese felt that the US supports Lebanon, while 87% supported Hezbollah's fight with Israel.
The fighting resulted in a huge financial setback for Lebanon, with estimates ranging from US$7 to US$10 billion in direct costs while the cost for Israel is put at US$1.6 - US$3 billion. This, and other factors has prompted a commentator in the London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat to question the claims of victory by Hezbollah. According to one analyst in the
Associated Press, the main casualty was the fragile unity between Lebanon's sectarian and political groups.
Targets in civilian areas
Killed in the conflict were 1,187 Lebanese civilians and 44 Israeli civilians. Almost one third of the Lebanese civilian casualties were children under 13 years of age.
The United Nations Development Program initially estimated about 35,000 homes and businesses in Lebanon were destroyed by Israel in the conflict, while a quarter of the country's road bridges or overpasses were damaged. Jean Fabre, a UNDP spokesman, estimated that overall economic losses for Lebanon from the month-long conflict between Israel and Hezbollah totaled "at least $15 billion, if not more."
Israel says that it attacked buildings and infrastructure used by Hezbollah to launch rockets or receive re-supply from Iran and Syria.
Hezbollah fired hundreds of rockets, sometimes more than 200 per day throughout the conflict. These landed in all major cities of northern Israel, including Haifa, Nazareth, and Tiberias, as well as dozens of kibbutzim, moshavim, Druze, and
Arab villages., while Israel destroyed large parts of the Lebanese civilian infrastructure with airstrikes and heavy artillery fire. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah defended the attacks, saying that Hezbollah had "started to act calmly, we focused on Israel[i] military bases and we didn’t attack any settlement, however, since the first day, the enemy attacked Lebanese towns and murdered civilians—Hezbollah militants had destroyed military bases, while the Israelis killed civilians and targeted Lebanon's infrastructure.
Amnesty International condemned both Hezbollah and Israel for attacks on civilians, in addition to the reported use of white phosphorus by the IDF.
A recent briefing presented evidence suggesting that Israel deliberately attacked the civilian infrastructure and government of Lebanon in a conscious effort to turn them against Hezbollah, and called for an independent and impartial inquiry appointed by UN, to investigate alleged war crimes by both Hezbollah and Israel.
Human Rights Watch condemned the indiscriminate use of force against civilians by both Israel and Hezbollah. They blamed Israel for systematically failing to distinguish between combatants and civilians, which may constitute a war crime, and accused Hezbollah of committing war crimes by the deliberate and indiscriminate killing of civilians by firing rockets into populated areas. The organization also strongly criticized Israel for using
cluster bombs too close to civilians because of their inaccuracy and unreliability, and Hezbollah for filling its rockets with
ball bearings, which "suggests a desire to maximize harm to civilians."
Eli Yishai, Israel's Vice Prime Minister and member of Israel's Security Cabinet, explained: "If Hezbollah fires Katyushas, we have to deliver a severe blow to Lebanon's infrastructure, black out Beirut, cut off electricity, turn off the water, destroy bridges, halt industry and flatten entire villages. If there is horrible damage in Lebanon, they will say, 'The Jews are crazy'" He also said: "If Lebanese citizens pay the price, they will rise up against Hezbollah."
UN's
Secretary-General Kofi Annan criticized Israel for using cluster bombs, while Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator
Jan Egeland accused Israel of "completely immoral" use of the munitions in the country. Amnesty International stated on 30 August 2006 that it was "outrageous" that Israel had not yet provided maps indicating where cluster bombs were used, reiterating that their use "in the heart of where people live clearly violates the prohibition on indiscriminate attacks" and was therefore "a grave violation of international humanitarian law". On 1 September 2006 IDF said it would provide UNIFIL with maps of South Lebanon that indicated where bombs or other devices that did not explode may be found.
A senior IDF official commented on the extent of the use of cluster bombs by saying "what we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs". IDF soldiers testified that the army had used phosphorous shells. The US government declared its intent to investigate whether Israel's use of American-made cluster bombs in southern Lebanon had violated secret agreements that restrict when it can employ such weapons. 90 percent of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the war. As of 6 September 2006, at least 13 people were killed and dozens injured after the ceasefire in Lebanon by unexploded ordnance. Most of the deaths resulted from the submunitions of cluster bombs. The UN had found 100,000 unexploded cluster bomblets at 359 sites by that time.
Israeli officials accused Hezbollah of intentionally using the civilian population as
human shields, and several reports have alleged that Hezbollah fired rockets from residential areas to draw Israeli fire on those areas, in an attempt to maximize civilian casualties. Moreover, the
IDF claimed that Hezbollah had blocked village exits to prevent residents from leaving the warzone. It declared that the
IAF had dropped leaflets warning civilians to leave the area before it attacks. Israeli Justice Minister
Haim Ramon stated civilians remaining in South Lebanon after being issued such leaflets should be considered "terrorists." The Association for Civil Rights in Israel points to Israeli attacks on roads, bridges and vehicles transporting refugees as preventing civilian evacuation. The IDF asserted that its attacks on infrastructure such as the airport were justified, as it claimed that such infrastructure was used to re-supply Hezbollah with missiles and other ordnance from Syria and Iran, and could have been used to smuggle the two kidnapped Israeli soldiers into Iran.
Jan Egeland called Hezbollah rocket attacks into northern Israel and Israeli aerial bombing of Beirut violations of humanitarian law. He accused Hezbollah of “cowardly blending…among women and children” and condemned their rumored pride at "having many more children and women dead than armed men."
Louise Arbour, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, expressed "grave concern over the continued killing and maiming of civilians in Lebanon, Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory." She suggested that the actions of Israel and Hezbollah may constitute
war crimes. Arbour called for Israel to obey a “principle of proportionality" and said, "indiscriminate shelling of cities constitutes a foreseeable and unacceptable targeting of civilians.…Similarly, the bombardment of sites with alleged military significance, but resulting invariably in the killing of innocent civilians, is unjustifiable."
Environmental consequences
The Israeli Air Force bombed the
Jiyeh power station, 30 km south of Beirut, on 13 July 2006 and 15 July 2006, resulting in an environmental disaster. The plant's damaged storage tanks leaked 20,000 to 30,000 tonnes of oil into the eastern
Mediterranean Sea, comparable in size to the
Exxon Valdez oil spill. A 10 km wide oil slick covers 170 km of coastline, and was threatening Turkey and Cyprus. The slick was reportedly causing breathing problems, killing fish, and threatened the habitat of the endangered green sea turtle, as well as increasing the risk of cancer. The Lebanese government estimated that it may take up to 10 years to recover from this spill. The UN estimated the cost for the initial clean up at $64m.
Hezbollah rocket attacks caused numerous forest fires inside northern Israel, particularly on the Naftali mountain range near
Kiryat Shmona. As of 8 August as many as 9,000 acres including 3,000 acres of Israel’s few forests, were damaged by fires caused by Hezbollah rockets, and at least one forest has lost nearly 75% of its trees. The
Jewish National Fund estimated that it would take 50 to 60 years to rehabilitate the forests.
Position of Lebanon
While Israel initially held the Lebanese government responsible for the Hezbollah attacks due to Lebanon's failure to implement Resolution 1559 calling on it to disarm Hezbollah, Lebanon disavowed the raids, stating that the government of Lebanon did not condone them, and that Israel had its own history of disregarding inconvenient UN resolutions.
Ceasefire attempts
Terms for a ceasefire had been drawn and revised several times over the course of the conflict, yet successful agreement between the two sides took several weeks. Hezbollah maintained the desire for an unconditional ceasefire, while Israel insisted upon a conditional ceasefire, including the return of the two kidnapped soldiers. Lebanon frequently pled for the
United Nations Security Council to call for an immediate, unconditional ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
Current ceasefire
On 11 August 2006 the United Nations Security Council unanimously approved UN Security Council Resolution 1701, in an effort to end the hostilities. It was accepted by the Lebanese government and Hezbollah on 12 August 2006, and by the Israeli government on 13 August 2006. The ceasefire took effect in the region at 8:00 AM on 14 August 2006.
Before the ceasefire, the two Hezbollah members of cabinet said that their militia would not disarm south of the
Litani River, according to another senior member of the Lebanese cabinet, while a top Hezbollah official similarly denied any intention of disarming in the south. Israel said it would stop withdrawing from
Southern Lebanon if
Lebanese troops were not deployed there within a matter of days.
Both sides promised to retaliate when placed on the defensive.
Post-ceasefire events
- On 14 August 2006, hours after the beginning of the ceasefire, about four mortars were fired inside southern Lebanon. An Israeli military spokesman said that Israel will not respond to their firing. On that day four more incidents were recorded when armed Hezbollah members said to have approached Israeli positions were killed.
- On 15 August 2006 "Israeli soldiers opened fire when four Hezbollah fighters came toward them," three of the Hezbollah fighters were killed. The same day, about 10 rockets were fired by Hezbollah inside southern Lebanon. Israel reiterated it wouldn't respond since the rockets did not cross border.
- On 18 August 2006 Lebanese police sources reported that Israeli Defense Force warplanes launched four missiles toward targets in an eastern Lebanese village of Baalbek. Israeli sources acknowledge that its air force performs sorties over Lebanese territory, but denied breaking the ceasefire. Lebanese officials later contradicted the police sources stating that no missiles were fired by the Israeli planes. The Associated Press reported that Hezbollah had fired at least 10 Katyusha rockets into southern Lebanon. The IDF stated that as none had crossed the border and there were no casualties, they did not respond. Earlier, skirmishes between Israeli forces and Hezbollah left six guerrillas dead. UNIFIL also reported that the IDF fired a tank shell at the Lebanese village of Markaba but that there was no response from the other side.
- On 19 August 2006 Israel launched a raid in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley it says was aimed to disrupt weapons supplies to Hezbollah from Syria and Iran.
Lebanese officials "said the Israelis were apparently seeking a guerrilla target in a school." One Israeli soldier was killed, another mortally wounded, while 3 Hezbollah fighters were wounded. Hezbollah said it won't respond to the attack. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was "deeply concerned" about an Israeli commando raid in eastern Lebanon Saturday, calling it a violation of a U.N.-backed ceasefire. The statement also cites UNIFIL troops as saying there have "also been several air violations by Israeli military aircraft." Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev told the Associated Press that “[t]he cease-fire is based on 1701 which calls for an international arms embargo against Hezbollah.” Regev was referring to article 8 of the resolution which calls for an end to all weapons transfers to Hezbollah.
- On 27 August 2006 UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that U.N. troops would not intercept Syrian arms shipments to Hezbollah unless requested to do so by the Lebanese Government.
- On 29 August 2006 UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that Israel had committed most of the truce violations and described Israel's continuing embargo as "a humiliation and an infringement on Lebanese sovereignty." Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reiterated Israel's willingness to lift the blockade after full implementation of the U.N.-brokered cease fire.
- On 6 September 2006 the Israeli government announced that it would lift the blockade the following day at 6:00 PM local time .
- On 7 September 2006 the aviation blockade was lifted.
- On 8 September 2006 the naval blockade was lifted.
- On 22 September 2006 Nasrallah claimed in a victory rally that Hezbollah possessed over 20,000 rockets and that it was "stronger than before July 12. According to various estimates, the organisation had fewer than 20,000 rockets before and fired about 4,000 rockets during the conflict.
International action and reaction
The conflict engendered worldwide concerns over infrastructure damage and the risks of escalation of the crisis, as well as mixed support and criticism of both Hezbollah and Israel. Governments of the United States,
United Kingdom,
GermanyAustralia, and
Canada, asserted Israel's right to self-defense. The United States government further responded by authorizing Israel's request for expedited shipment of precision-guided bombs, but did not announce the decision publicly.
Spokespersons from the United Nations, the European Union, the
Organization of Islamic Conference, and an assortment of human rights organizations condemned Israel for its disproportionate response to Hezbollah’s attacks.
Among neighboring Middle Eastern nations, Iran, Syria, and
Yemen voiced strong support for Hezbollah, while the
Arab League issued statements condemning both Hezbollah’s attack and Israel’s response. and criticizing Hezbollah’s action
Many worldwide
protests and demonstrations appealed for an immediate ceasefire on both sides and expressed concern for the heavy loss of civilian life on all sides. Other demonstrations were held exclusively in favor of Lebanon or Israel. Numerous newspaper advertising campaigns,
SMS and email appeals, and online petitions also occurred.
Various foreign governments assisted the evacuation of their citizens from Lebanon.
Prisoner exchanges
In October 2000, Hezbollah captured three IDF soldiers who were killed either during the operation or in its immediate aftermath at
Shebaa Farms, and kidnapped an Israeli businessman and former army colonel
Elchanan Tenenbaum in
Kuwait. A prisoner swap was carried out on 29 January 2004: 30 Lebanese and Arab prisoners, the remains of 59 Lebanese militants and civilians, 400 Palestinian prisoners for Tenenbaum and the remains of the three soldiers. Hezbollah requested that maps showing Israeli mines in South Lebanon be included as part of the exchange. On 23 August 2006, one such mine killed an Israeli soldier in South Lebanon.
Media controversy
Several media commentators and journalists have alleged an intentional distortion of media reporting in favor of Hezbollah, mostly by misrepresenting the death and destruction in Lebanon caused by Israeli airstrikes. The misleading journalism claims include digital
photo manipulation, staging by Hezbollah or by journalists, and false or misleading captioning.
On 18 July 2006 Hezbollah Press Officer Hussein Nabulsi took CNN's Nic Robertson on an exclusive tour of southern Beirut. Robertson noted that despite his minder's anxiety about explosions in the area, it was clear that Hezbollah had sophisticated media relations and were in control of the situation. Hezbollah designated the places that they went to, and the journalists "certainly didn't have time to go into the houses or lift up the rubble to see what was underneath." According to his reports, there was no doubt that the bombs were hitting Hezbollah facilities, and while there appeared to be "a lot of civilian damage, a lot of civilian properties," he reiterated that he couldn't verify the civilian nature of the destroyed buildings.
CNN's Charlie Moore described a Hezbollah press tour of a bombed-out area in southern Beirut on 23 July 2006 as a "dog-and-pony show" due to perceived staging, misrepresentation of the nature of the destroyed areas, and a strict directive about when and with whom interviews could take place.
In the same interview aired on 23 July 2006, CNN's
John Roberts, who was reporting from an Israeli artillery battery on the Lebanese border, stated that he had to take everything he was told—either by the Israeli Defense Force or Hezbollah—"with a grain of salt," citing mutual recriminations of civilian targeting which he was unable to verify independently.
Reuters withdrew over 900 photographs by
Adnan Hajj, a Lebanese freelance photographer, after he admitted to digitally adding and darkening smoke spirals in photographs of an attack on Beirut.
Photographs submitted to Reuters and
Associated Press showed one Lebanese woman mourning on two different pictures taken by two photographers, allegedly taken two weeks apart. While it is "common practice to send more than one photographer to an incident", questions remained as to whether the images were wrongly captioned or deliberately staged.
See also
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References
External links
International organizationsInternational mediaIsraeli mediaLebanese mediaHezbollah media
