Israeli forces battled to take over a second Hezbollah stronghold in southern Lebanon on Tuesday in intensifying ground clashes with the guerrillas’ frontier garrison, sources on both sides said.
Calling Bint Jbeil ”one of the major Hezbollah centres”, an Israeli military spokesperson said tanks and troops had sealed off the town, killed or wounded dozens of guerrillas, and were engaged in sporadic firefights with the hold-outs.
”We are operating in the town. I can’t say we are in total control of the town yet,” the spokesperson said.
Hezbollah had no immediate word on its casualties but said in a statement that its men were fighting Israeli forces on Bint Jbeil’s outskirts and the surrounding area.
Al-Jazeera television said four Israeli soldiers were wounded in Tuesday’s clashes. The army did not comment on fresh casualties, but has said two tank crewmen were killed in Bint Jbeil on Monday while several more soldiers were wounded.
Taking Bint Jbeil could be a morale-booster for Israel, which launched a Lebanese offensive after Hezbollah killed eight soldiers and abducted two others in a July 12 border raid. About 400 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 35 Israelis have since died.
Hezbollah’s worst dreams
”Bint Jbeil was basically the main Hezbollah outpost, even a symbol,” Major-General Yiftach Ron-Tal told Israel Radio.
”I think this has an important impact on morale,” he said. ”In Hezbollah’s worst dreams it never expected the Israeli Defence Forces to enter Bint Jbeil and take it over during this campaign.”
Israel lost seven army commandos last week in capturing Maroun al-Ras, a nearby Hezbollah stronghold that had served as a staging ground for attempted infiltrations of Israeli border villages and cross-border rocket launches.
According to Israeli intelligence estimates, the Hezbollah fighters are holed up in a network of tunnels and trenches around Shi’ite Muslim villages in southern Lebanon. Israel ordered civilians out of 14 of the villages over the weekend.
Ron-Tal said that, if Israeli forces assumed full control of Bint Jbeil, they would effectively split southern Lebanon — the heartland of the Iranian-backed Shi’ite guerrilla group.
But he said Israel should not consider rebuilding outposts in Bint Jbeil used during a 22-year-occupation that was ended in 2000, in part due to fatigue at Hezbollah ambushes on troops.
Located about 4km from the Israeli border, Bint Jbeil was first conquered by Israel during a 1972 assault on Palestinian refugee guerrillas. It was retaken six years later, when Israel launched a major push against the Palestinians.
The Israeli army said its forces have killed at least 10 guerrillas in the current incursions but had no firmer figures. ”There is fierce fighting, and we are not in a position to check the pulse of each and every enemy casualty,” an army spokesperson said.
Israel used ‘disproportionate force’
Israel’s bombing of Gaza’s only power plant was a disproportionate use of force that has had profound humanitarian consequences, the United Nations’ chief aid official said on Tuesday.
”This is very clear, a disproportionate use [of power],” Jan Egeland, the UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, told reporters as he toured the destroyed plant south of Gaza City.
”Civilian infrastructure is protected. The law is very clear. You cannot have any interpretation in any other way.”
Israel bombed the $150-million facility late last month, as it launched a military campaign to try to recover a soldier captured by Palestinian militants in a raid from Gaza.
The 140MW reactor, which took five years to build, supplied about two-thirds of the electricity needed in the Gaza Strip, which is home to around 1,4-million Palestinians. It is expected to take at least 10 months to fix.
Since its destruction, much of Gaza has been without power and many are now dependent on electricity imports from Israel. While some families and businesses have generators, there is scarce fuel available in Gaza to run them.
Water supply dries up
Knocking out the power plant has also had consequences for Gaza’s water supply since pumps rely on electricity.
”This plant is more important for hospitals, for sewage, for water, for civilians than for any Hamas or Islamic Jihad man with some kind of a missile on his shoulder,” said Egeland.
”He doesn’t need electricity as much as a mother trying to care for a child.”
At the same time, the Norwegian diplomat said rockets being fired by Hamas and other militant groups into Israel had to stop and with it Israel’s incursions into Gaza over the past month, designed to stop the rockets and find the captured soldier.
Since launching its operations in Gaza, Israeli forces have killed about 115 Palestinians, the majority civilians. Many buildings in Gaza have also been destroyed in missile strikes, including several government ministries.
The fighting opened the first of what have become two fronts for Israeli forces, who are also battling Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon following the capture by Hezbollah of two Israeli soldiers on July 12.
Egeland said fighting on both fronts had to stop immediately if a deepening crisis were to be averted.
”The international community has to work with the parties to break this vicious cycle of bitterness and violence,” he said.
”Of course, I am equally concerned that the constant violence inflicted on Israeli civilians be stopped,” he said. – Reuters