ZoneFlood

From AP:

Hezbollah guerrillas fired more 100 rockets at Israeli towns on Wednesday - raising the total since the start of the conflict to 3,333 - including several medium-range missiles that landed near the West Bank town of Jenin and south of the Israeli city of Afula, police said.

By mid-afternoon, the guerrillas had fired 132 rockets, but no casualties were immediately reported, said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.

Five of the rockets landed near a Palestinian town in the West Bank on Wednesday, Palestinian security officials said. There were no casualties.

The Bush administration may have badly miscalculated in insisting that any Mideast cease-fire be tied to long-term objectives. As the toll on Lebanese civilians has soared, even moderate Arab governments have turned into U.S. critics, and Hezbollah’s support has climbed across the region.

Bush’s most steadfast ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, joined the ranks of those expressing frustration after Israel’s Sunday bombing in the village of Qana that killed many civilians, most of them women and children. “We have to speed this whole process up,” Blair said. “This has got to stop and stop on both sides.”

Anger was brewing all across the Arab world as the U.N. Security Council prepared to take up the issue. Calls for an immediate cease-fire were coming from traditional U.S. allies in the region, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan.

Even the democratically elected prime minister of Lebanon, Fuad Saniora — whose leadership Bush often salutes — insisted that talk of a larger peace package must wait until the firing stops. “We will not negotiate until the Israeli war stops shedding the blood of innocent people,” said Saniora. 

And where Saniora initially was critical of Hezbollah, he is now praising the militant group and its leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, for helping to defend Lebanon.

These haven’t been good days for Bush’s goal of spreading democracy through the Middle East.

[Associated Press | July 31, 2006]

Echoing statements made from the beginning of the conflict, Hizbollah has again said that discussions over soldiers’ return could begin. From the Jerusalem Post:

Hizbullah agreed to allow the Lebanese government to begin negotiations regarding kidnapped IDF soldiers, speaker of the Lebanese Parliament Nabih Berri revealed on Sunday.

Berri stressed that prior to any talks on a prisoner swap, a cease-fire must be in place.

From ThinkProgress:

In 1996, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser (all later senior officials in the Bush administration) had a plan for how to destroy Hezbollah: Invade Iraq. They wrote a report to the newly elected Likud government in Israel calling for “a clean break” with the policies of negotiating with the Palestinians and trading land for peace.

The problem could be solved “if Israel seized the strategic initiative along it northern borders by engaging Hizballah (sic), Syria, and Iran, as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon.” The key, they said, was to “focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions.” They called for “reestablishing the principle of preemption.” They promised that the successes of these wars could be used to launch campaigns against Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, reshaping “the strategic balance in the Middle East profoundly.”

Bush: Yo Blair How are you doing?
Blair: I’m just…
Bush: You’re leaving?
Blair: No, no, no not yet. On this trade thingy…[inaudible]
Bush: yeah I told that to the man
Blair: Are you planning to say that here or not?
Bush: If you want me to
Blair: Well, it’s just that if the discussion arises…
Bush: I just want some movement.
Blair: Yeah
Bush: Yesterday we didn’t see much movement
Read the rest of this entry »

From the AP:

An Israeli airstrike in Lebanon on Monday destroyed at least one long- range Iranian missile capable of hitting Tel Aviv, military officials said.

Israeli aircraft targeted a truck carrying the weapons before they could be launched, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of military regulations. The force of the blast sent at least one missile flying into the air, but it fell nearby.

From NewsDay:

The last time Hezbollah abducted Israeli soldiers, the Shia militant group was richly rewarded.

Since forcing Israel to withdraw from a self-declared “security zone” in southern Lebanon in May 2000, Hezbollah has made freeing Lebanese prisoners held by Israel one of its main goals. In October 2000, Hezbollah guerrillas ambushed an Israeli patrol near the border, severely wounding three soldiers in an attempt to capture them. The three soon died, but Hezbollah kept the bodies.

Through the German government, Hezbollah and Israel held three years of torturous negotiations. In January 2004, Israel freed 425 Arab prisoners, including two Lebanese guerrilla leaders, in exchange for the soldiers’ bodies and an Israeli businessman kidnapped by Hezbollah.

At a mass rally staged by Hezbollah to welcome the freed prisoners, the group’s leader warned it would abduct more Israeli soldiers to secure the release of the last three Lebanese detainees being held by Israel.

Turning to a poster of Hezbollah’s ambush of the three soldiers, Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah declared: “This is a choice.” Saying Hezbollah fighters were heavy-handed in fatally wounding the soldiers, he added, “I pledge to you that, next time, they will bring them alive.”

On Wednesday, after Hezbollah had kidnapped two Israeli soldiers in a daring cross-border raid, a smiling Nasrallah dubbed the latest abductions “Operation Truthful Promise.”