The katyusha rockets fired at the northern Israeli town of Nahariya today from southern Lebanon have raised the stakes of the current conflict significantly. They raise the specter of wide-scale bombardment of the north of the sort we saw in the summer of 2006.
On December 25, 2008, a number of katyusha rockets, apparently all aimed at Nahariya, were discovered by Lebanese security forces in southern Lebanon. They were disarmed shortly before their launch times.
This time around, the Lebanese army did not reach the rockets in time, and UNIFIL has been shown to be incapable of stopping such attacks. As Lebanese sources rushed to declare, the rockets were most likely not fired by Hizbullah, but rather by one of the Palestinian factions allied with it. Nevertheless, it would be hard to imagine that Hizbullah did not know about the firing of these rockets. Nasrallah so far has stayed away from involving Lebanon in the Gaza conflict; he may have gotten a soft go-ahead from the Iranians or Syrians, to give a green light to Palestinian proxies.
It remains to be seen whether this will lead to a major escalation. Israel will have to weigh its response carefully. Reservists are available to operate in the north, but Israel cannot afford to see Haifa, Nahirya, and who knows what other cities engulfed by Hizbullah fire. For now, it must attempt to curtail any escalation.
3 comments:
This is actually an excellent opportunity to revisit our Northern neighbors. The IDF seems to have learned something from the last war, the Persians are bankrupt and the Lebanese are only sinking more in their huge debts. If the IDF sends them packing to Dahiyah now and then bulldozes all those Eit as-Shaabs to the ground there is nobody around to pay for rebuilding the place.
nobody ,what you really mean is to murder everything in site.
how is it that you can condone killing arab civillians but morn when fired upon. is racism, aggrogance,callousness,etc taught to israeli children at school.
how can you condone these things and then complain about nazi brutalities.
the rockets being fired into israel will never stop until a political solution is found. 60 years of murdering arabs haven't made israel safe, just the opposite.the arabs are not scared anymore of the israeli attack force[IDF] and are actually on the initiative. hopefully the world leaders will open their eyes and see israel for what it really is.
sorry if i offend you but the facts are the facts.
Anon
You don't offend me. I am actually enjoying your comments. Please keep up the good work you are doing
:D :D
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