United Nations and Western sources monitoring the fighting said Israeli
troops have sought to clear an eight-kilometer buffer zone along the border
with Lebanon. But they said the military has failed to break Hizbullah's
command and control network as well as destroy the maze of tunnels and
bunkers in the area.
"The deepest penetration by Israeli troops is toward Taibeh, four
kilometers from the border, where it is encountering fierce resistance,"
said Nicholas Blanford, a military analyst for Jane's Defence Weekly and
correspondent for the Beirut-based Daily Star.
The Israeli military has deployed troop concentrations in the west at
Dhayra, Maroun Al Ras and in the east outside Khiam, Middle East Newsline reported. In the first week of
the war, Israel declared the capture of Maroun Al Ras as well as Bint Jbail,
only to subsequently sustain heavy casualties.
On Monday, fighting between Israel and Hizbullah continued in Bint
Jbail. At least one Israeli soldier was killed during Hizbullah anti-tank
fire.
"Despite Israel's saturation air coverage over south Lebanon with
reconnaissance drones, helicopter gunships and jets," Blanford said in an
analysis. "Hizbullah is still firing rockets from very close to the border,
including from Labboune, a brush-covered hillside between Naqoura on the
coast and Alma Shaab."
On Sunday, the United States expressed caution over Israeli military
claims of successes in the war in Lebanon. U.S. National Security Advisor
Stephen Hadley refused to confirm Israeli reports that Hizbullah has been
significantly hurt.
"It's hard to know [whether Hizbullah has been harmed]," Hadley said. "I
think the answer is that it has been weakened. That's certainly, I think,
what the Israelis think."
Hizbullah has avoided Israeli helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles
by moving through tunnels built by Iran since the Israeli withdrawal in
2000. The Iranian-sponsored militia, which organized anti-tank,
intelligence, engineering and rocket units, has used anti-tank missiles and
improvised explosive devices to ambush Israeli ground and armored forces.
The Washington Institute said the current Israeli offensive differed
significantly from that of the 1982 war against the Palestine Liberation
Organization. The institute, in an analysis by Christopher Hamilton and
Barak Ben-Zur, asserted that Israel shelved its initial goal of degrading
Hizbullah's military capability through air strikes and instead ordered a
ground war.
Until 1996, Hamilton and Ben-Zur said, Israeli troops entered Lebanon
and moved north along an east-west front. During the current war, they said,
the army abandoned this tactic to avoid Hizbullah mines planted along
Lebanese roads.
"As a result, the Israeli military has decided to enter along Lebanon's
eastern and southeastern borders with Israel, executing the attack from east
to west," Hamilton and Ben-Zur said in their analysis. "In so doing, the IDF
will take advantage of more favorable topographical conditions that allow
its armored vehicles to minimize movement on Lebanon's major transportation
arteries."
Analysts said about 15,000 Israeli troops were fighting in Lebanon
with another 15,000 reservists on alert to join. They said the force
would allow Israel to reach the Litani River, about 20 kilometers
from the border, or the Bekaa Valley, about 50 kilometers from Israel.
Regardless, analysts said, Hizbullah has maintained the initiative in
the war against Israel. They said Hizbullah has fulfilled its threat to
penetrate deep into Israel with rocket strikes and exact heavy Israeli
casualties in land battles.
"The missiles are also hitting targets accurately and the locations
struck included the northern military command headquarters in Safed and the
main northern air base in Ramat David," Jaafar Sadaqa, a Palestinian
analyst, said. "This is in addition to a weapons cache near Safed, a
military post near Acre, Rosh Pina military airport, and the air operations
command center in Mount Meron."
