Israel-Hezbollah War

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Will he or won't he?
2006-08-05 21:20:00
Ine one of his first TV interviews during the current war, Hassan Nasrallah, secretery-general of Hezbollah promised/threatened to fire rockets "..ba'ad Haifa wa ba'ad ba'ad Haifa..." - further than Haifa and further than further than Haifa - presumably against Tel Aviv, Israel's main metropolitan region in the centre of Israel and on the Mediterranean coast.More recently Nasrallah has threatened that, if the Israeli Air Force bombs central Beirut, he will shell Tel Aviv. Yesterday evening a missile was fired on Hadera, a town half way between Haifa and Tel Aviv and a lot of people are wondering whether Nasrallah will bomb Tel Aviv or not. Informed opinion in Israel (and I'm not sure I trust that much anymore) says that Hasrallah has to ask Iran's permission before launching the long range Zilzal missiles that could hit Tel Aviv. To judge by the ongoing encouragement Iran's president Ahmedinajad gives to the idea of eliminating Israel, it doesn't seem that he'd be particula...
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A wake-up call
2006-08-04 10:51:00
There's an article by Ari Shavit in the supplement of today's (4 August) edition of Ha'aretz www.haaretz.com (I'll try to find the exact link) that's well worth reading. It's titled "Systematic Failure" and it deals with the many failures and questions in Israeli society that have lead to Israel's middling achievements in the current war against the Hezbollah. The result of this war will either be a stalemate between Israel and Hezbollah or a small advantage for Israel. It is far from the resounding victory that Israel's oveconfident military thought it could achieve. Prime Minister Olmert's declarations about "unprecedented achievements" - see http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/74630 8.html - are just spin.In a democracy (and Israel is a very vital democracy) spin works only in the short term. There is a very lively (and sometimes acrimonious) debate going on in Israel at the moment about whether it is legitimate to criticise the military or the government while the fighti...
More About: Wake , Call , Wake up

Katyusha's keep falling
2006-08-03 16:41:00
Irit and I are back in Haifa after a 5 day "vacation" in Tel Aviv. It definitely helped our mood for to have heard any air raid sirens for a few days. Since our return 6 hours ago we have run down to the shelter 3 times but there don't seem to have been any hits in Haifa. Other places further north have no been so lucky.After Monday and Tuesday's 48 hour lull, the mutual shelling and bombardment has resumed with a vengeance. Yesterday 230 Katyushas fell on Israel killing 1 man, so far today 130 have fallen and 7 people killed in Akko and Ma'alot.A journalist friend (who runs a blog you should see http://www.zionism-israel.com/log/ ) has written to me that I have had in Haifa "a great seat for the war". It's a good joke, and a little humor is always appreciated. But I'm not sure the analogy is appropriate. More later.
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Call up notice number 8
2006-08-02 07:58:00
Our morning started with a text message to Irit's mobile phone that her son in-law Eli received a phone call at 3 a.m. from his reserve army unit advising him that he is called up for emergency reserve service in the north - that means in Lebanon.All Israeli men and most women have to do compulsory military service at the age of 18 - 3 years for men and 2 years for women. In theory all the men have to do one month's reserve duty every year until their mid-forties. In practice the heaviest burden falls on those 20% of soldiers who are in combat units such as Eli. Normally the yearly reserve duty is scheduled a few months ahead so people can plan, although it is almost always a great disruption for students (Israelis go to university at age 21 after army service) and the self-employed. In times of war or exceptional military activity, the army can call reserve soldiers up (by a call-up notice number 8) in which case the civilian soldier has to report to his reserve unit straight a...
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Country closed for art show
2006-08-01 23:16:00
A visitor to Israel who hasn't been here for a couple of years would find a huge surprise when arriving at the Terminal 1 building of Israel's Ben-Gurion airport. For over 30 years that terminal was the almost only gateway between Israel and the outside world.For the first 31 years of Israel's statehood, its existence was not recognised by any of its neigbours - Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria or Lebanon - so the one national airport (Ben Gurion) and its one terminal building (now called Terminal 1) had enormous psychological significance as the one way to enter or leave Israel (except by boat). In the 1990's a second terminal building (2) was opened for internal and charter flights and in November 2004 a brand new terminal building was inaugurated and the old one (Terminal 1) that we had used for 50 years was closed down.Now, for the first time since then, the Terminal 1 building has been reopened temporarily for a huge and fantastic exhibition of art and design by the gradu...
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A must-win situation?
2006-07-27 08:51:00
In his today's article in Haaretz http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/74316 9.html , the newspaper's veteran military commentator Ze'ev Schiff expounds a widely held view among the Jewish public in Israel that Israel must "win" (my quotation marks) the current war with the Hezbollah. This declaration usually goes along with the declaration that Israel had no choice in starting this war.Israel did have a choice how to react the the Hezbollah border raid on the Israeli Army patrol and it chose massive retaliation as punishment, deterrence or both. In the far distant past of 2 weeks ago, our (Israeli) leaders spoke (with much macho) about eliminating the Hezbollah, teaching them a lesson and restoring Israel's deterrent power. As of today none of these objectives seems achievable. Israel's leaders took the gamble (maybe they didn't have any doubts, which is probably worse) that the most powerful army in the region could achieve an overwhelming victory aganst the Hezbollah guerilla...
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Katyusha graph
2006-07-26 09:32:00
This is the graph (scanned from today's Maariv newspaper) of the number of Katyusha attacks on Israel each day by the Hezbollah. In spite of the Israeli bombardment of Hezbollah launchers and ammunition respositories, there's no apparent decrease.
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Fewer rocket attacks?
2006-07-24 21:05:00
For regular readers of these reports, I apologise for dwelling on the rocket attacks on Haifa. But if you were here, you'd understand how these have suddenly become an important parameter in our lives. However both Irit and I are more concerned about the general situation (more of that in a separate report) than the specific threat to us from rockets on Haifa. Both Daphnie and some good friends of ours have offered us a deluxe option to stay with them in Tel Aviv or nearby but we still prefer to come home to Haifa. Today we were most of the day in Tel Aviv (Irit baybysat her 3rd grandchild) but in the evening we came back to Haifa. The nights so far have been quiet (no rocket attacks) - it is believed that the Hezbollah believe thair launch sites can be more easily detected at night.Irit's older son, Ofer and his family have been in Tel Aviv with Irit's older daughter, Yael, since Friday. Good friends of ours are with their daughter in Ra'anana. Many people in central Israel hav...
More About: Rocket , Attacks , Tacks , Attack , Atta

Rockets on Haifa today
2006-07-23 18:10:00
So far at time of writing (7 p.m. Israel time) we in Haifa have experienced about 9 air aid warnings and 14 rockets that have landed on Haifa today. The worst attack was at about 11 a.m. when we heard sirens which gave about 60 seconds warning. I was in my car at the time (on the way home from a gym class) - I stopped my car and sought shelter in someone's garage. It had rather a flimsy roof but almost certainly was a better option than staying in the car.A car driver not far from our home was killed in that first attack (see picture) as was an Arab worker in a carpentry workshop who was working with earplugs (against the noise of the machinery) and didn't hear the sirens in time. Later there were several alarms without any rockets falling . Ans also several rockets that landed in Haifa without any alarms going off. Evidently the alarm systems are far from perfect.
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