Forces gathering on Israel's northern border

Sunday Times:

BEHIND a protective canopy of trees an Israeli 155mm artillery battery fills the valley with gunsmoke and decibels, blasting 100lb shells northwards toward invisible targets across the Lebanon border.

A few miles away, another unit huddles beneath foliage, guarding hundreds of 4.5m (15ft) Texan-manufactured Haz rockets being readied to blow something or someone into pieces.

Artillery, rockets, tanks and Humvees are massing on Lebanon’s southern border as Israel reveals the true extent of its ambitions. It is determined not merely to punish Hezbollah, but to destroy it once and for all as a military threat.

Unperturbed by international criticism, the Government of Israel continued to pound Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure, destroying roads, bridges, fuel dumps and mobile telephone installations as well as Hezbollah targets, including a Beirut radio station.

It believes that Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Shia group, badly overplayed his hand on Wednesday by kidnapping two Israeli soldiers in a daring cross-border raid and killing eight others.

Israeli generals and diplomats are now arguing that their attacks are simply a belated effort to achieve what the Lebanese Government and United Nations have consistently failed to do: implement UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls for all Lebanese militias to be dismantled.

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It is no accident that Israel has named its huge military air, land and sea strike Operation Just Desserts and the three conditions that Mr Olmert listed yesterday for stopping the offensive included the disarming of Hezbollah as demanded by UN resolution 1559. The other two were the return of the captured Israeli soldiers and halting the rocket fire. Israel said yesterday that the captured soldiers were still alive and in good health.

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While you hear the typical whining about casualties there have been fewer than some Sunni suicides missions against a Shia market or Mosque crowd. Isreal is focusing on strategic targets that cut off the enemy's ability to maneuver and to get resupplied.