The death toll is now eight Israeli soldiers. One was killed while trying to retreive the bodies of soldiers killed early when their tank ran over a mine.

Hizbullah thinks it has the upper hand. The IDF is readying itself for a major military offensive. Israel’s alert level is at its second highest, just below a state of emergency.

Al-Aqsa is promising to open a new front and start sending rockets into Israel from the West Bank. That would be a grave mistake. Now would be a good time for Mahmoud Abbas to exert any control he might actually have over his terror groups. Whoops, that’s right, Al-Aqsa is a “loosely-affiliated” group.

Israelis who live in the north have been sent to bomb shelters, and Israel overall is readying herself for a barrage from the 20,000 rockets Hizbullah has aimed at Israel. One can only hope that Hizbullah screwed up the maintenance of those rockets as much as the palis did when they tried firing the Grads from the terrortories[sic].

Looks like Mohammed Deif’s luck may have finally run out—he spent four hours in spinal surgery after the IAF dropped a one-ton bomb on his head. Can a paralyzed man still make bombs? Dunno, but we can always hope he doesn’t make it through recovery. I know I will be.

Will there be a third front in the Terror War? Ze’ev Schiff says Israel should try to avoid opening a front with Syria.

By the time I wake up tomorrow, I’ll know what happened after the government okayed massive aerial bombardment of Lebanon. I’m quite sure that I’ll be reading Kofi Annan’s condemnations of it as well.

Off to bed. Gd watch over and protect Israel.

Just a short time ago, I put up a post delineating the despicable bias in the AP and Reuters that causes them to tone down any negative description of palestinian terrorists’ actions, and make the Israelis look like bloodthirsty warmongers at every opportunity.

Here’s the latest AP update on the Hizbullah sneak attack that resulted in seven dead and two kidnaped Israel soldiers:

Israelis Search for Soldiers in Lebanon
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Hezbollah militants crossed into Israel on Wednesday and captured two Israeli soldiers. Israel responded in southern Lebanon with warplanes, tanks and gunboats, and said seven of its soldiers had been killed in the violence.

It’s as if Hezbullah simply took a little stroll across the border, threw bags over the soldiers’ heads, and took them back to Lebanon with them. And note that immediately following the redacted version of what really happened is a violent description of Israel’s reaction.

And later on, we get this justifcation for the attack:

The Shiite Lebanese Hezbollah said it captured the two soldiers to help win the release of prisoners held in Israel. Hamas had made identical demands in seizing Cpl. Gilad Shalit on June 25.

The only good news in this piece is that it’s possible Israel finally got Mohammed Dief, the most-wanted Hamas terrorist alive. One report said he lost an arm and a leg. The AP reports

After initially claiming its leaders had escaped harm, Hamas militants took over the intensive care unit of Gaza City’s main hospital, where doctors said seven militants were in critical condition. The gunmen refused to say who was being treated.

Funny, I thought there was a humanitarian crisis, shortage of medical supplies, and people dying by the droves.

Here’s hoping Dief is one of them.

Update: Yet another whitewashing in an updated headline.

Israel Hits Lebanon After Soldiers Grabbed

Same old lead. Same old crap.

Bloggers who are liveblogging the events from Israel:

Dave of IsraellyCool

Carl from Jerusalem of Israel Matzav

Vital Perspective

Omri from Mere Rhetoric

Dave Bender, who has an interview with Dr. Eran Lerman (IDF Col. - res.), former deputy chief of IDF strategic intelligence planning. Well worth listening.

The Prime Minister of Lebanon is disavowing any responsibility for the Hizbullah attack that killed at least seven Israeli soldiers.

Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said on Wednesday the Lebanese government did not condone a cross-border Hizbullah attack against Israel.

“The government was not aware of and does not take responsibility for, nor endorses what happened on the international border,” Siniora told reporters after an emergency cabinet meeting. He condemned the Israeli retaliation and said his government would call for a UN Security Council meeting.

Translation: We have no control over an entire army that lives in our south, and we’re here to tell the world that we’re as flaccid as a broken balloon when it comes to Hizbullah.

Picture the world’s tiniest violin playing. No, don’t bother. I have no sympathy. This was a disaster in the making, and the international community has ignored it for decades, as have the Lebanese.

Isn’t it funny that whenever a terrorist organization attacks, nobody ever seems to blame the countries that harbor the terrorists? Well, except for Afghanistan. Any time anyone attacks Israel, the Exception Clause is in order. Somehow, Israel is always at fault.

I assume the UN will use words to that effect soon.

Hassan Nasrallah (who I will never honor with a title) is lying through his teeth to the press.

First, he says that the IDF is not in Lebanon. Really? Tell that to the Lebanese fleeing the battle sites.

Then he says this:

Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbullah Secretary-General warned Israel during a press conference in Lebanon: “I advise the Israelis to learn from past experiences. If the Israeli Chief of Staff threatens to set Lebanon back 20 years, I am telling him that Lebanon is not what it used to be”.

“If the world wants a conflict we are ready and the world wants calm we are ready. If Israel chooses conflict it should expect surprises,” added Nasrallah.

Which makes me wonder exactly what Hezbullah has been importing from Iran.

This is going to be a costly war. Make no mistake. The age of Entebbe is over. The age of the Six-Day War is behind. The good news is that the IDF is still one of the best armies in the world, and Hizbullah is still pretty much a bunch of terrorists with some Iranian Revolutionary Guards sprinkled throughout.

But there will be casualties. Word is that Olmert is going to declare war tonight. Immediately following that, I predict a UN resolution condeming Israel.

Say, Michael Totten, I thought Hizbullah told you they never targeted civilians? Because they sure did get a number of them today.

Six civilians and two soldiers injured in Hizbullah mortar attacks were treated at the hospital.

One of the injured was said to be in a serious condition, two were moderately injured and five were lightly injured.

Somehow, I don’t think there’s going to be a call for UN condemnation of this military strike.

Zar’it residents said the Hizbullah attack started at about 9 a.m.

“At around nine in the morning there was a very loud and prolonged explosion accompanied by light and heavy fire…I can’t remember an incident like this in the near past, not since the IDF left Lebanon,” a resident said.

[...] Shlomo Azulai, 48, was lightly injured when a mortar shell fired from Lebanon hit his car as part of a coordinated attack by Hizbullah on Wednesday.

“My car suffered a direct mortar hit, and fire around us didn’t stop for a second, but I managed to rescue myself from the car which was hit a second time,” Azulai said.

[...] Ashkar Taliaa, 34, who is renovating a house in the village of Shtula, was also injured by mortar shrapnel.

“I heard a loud explosion and felt heat all over my body. Another explosion blew me aside. I saw smoke outside the house and mortars landing and I didn’t understand what was happening. I thought about my wife and my five-year-old baby and wanted to leave alive. My partner pulled me outside and IDF soldiers and paramedics arrived and evacuated me from the scene,” he said.

And Kofi Annan condemns Israel. Not Hizbullah. Not Lebanon. Israel.

Kofi Annan, showing the ineptitude for which he is most famous, condemned Israel’s reaction to the attack, murder, and kidnapping of her soldiers.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called Wednesday for the immediate release of kidnapped Israeli soldiers and condemned Israel’s immediate retaliation.

“I condemn without reservations the attack in southern Lebanon, and demand that Israeli troops to be released immediately,” Anna said after a meeting in Rome with Premier Romano Prodi.

Way to go, Kofi. That’ll show the world that you actually care about Israel.

For those hairsplitters among you who make think he’s really condemning the Hizbullah attack: He used the words “southern Lebanon,” not “northern Israel.”

Apparently, Israel is not allowed to defend herself or respond to an attack on her territory and people.

Full story here.

The AP has yet another example of their anti-Israel bias. Take this headline, for instance:

3 Israeli Soldiers Die, 2 Captured in Raid

The Israeli soldiers died. They weren’t, say, killed by terrorists.

Let’s compare that to a headline for the story about Israel dropping a quarter-ton bomb on Mohammed Deif’s hiding place:

Israelis Kill 6 in Attack on Hamas Meeting

Notice the difference: Israelis die, palestinians are killed.

Let’s check the leads. From the attack on the terrorists:

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Israeli aircraft blasted a house and killed at least six people in Gaza City early Wednesday during a high-level meeting of Hamas commanders, and Israel said the man who has topped its wanted list for a decade was wounded.

From the story on terrorists attacking Israel:

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Hezbollah militants captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid Wednesday, and dozens of Israeli troops crossed the frontier with warplanes, tanks and gunboats to hunt for the captives. Three Israeli soldiers also were killed in the raid.

Notice the difference in language. Subtle, but effective: More aggressive terms are used for Israeli actions, passive terms used for terrorist actions. A “cross-border raid” as opposed to an unprovoked military attack. But point out that Israel’s response is “disproportionate” (obviously, the meme of the month) by using the words “warplanes, tanks and gunboats.” Also note that they used the word “killed” n the lead, but not the headline. I guess the palesitinian-approved editors missed that one.

Just another salvo in the years-long media war against Israel. I can only let so many go by.

Update: The updated version is even worse.

Here’s how they did it:

Guerillas from the militant Hezbollah organization kidnapped two Israel Defense Forces soldiers on the Israel-Lebanon border Wednesday morning, in the midst of massive shelling attacks on Israel’s north.

The soldiers were snatched when guerillas attacked two IDF armored Hummer jeeps patrolling along the border with gunfire and explosives. Other soldiers inside the Hummers were wounded.

And here’s what they want:

Immediately after the Hezbollah attack, the organization’s Al-Manar television station began broadcasting clips calling on Israel to release Lebanese prisoners held in Israel in return for the soldiers.

The group in particular emphasized the release of Lebanese militant Samir Kuntar, jailed in Israel since a 1979 attack in the northern town of Nahariyah, in which he entered an apartment and murdered three family members and an Israeli police officer.

Some background on Sami Kuntar:

Around midnight, we were asleep in our apartment when four terrorists, sent by Abu Abbas from Lebanon, landed in a rubber boat on the beach two blocks away. Gunfire and exploding grenades awakened us as the terrorists burst into our building.

Desperately, we sought to hide. Danny helped our neighbor climb into a crawl space above our bedroom; I went in behind her with Yael in my arms. Then, Danny grabbed Einat and was dashing out the front door to take refuge in an underground shelter when the terrorists came crashing into our flat.

They held Danny and Einat while they searched for me and Yael, knowing others lived in the apartment. If Yael cried out, they would find us. So I kept my hand over her mouth, hoping she could breathe. As I lay there, I remembered my mother telling me how she had hidden from the Nazis during the Holocaust.

As police began to arrive, the terrorists took Danny and Einat down to the beach. There, according to eyewitnesses, one of them shot Danny in front of Einat, so that his death would be the last thing she would ever see. Then, he smashed my little girl’s skull in against a rock with his rifle butt. That terrorist was Samir Kuntar.

By the time we were rescued from the crawl space hours later, Yael, too, was dead. In trying to save all our lives, I had smothered her.

This is the monster that they would trade for two good and brave Israeli soldiers.

I don’t think Olmert is stupid enough to make this deal. I don’t think we’ll ever see those kidnapped soldiers, either.

Samir Kuntar should have been put to death. Israel seriously needs to rethink its policy on the death penalty. Today’s terrorists are the new Nazis, and deserve as little mercy.

Update: Hizbullah killed seven soldiers in this sneak attack.

This article opens another view on the man behind the explosive belt.

As a child growing up in this town of nothing much, Khaled Meshaal was known as the kid with all the answers.

“Khaled was a genius,” Sheik Abdulhai Ayed, 51, an imam at Silwad’s largest mosque who attended elementary school with Meshaal, said recently. “His specialty was problem solving. If there was a question we couldn’t answer, the teacher would bring Khaled from the lower grade … He solved the problem and went back to class. “

But even the admirers of the self-made genius are beginning to have their doubts:

“Khaled was stubborn. He hated sports and was completely focused on school. He will work hard for us,” Sheik Ayed predicted shortly after Hamas was elected. In recent days, the imam has changed his mind: “Things have gone from bad to worse,” he reflected yesterday.

I have a question for the genius: what should be done with a person who sends his brothers and sisters to die and to kill other people in the name of Allah the merciful, knowing perfectly that, aside of killing and being killed, there is no sense whatsoever in the death and destruction? The person in question sitting in his armchair in Damascus, protected (ostensibly) from getting his dues?

I know it is not nice to wish for a death of another human being. However, this is one of the cases where it could not happen to a more deserving person.

“Khaled will never bend to accommodate what outsiders want. His head is hard,” an aunt said months ago.

Hard enough to stop a bullet?

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

Hizbullah opened a new front in the terrorist war, attacking IDF positions in northern Israel today, kidnapping two Israeli soldiers.

Western Galilee residents woke up to loud sounds of exchanges of fire on both sides of the border. Explosions were heard on the central and eastern zones. Six people were injured on the western area of the border, one of them sustaining moderate wounds. They were evacuated to the Nahariya hospital.

Say tell me again about how the Hizbullah is only interested in killing soldiers.

The IDF is predicing an all-out confrontation with Hizbullah. I think that an IDF “prediction” is more like a promise.

Note the Reuters lead for the story, which does not, say, point out that Hizbullah, a terrorist group, launched an unprovoked attack on Israel, a sovereign nation. Instead, it says this:

MARJAYOUN, Lebanon (Reuters) - Hizbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers and killed up to seven Israelis in violence on either side of the Lebanese border on Wednesday, further inflaming Middle East tensions.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert described the Hizbollah attacks as an “act of war” by Lebanon and promised a “very painful and far-reaching” response.

Two Lebanese civilians were killed and five people wounded in retaliatory Israeli air strikes after Hizbollah announced it had captured the Israelis.

The AP is no better:

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - The Hezbollah militant group captured two Israeli soldiers during clashes along the Lebanese border on Wednesday, triggering an Israeli assault with warplanes, tanks and gunboats as Israeli troops crossed the frontier to hunt for the captives.

And may I say, effyouverymuch, al-Rotters and Arab Press, for that marvelous display of anti-Israel bias.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is calling this an act of war, as he should. He is holding Lebanon responsible.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Wednesday that “the events this morning are not terror attacks but actions of a sovereign state that attacked Israel for no reason. The Lebanese government, of which Hizbullah is a member, is trying to destabilize regional stability. Lebanon is responsible and it will bear responsibility.”

The reserves have been called up.

Members of Knesset are calling for war:

MK Effie Eitam (National Union) called on Defense Minister Amir Peretz to resign his post, claiming that “everything we have warned against is materializing – from the escape from Lebanon to fleeing from Gush Katif. The entire State is being blackmailed by abductions and rockets from the north and south.”

“There’s no choice. The war has been forced upon us – we must go to war and break the terror siege. We need a response that will rattle the Lebanon government and the Hamas-led government,” he stated.

Meantime, the IDF almost got Mohammed Deif, the most-wanted Hamas terrorist, but didn’t kill him. No word on how badly hit he was. Here’s hoping he dies of his wounds.

And a kassam landed near a “strategic site” in Ashkelon.

The war has only just begun. Time to start praying for our friends in Israel. This one is going to take a while, and there will be casualties before it is finished. Some died this morning, some have been killed in Gaza, and I don’t hold out much hope for the fate of any kidnapped IDF soldier in the hands of terrorists.

I know there will be a number of you who will say “Good! About time,” and yes, I understand that. But realize that young men are going to die while taking out the terrorist infrastructure. So let’s not forget that part of war: Soldiers are going to die. Somebody’s son, brother, husband, father, uncle.

I would prefer not to see bloodthirsty comments in this thread, and others discussing the war.

Actually, there is one thing you can get bloodthirsty about. I sure would like to see a Hellfire missile rammed down Hassan Nasrallah’s throat. Or entering the other way; makes no difference to me.

Did you know that Dr. Ruth was in the Haganah?

Westheimer’s love affair with Israel, however, started long before she became a pioneer of media therapy. A native of Frankfurt, Germany, she left home as a 10-year-old on one of the children’s transports that departed from Germany, and survived the war in a Swiss home for Jewish children. Her entire family perished in the Holocaust. After the war, Westheimer came to Israel, joined the Hagana, and was trained as a sniper.

“I was a kibbutznik when I first came here,” she said. “Then I moved to Jerusalem and lived in Beit Hahalutzot (a residence for women pioneers) while training at Schneller camp. On June 4, 1948 - my birthday - a shell hit the building and exploded.”

The diminutive Westheimer was severely wounded in both legs.

“But that’s not the reason I’m so small,” she laughed.

I have always liked Dr. Ruth. I met her when I was working for New Woman magazine in New York. She’s even sweeter (and tinier!) in person. Now I have another reason to like her. A sniper. You go, Dr. Ruth!