All of the analyses I’ve read (by the non-Israeli media) are touting Hezbullah’s ability to lay ambushes. But two Israeli newspapers are reporting that the soldiers killed in Bint Jbeil on Wednesday were not ambushed.
Ha’aretz says it was a chance encounter:
Yadai said that he was convinced, after talking to the troops, that they did not run into a planned Hezbollah ambush, but into a chance confrontation, and that Golani soldiers had opened fire first.
The soldiers said that while they were moving through Bint Jbail, one of them noticed a Hezbollah gunman a few dozen meters away, opened fire and killed him. At that point, dozens of gunmen came out of nearby houses and engaged in close-range battle with the soldiers, causing many fatalities on both sides.
Yadai said he believed the large number of Hezbollah gunmen in the town were there to protect four Katyusha launchers. The launchers were destroyed in the battle.The air force bombed four other Katyusha launchers in Bint Jbail on Thursday.
The Jerusalem Post backs up Ha’aretz’s story:
The firefight began early in the morning when two companies, A and C, began advancing down one of Bint Jbail’s streets on parallel routes. Contrary to previous reports, Friedler said, the Hizbullah fighters were not lying in ambush. “Both sides were unaware of each other and it was actually one of our soldiers who saw them first and opened fire.”
But the Hizbullah men were in upper stories of buildings and had a commanding view of the IDF force. In the initial firing, 30 members of C Company, a third of its total strength, were hit, as was the battalion’s deputy commander, Maj. Roi Klein.
And yet, the IDF captured the area, in spite of being at a disadvantage, and losing eight men almost straight off, including their officers.
The thing that most impressed Capt. Yisrael Friedler, commander of A Company in the Golani Brigade’s Battalion 51, during the bloody battle in Bint Jbail on Wednesday, was the way the junior commanders conducted themselves after their officers had been hit by Hizbullah gunfire.
“The moment their officers went down,” he told The Jerusalem Post Thursday, “the sergeants took their radios and began reporting in and managing the battle, while at the same time taking charge of evacuating the wounded. It was the height of professionalism,” he said.
So while it was a tragedy, and a deep loss of life for Israel, the analysts seem to be adding more padding to Hezbullah’s talents than would seem to be the case.
The Israelis have confirmed that Hezbollah is fighting like a professional military. Their units are fighting at the company level at the least (Unit size of approximately 100 men), and perhaps in larger formations. Intelligence also confirms there is specialization within the Hezbollah units, including trained infantry, mortar teams, missile squads, and logistical personal. Iran has trained and organized Hezbollah’s army into something far more deadly than a militia force. Hezbollah’s core ‘active’ army is estimated at 3,000 – 5,000, with as many as 50,000 part time militia and support personnel that can be called upon to fight (20,000 is the average estimate).
Fine, I’m no Bill Roggio. But I can read numbers just as well as he can, and I’m thinking that regardless of whether or not Hezbullah has 5,000 or 50,000, simple mathematics would still put the IDF in the advantage column. When you factor in the fact that they are Israelis, and that they are fighting a war their nation cannot afford to lose—numbers become meaningless. The IDF cannot afford to lose to Hezbullah. And frankly, no matter how much training they’ve gotten, I can’t believe they’re anywhere near the equal of the world’s third-best army.
There is also this: Does anyone think that Israel will not, if pushed to the very edge, stop playing the “Don’t Hurt The Civilians” game and simply level town after town until Hezbullah is finished?
No one has ever pushed Israel to the edge yet. Gd willing, we will never see it. But I don’t doubt an ultimate victory for Israel. The fact that it won’t be easy isn’t something that Israelis were expecting. It is the media—the non-Israeli media—who are making up the lie that the IDF was expecting a cakewalk.
Nearly two weeks into the new war in the Middle East, two rather surprising developments have emerged: The Israeli army, which trades on its almost mythical abilities, has shown some cracks. And the army’s enemy, Hezbollah, appears stronger and more elusive than almost anyone imagined.
None of which was lost on the Israeli security cabinet, which met for six hours today at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, and decided to continue the same limited operations against the Hezbollah militants.
Please note the breathless prose, and the absolute stupidity of the lead. In the first paragraph, Dean Reynolds reports that the IDF is not up to the challenge. In the second, he supports his point by reporting that the Israeli cabinet decided that it was not necessary to ratchet up the forces and move into an all-out ground war.
The problem with this, of course, is that most people will not read the second paragraph critically, but will take it as proof that the IDF is “showing cracks.”
The rest of the story is equally as stupid, riddled with words like “humiliation” and “huddled in bomb shelters.” Funny, but that’s not the Israel I’m reading about on the blogs and in the Israeli media.
Looks like I’m going to have to add Dean Reynolds and ABC News to my STFU chorus. STFU, Dean.
Sorry that this comes so late, and I can understand it if you don’t answer it anymore, but out of curiousity:
Whom do you see as the second best army in the world, given that you’ve called Israel’s the third best and probably see your own country’s as the best?
H., it isn’t what I think. I’ve read that the U.S. is number one, followed by Great Britain, then Israel.