California Conservative

JPost.com is reporting some good news, if true:

The IDF assessed on Monday that Hezbollah’s rocket launching capability was significantly compromised by the fighting that took place in the past three weeks. It was estimated that, while the organization still has hundreds of rockets with a sufficient range to reach Afula and Haifa, there were only a number of launchers remaining with launching capability. The Hizbullah still had several Zilzal rockets left that could reach central Israel, Army Radio reported.

If this report is accurate, then we might be closer to a ceasefire than previously imagined because Hezbollah’s offensive capacity will have been dramatically decreased, which was the purpose behind Israel’s not accepting the ceasefire in the first place. There’s more good news in the JPost article, too:

In the course of the fighting, the IDF asserted that it had killed some 200 Hizbullah operatives. Though most of the names were not released, one of the more prominent targets hit was Jihad Atiya, who was said to be responsible for the killing and kidnapping of IDF soldiers Benny Avraham, Adi Avitan and Omar Sueid in 2000. Meanwhile, it was released for publication that an IAF UAV bombed a truck that was said to have been importing weapons from Syria, through the Masnaa border crossing, into Lebanon. The driver of the truck was wounded, as well as four additional Lebanese customs workers.

Killing “200 Hizbullah operatives” shrinks the Arab Street, which is always a positive thing.

Technorati Tags: IDF, Hezbollah, Rockets, Ceasefire

Cross-post at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Monday, July 31st, 2006 at 3:22 pm and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Middle East, Military, Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.