JERUSALEM – The Israeli army command falsely labeled dozens of Hezbollah rocket launching zones as “nature preserves,” contributing to the failure of the Jewish state to stop thousands of rockets fired by the terror group during last summer’s war in Lebanon, according to a Knesset report released yesterday.
During the 2006 confrontation, Hezbollah fired more than 4,000 rockets from southern Lebanon into northern Israel, killing 43 Israeli civilians and injuring 4,262 more, including 33 who were seriously wounded, 68 who were moderately wounded, 1,388 Israelis lightly wounded, and another 2,773 who were treated for shock and anxiety.
A Human Rights Watch report credited Israeli bomb shelters for saving lives and said civilian casualties from Hezbollah’s rockets would have been much higher if Israel had not evacuated 350,000 residents from northern towns.
Israel launched a 34-day offensive against Hezbollah July 12, 2006, after the Lebanese militia stormed the Israeli border and kidnapped two soldiers. Hezbollah had for years been accused by Israel of amassing stockpiles of rockets near the border aimed at the Jewish state.
In spite of massive Israeli military activity, Hezbollah was able to fire rockets into Israel at a rate of hundreds per day. The number of rockets fired per day increased toward the end of the conflict.
In an explosive development, a Knesset report released yesterday blamed the Israeli Defense Forces command for wrongly labeling dozens of important Hezbollah rocket bunkers and launch zones as “nature preserves.” The report said the IDF command explicitly instructed Israeli forces not to take out the “preserves.”
The report, penned by the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, stated it was from these “nature preserves” that Hezbollah launched the majority of its deadly rocket onslaught into Israel.
According to the report, IDF searches of 33 “nature preserves” after the war revealed extensive complexes of Hezbollah bunkers and underground tunnels built following Israel’s 2000 withdrawal from south Lebanon.
The report said the IDF leadership’s decisions “played into Hezbollah’s hands, were seized by blindness, and lent strength to the enemy’s [strategic and tactical] logic.”
The Knesset report, signed by all 17 members of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, also slammed an Israeli decision against launching a major ground operation in southern Lebanon until days before the end of the war.
The report was criticized by military leaders and reserve soldiers here because the probe almost exclusively focused on the IDF and not on Israeli government leaders, including Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak told reporters yesterday the “onus for the conduct of the war” lies with the government and not the IDF.
Knesset Defense Committee Chair Tzachi Hanegbi wrote in the introduction to the report his committee specifically refrained from blaming the Israeli leadership since another probe, termed the Winograd Commission, is investigating those circumstances.
The Winograd report, delayed repeatedly, is scheduled to be released later this week, pending any further delays.
According to sources familiar with the report who spoke to WND, the Winograd Commission will blame Olmert and top government and IDF leaders for waiting until the final 60 hours of the war to finally launch a massive ground invasion that many IDF officials had petitioned for from the start of the conflict. Thirty-three Israeli soldiers died in the last-minute ground operation, which was canceled after Olmert agreed to a cease fire.
WND first reported in August 2006, two days after the Lebanon War ended, the Israeli military began its own quiet inquiry blaming Olmert for the deaths of the 33 soldiers.
In 2006, WND quoted IDF sources questioning whether Olmert knew a cease-fire would be imposed when, after a month of fighting in Lebanon, he green-lighted the large-scale ground operation for which IDF leaders allegedly had been petitioning since the beginning of hostilities.
“It’s possible Olmert knew a cease-fire was coming. If so, our stepped-up operation that he approved two days earlier was a pointless exercise in which troops were killed. This is a very serious situation,” said a senior military official in August 2006, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to the media.
Olmert ordered the massive battle in question on Aug. 11 reportedly after four weeks of refusing a larger ground offensive to reach Lebanon’s Litani River – about 18 miles from the Israeli border, encompassing the swath of territory from which Hezbollah fired most of its rockets into northern Israel.
Troop advances were halted some 60 hours later in line with a cease-fire proposal accepted by Israel to end the conflict.
Immediately after the war, Israeli military officials told WND that from the start of the Jewish state’s campaign in Lebanon, IDF commanders petitioned for the deployment of up to 40,000 ground troops to advance immediately to the Litani River and from there work their way back to the Israeli border while surrounding and then cleaning out Hezbollah strongholds under heavy aerial cover.
But Olmert at first only approved aerial assaults, they say. After Hezbollah retaliated in July by firing large numbers of rockets into Israel, the Olmert government about two weeks later approved a smaller ground offensive of up to 8,000 soldiers that, according to military officials, were not directed to advance to the Litani. The IDF was charged with cleaning out Hezbollah’s bases within about three miles of the Israeli border.
IDF leaders told WND they suffered in “very specific” ways on the battlefield because of a lack of sufficient ground troops. They cited instances in which they claimed there were not enough soldiers to surround key villages, such as Bint JBail in southern Lebanon, allowing Hezbollah fighters to infiltrate cities after the IDF began combat inside the areas.
After nearly four weeks of fighting, Olmert’s cabinet Aug. 11 approved the larger assault for which the IDF had petitioned, authorizing about 40,000 troops to enter Lebanon and advance to the Latani River. The IDF estimated it would need three days to reach central Lebanon and another four to six weeks to successfully wipe out the Hezbollah infrastructure in the areas leading back to the Israeli border.
But three days after the Israeli army was given a green light to advance – a cease-fire was imposed and the Jewish state suspended operations.
“If Olmert did not know a cease-fire was coming, then our reaching the Litani would have been crucial for the continued battle. We needed to clean out those areas to defeat Hezbollah. If he did know, Olmert sent our troops to their deaths for nothing other than to prove we can reach the Litani,” a top IDF official said.
The official charged that whether the IDF reached the Litani or not, the cease-fire agreement would still call for the Lebanese army and an international force to deploy in the area.
Other military officials told WND of other instances they claimed Olmert was directly responsible for the deaths of soldiers. During several occasions of the war, while heavy diplomacy looked to be gaining momentum, such as during Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s visits to the region, the IDF was asked by the political echelon to halt most operations and troop advances for up to 36 hours while negotiations ran their course. Military leaders charge some troop battalions, instructed to hold positions outside villages but not to advance, became sitting ducks for Hezbollah antitank fire, which killed at least 20 Israeli soldiers. After the diplomacy failed, the military officials say, soldiers were ordered to carry on.
The military officials at the time demanded the government’s management of the war be probed.
To interview Aaron Klein, contact Tim Bueler Public Relations by e-mail, or call (530) 401-3285.
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