War news roundup

Northern Israel is now under martial law.

The IAF took out five long-range rocket launchers. They obviously need to take out more; that’s what’s hitting Haifa.

The Israeli Air Force hit five long-range rocket launchers in Lebanon, a senior Air Force commander revealed Sunday afternoon. “Every strike on rocket launchers damages Hizbullah’s firing ability, as the group has limited quantities of the weapon,” he said.

Sunday afternoon it was released for publication that an IDF soldier was severely wounded Sunday morning when a long-range Fajer rocket hit an IDF base near Haifa. The soldier was hospitalized at a Haifa hospital and his family was informed of his condition.

They’re using bunker-busters to try to get Nasrallah. Keep your fingers crossed.

According to the military chief, Air Force sorties over Lebanonhit 60 buildings in the Dahiya quarter, Beirut’s Shiite quarter, in which Hizbullah infrastructure is located. During the air strikes, “bunker buster” bombs were fired in attempt to destroy underground targets. The officer said, “In one of the strikes in the Tyre area, a number of senior Hizbullah leaders were hit,” but refused to detail their identities.

Hosni Mubarak says he stopped Olmert from sending a ground force to Beirut.

Egypt persuaded Israel against a planned land attack on the Lebanese capital Beirut following Hezbollah’s abduction of two Israel Defense Forces soldiers earlier this week, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Sunday.

The Egyptian leader also disclosed an Iranian offer to negotiate a settlement with Hezbollah as part of Arab initiatives to resolve the crisis, but called Tehran’s bid “a trap.”

“Egypt was keen not to let the Israelis into Beirut,” Mubarak told reporters Sunday after talks with the president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheik Khalifa bin Zayid al-Nuhayyan. “If we hadn’t stepped in, Beirut would have been destroyed,” Mubarak said.

How can Tehran’s bid be a trap? They’re the ones who are bankrolling Hezbullah and calling the shots. Oh, wait. I see. If Iran can brag about being a peacemaker in the Middle East, then Gorilla Boy’s rep goes up—and it gets harder to impose sanctions on them for violating the non-proliferation treaty. That, plus it minimizes Mubarak’s role. Yeah. Trap.

This one’s big: The U.S. will not try to negotiate a cease-fire, according to Condi Rice. Translation: This time, Israel gets to kick the bad guys’ asses. There’s also a note about selling Israel jet fuel in the article, another crucial piece of information. President Bush has obviously instructed his people to block all attempts to stop Israel, as is usually done, before the situation can be fully resolved. Think about how different the world would be if the UN had not stopped Israel on the road to Damascus in 1967.

“Extremists in Hamas, Hizbullah, and their supporters in Syria and Iran do not want to see a resolution of these situations on the basis of 1559 and the road map, because then they would have no reason for violence,” Rice said.

The US government will object the reaching of a cease-fire at the G-8 summit or at the United Nations.

It’s obvious that W. has finally figured out that not going all-out on terrorists doesn’t accomplish anything. Hezbullah must be utterly destroyed in order for the region to move forward. (Syria needs to be regime-changed as well, but that’s a story for another day.)

Funny, I thought the Iraqis didn’t hate Israel. Guess a whole bunch of ’em do. This appears to be the only issue that’s managed to unite the Iraqi parliament.

Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has been pleading with fellow Iraqis to put aside deep sectarian and ethnic divisions of the kind that plunged Lebanon into civil war 30 years ago.

His pleas have gone largely unheeded, but Israel’s five-day-old assault on Lebanon that has killed more than 116 people, all but four of them civilians, has evoked strong feelings of solidarity among Iraqis, bridging the sectarian divide.

And a hearty effyouverymuch to you, too.

The war is still on in Gaza. Six palestinians were killed by the IDF on Sunday, and the IDF thinks Cpl. Gilad Shalit is still alive.

Shin Bet security chief Yuval Diskin said Sunday he believes the Israel Defense Forces soldier who was captured three weeks ago by militants from the Gaza Strip is alive, an official said.

Diskin made the comment during a closed meeting of Cabinet officials in Jerusalem, said one of the officials who attended it.

Oh, and kassams have been landing in Israel every day. I just haven’t been writing about that much.

Go elsewhere for more information. I’m off to take my last year’s class rock climbing. Four of them saved up 100 points each and claimed their prize. I’m thinking the subject of the war won’t come up. They’re fourth graders.

But I will be thinking about, and praying for, my friends in Israel—and the innocents in Lebanon.