Israel strikes Beirut suburb, tightens blockade

Hezbollah's Rocket Force

The mainstay of Hezbollah's rocket force are small 122mm artillery rockets known by the generic term "Katyusha". The name - which means "little Katy" in Russian - was coined more than 60 years ago by Soviet Red Army troops who fired them at the invading German army.
During World War II the Katyushas' distinctive screech cast a powerful psychological spell over the enemy. In northern Israel today, later versions of the rocket remain crude, yet often effective, weapons.


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SHORT RANGE

Hezbollah's Katyushas are thought to derive mainly from former Soviet and Chinese stockpiles. A typical example is the Soviet BM-21 Grad missile, which was first deployed in 1963 and has a maximum range of about 25km.

Because of their lack of a guidance system, Katyushas have the greatest effect when launched in concentrated numbers.

Since 2001, Hezbollah is believed to have acquired a number of truck-mounted Multi-Barrel Rocket Launchers [MRBL], enabling them to fire such multiple barrages.

Images broadcast recently by Hezbollah's TV station appeared to show what the group described as a Ra-ad 1 missile being fired. Military analysts believe this missile was an Iranian-built Shahin I missile, which has a range of about 13km.

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LONGER RANGE

Recent missile strikes on Israel's northern port city of Haifa indicate that Hezbollah may also have acquired longer-range missiles.

Most of these are believed to be Iranian-manufactured systems like the Fajr-3, with a 45-km range; the Fajr-5, with a range of some 75km.

Some analysts believe that Hezbollah also has the more potent Zelzal-2 which has a claimed range of 200-400km and can be fitted with a 600kg high-explosive warhead. Its solid fuel system means that it can be more easily transported and prepared for firing.

Most analysts believe a more realistic range to be about 100km, but this would still bring much of Tel Aviv - Israel's largest population centre - within its range.

None of these are guided or accurate systems, but often accuracy is not important if the target is an urban area.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5187974.stm
 
So HangPC, do you believe that the Hezbollah attacks which are not aimed at military targets but rather are purposefully directed at Israeli civilians is justified? Do you actually advocate such a clearly terrorist method of defense? This isn't collateral damage from locating military installations in civilian population centers, this is the willfull attack on unarmed civilians no where near a military target of any sort.
 
Hezbollah is Isreal's alledged target. If this is true, why is Isreal targeting obviously unrelated targets to this enemy. Iconic Lighthouses, international airports, various non-military targets in northern lebonese citys such as tripoli and baalbek (sp?). This does not coincide with their stated aims. If the refugees coming out of lebanon were mistaken for a hezbollah convoy, that raises a very seriuos error in isreali intelligence. If you know that civilian convoys are leaving a country by the hundreds of thousands, then you should think that..."maybe the convoy over there isnt a terrorist group, maybe it would pay to find up before I KILL EVERYONE IN IT" If there is mis-information fine. If it said that it was a terrorist convoy and a fighter was sent to blow it up, ok it was a big mistake. But this was a Iraqi Hellicopter, approaching an unknown convoy. Not only should he have eyeballed the target first, he also should have waited to fire till he could see if it was terrorist. As it is, that pilot killed many civilians, and that isnt an isolated incident. The report of a bus full of refugees, 25 of them kids blown up by an isreali helicopter is another prime example. If they are trying to save civilian lives, then they are doing a horrible job of doing it.
 
How many combat missions have you flown as a helicopter pilot? Can you identify the difference between a lebanese civilian and a hezbollah terrorist if both are sitting inside a truck travelling at speed across the desert while you fly nap of the earth at 100 mph+? Were you there? Do you know what the pilot did or did not do? Do you know for a fact that there wasn't a man with an rpg in the lighthouse? Do you know there wasn't a hezzbollah com relay in that lighthouse? Do you know where Hezzbolah purposefully located their facillities? Are they inside urban centers or are they in isolated tracts of land located away from people's homes?
 
bulldogg said:
How many combat missions have you flown as a helicopter pilot? Can you identify the difference between a lebanese civilian and a hezbollah terrorist if both are sitting inside a truck travelling at speed across the desert while you fly nap of the earth at 100 mph+? Were you there? Do you know what the pilot did or did not do? Do you know for a fact that there wasn't a man with an rpg in the lighthouse? Do you know there wasn't a hezzbollah com relay in that lighthouse? Do you know where Hezzbolah purposefully located their facillities? Are they inside urban centers or are they in isolated tracts of land located away from people's homes?

Bulldogg, I think that I have flown about as many combat missions as many (maybe not all) of the people on this forum, perhaps including you. Now, of course, I cant say with absolute certainty that I could not tell the diffrence between a terrorist truck and a refugee truck, mostly because Ii have never tried to do it. I can say, however, that when im personally flying here in the US in a Cessna 150, I can distinguish between various types of cars, and can see the people inside. Even moving at 100+ MPH, someone should have noticed "hey there are women in that convoy, children in that convoy, maybe its worth me scouting a little before I start firing."

Ok this is the section specifically related to Hezbollah. Although I cant say 100% that there was not a man with an rpg in this lighthouse, I can say that it was most likely not, because there were gaurds there, and there were hundreds of people there most of the days of the week because this was a tourist attraction. So if there was a rpg person, or a communications network there, then it had to opperate only on Sunday, because there were tourists there the rest of the time. I know that Hezbollah puts some of its bases in southern lebanese cities, so there is bound to be collateral. But bombing infrastructure in NORTHERN lebanon, and destroying airports and ports in NORTHERN (central in the case of the airport) lebanon does not destroy these bases.
 
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The point is that you are criticising someone doing a job you have not done. You arent there, you dont know.
 
As a human being it is my job to critique what people do or dont, regardless of whether I have done it or not. I have never murdered someone, but I can condemm someone for commiting a murder. I have never been a terrorist, but I can condemm some one for terrorist activities. A soldiers job is to protect civilians whether they are the enemy or friends, and I feel that has not been done well enough in this war. Just saying "you werent there" is not an excuse for an easily avoidable situation. Im not saying any one person is at fault, but I can say that some group made a horrible and avoidable miscalculation at best.
 
A CNN reporter is taken to an area of Beirut and told that the rubble of buildings is a result of Israeli air strikes on civilian targets. The reporter repeats the allegation as fact. He has no way of knowing what was in the buildings, whether it was a rocket workshop, a hiding place for katyushas, the home of a Hizballah leader, or a command center. In fact, he doesn’t even know if the Israel was responsible for the destruction that he is shown.
In waging their propaganda war, Israel’s enemies count on journalists to report first and research later, if at all, and CNN and other media outlets have fallen into their trap.
Israel’s adversaries learned a long time ago that they can attract publicity and sympathy by fabricating statistics and screaming “massacre.” This was the case in April 2002 when Palestinians claimed that 500 people were “massacred” in Jenin. They could not produce any evidence to support the scurrilous charge, and their own review committee reported a death toll of 56, of whom 34 were combatants. By the time the truth was reported, the story had been repeated throughout the world media and Israel’s image was tarnished.
During the last war in Lebanon, disinformation was the norm. Perhaps the most dramatic example occurred when the Washington Post published a photograph (August 2, 1982) of a baby that appeared to have lost both its arms. The UPI caption said that the seven-month-old had been severely burned when an Israeli jet accidentally hit a Christian residential area. The photo disgusted President Reagan and was one reason he subsequently called for Israel to halt its attacks. The photo and the caption, however, were inaccurate. The baby, in fact, did not lose its arms, and the burns the child suffered were the result of a PLO attack on East Beirut.
The media also reported that Israel’s operation to end the PLO threats to northern Israel resulted in 10,000 deaths and 600,000 homeless in south Lebanon. The 600,000 homeless figure originated in mid-June 1982 with the Palestine Red Crescent, headed by Yasser Arafat’s brother Fathi. Francesco Noseda of the International Committee of the Red Cross, who had originally used the bogus number, later repudiated it. By then, however, it was too late and the perception had been created that Israel was responsible for the mass killing of civilians and the creation of a humanitarian disaster.
The Lebanese Prime Minister is trying this tactic again in 2006 by claiming that Israel has perpetrated massacres and has made 500,000 people homeless. No effort is made to confirm these claims, they are simply repeated by the media, thereby reinforcing the incentive for Arab propagandists to spread disinformation.
In the earlier war in Lebanon, there would have been zero dead or homeless if the PLO hadn’t used south Lebanon as a base from which to menace Israel. This same point can be made today, but is being ignored by the media in its obsession with casualty figures and its desire to find evidence of Israel attacking innocents. Not a single Lebanese civilian would be in danger, however, if Hizballah was not controlling southern Lebanon and attacking Israel. This fact appears lost on most journalists covering the current conflict.
The press is also spending a great deal of time talking to Lebanese civilians and their relatives in the United States and highlighting the difficult conditions they are enduring. This is no doubt the case since they are living in a war zone; however, the media has spent almost no time talking to the Israelis living under the constant threat of rocket attacks. Few reporters have gone into the bomb shelters to interview the frightened Israeli families. No one seems interested in how the relatives of Israelis in the United States feel about their loved ones being under siege.
Similarly, every report has focused on the Americans living in Lebanon while no one seems interested in the thousands of Americans living in Israel. It is terrible that tourists and students are having to be evacuated from Lebanon, but what about those same groups in Israel? What about the hundreds of students on summer tours and programs in Israel, many of whom were in the north when the violence escalated? While the complications of leaving the country may not be as severe as in Lebanon, it is still very difficult to arrange a quick exit from Israel, and many American parents are in a state of panic worrying about their children in Israel.
Wars are never easy to cover, and each side of a conflict wants to make its case through the media. A responsible press, however, does not repeat whatever it hears, it first makes every effort to insure the accuracy of its reporting. That is the standard expected of journalists covering the war between Israel and Hizballah.


Source
 
Really? Reporters like Lebanon more than Israel in this conflict? Maybe if you look at what's going on you'll see that the lebanese are having it much, much worse than the israelis. Israel has its northern towns to worry about, lebanon as a whole is suffering. Forgetting the whole background of this conflict for a moment, which sounds worse to you? Last time i checked lebanon has 10 times the civilian casualties that israel has. The destruction of their infrastructure is not affecting hezbollah since they were prepared for these sort of attacks. It is however adversely affecting the civilians and their economy which would make it even easier for hezbollah to gain support after this is all over.

Sometimes israel is tough, other times like this, they have lost their minds.
 
WarMachine said:
Really? Reporters like Lebanon more than Israel in this conflict? Maybe if you look at what's going on you'll see that the lebanese are having it much, much worse than the israelis.

Well they are the ones who were hosting Hezbollah on their territory. One day I'm going to call a stalker or a rapist and host him at my house next to yours. Then I'll let him stalk and attack your family, your daughters for years, rape your wife every other day (I do nothing, I just host him, I know what he does but I don't do the same things). One day you decide to break into my house to kill the rapist, but a lot of relatives of mine are home and some get killed.
Would I have the courage to complain about your reaction??
 
The fact is that lebanon does not WANT hezbollah, as a matter of fact they have said multiple times that they dont want them, its just the fact that they dont have the resources to get rid of hezbollah. The president of Lebanon has asked israel to target the hezbollah targets insteadd of lebanese, but that has not happened. Israel had a bone to pick with lebanon and used this as an excuse to get back at them, end of story. As much as some of you people want to believe, countries do things for national gain, not for idealistic beliefs. That is why isreal continues to punish lebanon, because they want the lebanese out.
 
Israel doesn't want to get bogged down in Lebanon again, they want a buffer zone patrolled by NATO. The fact that Hezbollah is loading the warheads of their rockets with ball bearing and targeting downtown Israeli cities like Haifa is enough evidence that they don't play well with others.
 
Rabs said:
what? Are you saying there trying to take over Lebanon?

Honestly maybe not, but from the pattern of attacks and there targets id say that what they want to do is neutralize lebanon........not just the hezbollah but the government as well.
 
Honestly maybe not, but from the pattern of attacks and there targets id say that what they want to do is neutralize lebanon........not just the hezbollah but the government as well.

That doesnt even make sense, that is defintely NOT in their interest.
 
Ok if my theory makes no sense, please give me yours. Why are the israelis attacking targets that have nothing to do with hezbollah, why are they targeting lebanons infrastructure, something the hezbollah dont rely on?
 
Ok if my theory makes no sense, please give me yours. Why are the israelis attacking targets that have nothing to do with hezbollah, why are they targeting lebanons infrastructure, something the hezbollah dont rely on?

First of all I dont agree with attacking inrastructe. A lot of the targets theyve hit are roads airports, fuel stations, that make travel as hard as possible. This makes it harder to ressuply the fighters int he south and harder for them to take people out of the country or bring weapons in.
 
So what's the exlpanation for israel attacking the infrastructure if hezbollah, a guerilla force, can work around such problems? A lebanese govt official said that israel had taken apart the infrastructure of lebanon and has only reduced hezbollah's capabilities by 1%. BBC reporters in the region say they're constantly checked by hezbollah patrols that roam blasted zones. I don't think hezbollah is being affected much by this since they were prepared for it. Eveyone esle is and israel isn't explaining why they're still fighting in such a way.
 
WarMachine said:
So what's the exlpanation for israel attacking the infrastructure if hezbollah, a guerilla force, can work around such problems? A lebanese govt official said that israel had taken apart the infrastructure of lebanon and has only reduced hezbollah's capabilities by 1%. BBC reporters in the region say they're constantly checked by hezbollah patrols that roam blasted zones. I don't think hezbollah is being affected much by this since they were prepared for it. Eveyone esle is and israel isn't explaining why they're still fighting in such a way.

Here we go, AGAIN ... evidently all of the hand-wringers still don't get it.

1. 1 out of every 4 (or) 5 homes have members of Hezbollah living in them.
2. 80-85% of the Lebanese civilians support Hezbollah with shelter, food, money or information. Scattered throughout almost all of the communities, there are homes that are being used to store weapons, ammunition and other supplies used by Hezbollah terrorists. That mean that a lot of the "innocent civilians" that are being hit are not so blasted innocent ... if you aid and abet, you are part of a conspiracy and just as guilty as the terrorists that ARE killing innocent civilians (non-combatants and not part of any support of a terrorist organization).
3. The Lebanese government and the Lebanese Army are just about as effective as the UN when it comes to world politics and terrorism. (I would rather have a bunch of young school crossing guards try to handle this situation ... they would probably do a better job).
4. In order to bring Hezbollah to the table in such a way as to be sure that this time they MAY just be willing to leave Israel alone, Israel has no choice but to do maximum damage. That means that the infrastructure as targets, HAS to be part of the battle plan.

Any of you strategists out there will recognize the necessity of this portion of the plan ... take out the infrastructure and you bring the other side to the peace table sooner.
 
Chief Bones said:
Any of you strategists out there will recognize the necessity of this portion of the plan ... take out the infrastructure and you bring the other side to the peace table sooner.

There is no infrastructure to take out. The artillery and rockets are highly mobile and in large number. Hitting civilian infrastructure will only increase anti-Israeli hatred and further split the Middle East.

As far as bringing Hezbollah to the negotiating table, forget it. They are a non-state organization determined to eradicate Israel. They have no authority and are a pariah. They are hated by Egypt, Jordan, and most gulf states.
 
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