Isreali Military Tactics In Lebanon

MobyDog SG

I largely agree to what you have written... good post

But just some comments...

Originally posted by Shotgun:
Firstly, they are combatants in civilian clothing, carrying out combat operations in a civilian populated area. By not attiring themselves in combat uniform, of ANY uniformed colors, they have jeopardised the safety of civilians already.

not all of them.. but largely correct.

Secondly, they operate in civilian areas, place targets of high value within or next to civilian infrastructure, thereby jeopardising further the safety of the civilians and civilian infrastructure.

Every country with soldiers in war, also falls under this assumption.. don't you agree.

In the opening of the Israelis bomdardment of Infrastructures in Lebanon, most of the Hez fighters were not really moblilised yet.. because the intensity of the IDF response was quite a surprise to them...

My opinion is that they INTEND to jeopardise the safety of civilians. If it was their intention to protect them, they would have cleared the area of civilians in the first place, OR simply NOT operate in these areas. Their presence in these areas is what is bringing the Israeli bombs in the first place. For every civilian killed, it brings negative international opinion and pressure on Israel, and that is perhaps what they hope to achieve.

Not to say, it isn't true that they jeopardise the safety of civilians. To say that the 'Intended to' is really too sided.. because this is not always the case.

BTW, If they do not operate in area of civilian, the mechanised IDF would swept thru Lebanon in days..

Shotgun SG

I'm sure the Israelis would gladly avoid urban areas if they were a given a choice to. But yes, if the hezbollah had operated outside urban areas, they would have been easy pickings by the Israeli Air Force and rolled over by the Merkavas.

So the Hezbollah made a decision to fight the Israelis in urban areas, at the expense of the civilians. There is simply no way to white wash Hezbollah.

There is also no need to white wash the Israelis, since the whole world now knows what they have been doing in the Gaza strip and west bank. And in this case, no doubt the Israelis had made some decisions to deliberately attack some civilian targets suspected of hiding hezbollah militants, most of these attacks now suspected to be based on inaccurate intelligence.

VikingS SG

Originally posted by MobyDog:
Ohh... I hasn't come across any reports that the Hezbollah doing those thongs as mentioned..
Care to clarify the above.. some articles will be good

The discussion was about shielding behind civilians And as i pointed out there is a big difference in what single soldiers are doing and if its a general tactic and you can read what Jan Egeland says in Al Jazeera

"Consistently, from the Hezbollah heartland, my message was that Hezbollah must stop this cowardly blending
... among women and children," he said.

"I heard they were proud because they lost very few fighters and that it was the civilians bearing the brun
t of this. I don't think anyone should be proud of having many more children and women dead than armed men."

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/46DACF37-AD07-4D14-A4EA-9F9B1909DE5D.htm

I thought that Israel's reason for the Offensive was to eradicate Hez, and not declared war
with Lebanon. Don't Israel consider the Hez as a Terrorist org ?

Even if no formal war is declared the situaton is akin to a formal war and the conventions is in force, or are you saying the opposite?

Of all the numerous bombings.. only two videos are avaible of rockets being launched next
to apartment blocks.. other video of Launches are in open areas..so why bomb those Apartments
blocks? and one video of a truck going into a building (Not an apartment) in the suburd... that could be legit.

However, Apartments blocks in crowded Beirut and Tyre were bombed, Where are the proof that
any military affiliation were there ? No rockets were reported launched from the city centres.
Only missle reported launch was the attck on the Israel ship on July 14. Don't tell me that the Israelis says so.

You might want to go thru this site ..... scroll down to every reports to see whether Israel
targets civilians or not... .

http://hrw.org/reports/2006/lebanon0806/5.htm

Only two =) you havent put mutch effort in to it ill guess and for Beirut and Tyre the Israelis say they bombed command centers and weapons depots
As for the HRW in most of the incidents they base their reports on what local people is saying, i doubt that a villager in a hezbolla area will admit that hezbolla sheltered in the village. And i doubt that all the HRW people have the neccesary traning to identify traces of military activity, and i dont se
that they have asked IDF for any evidence that it was military targets

Placing soldiers to protect those facilites are common MO in every country in wartime scenario..
BTW, the off duty uniformed IDF soldiers goes around Israel armed., even when there is no war.

You must be joking... its NOT MO in Northern Europe to place combat troops at schools or hospitals in wartime
And secondly a single soldier on leave does not make a target out of a house
(look at the swiss where all reservists have weapons and uniform at home)

The irony of this statement .. you mena Lenbanon is the exeption ?

Are you saying that the Israelis are carpet bombing?

As I say, If Hez have the same hardware ... They would probaly do the same.

Yes and then hizbulla wouldnt be commiting any warcrimes as they are doing now by shelling Israeli towns indiscriminately

The UN are not armed.

Yes and why the hell didnt UN command whitdraw them the day before when the fighting erupted, The UN command says they tried to get the Israelis to stop for 6 hours, for how many hours did they try to get hizbolla to move away
or stop firing at the Israelis? Why does UN first go out whith a statement that there was no Hizbolla activity, a statement they had to retract when the E-letter from the killed Canadian was publicised?

Not when the roads and Bridges are bombed and the leaflet saying the any cars will be targets.
They had no choice... or that they are not that rich a country as Israel to have the luxury
of bomb Shelters, if you think they can actually survive a Jdam strike

And there is no evidence saying they placed equipment and prepared positions BEFORE the Israelis counter attackt?

Unless, you think it's isn't true.

As long we discuss things connected to Internaional law, Haag and Geneva conventions, and to some extent Miltary MO/SOP and ROE ill suggest that you do some reading before trying yo imply that i am totally biased.

MobyDog SG

Vikings, you know I'm getting tired of all this .. It's getting no where. You have your view and I have mine.

Originally posted by VikingS:
[/quote]The discussion was about shielding behind civilians And as i pointed out there is a big difference in what single soldiers are doing and if its a general tactic and you can read what Jan Egeland says in Al Jazeera[/quote]So tell me... have Hez did those things as a general tactics or not ?

Jan Egeland says in Al Jazeera

"Consistently, from the Hezbollah heartland, my message was that Hezbollah must stop this cowardly blending ... among women and children," he said.

Which war .. have you not seen soldiers mingling with civilains before ? also The Iraqi and French resistance fighter also fight amids civilians.. you don't call them using the Civilians as human shield .. do you ?

Even if no formal war is declared the situaton is akin to a formal war and the conventions is in force, or are you saying the opposite?

The difference is .. are you fighting a Terrorist guerila org or a country ..

Only two =) you havent put mutch effort in to it ill guess

Yup... only two... that i know that are fired next to buildings. You could point me to more.. but that's still dime to a dozen bombings of buildings.. and since the rockets launches are near or next to building .. why were the building bombed .. since they are using Precison bombs ?

and for Beirut and Tyre the Israelis say they bombed command centers and weapons depots

Of the numerous bombing..Have they been all verified or are they just what the Israel claims.

As for the HRW in most of the incidents they base their reports on what local people is saying, i doubt that a villager in a hezbolla area will admit that hezbolla sheltered in the village.

The HRW and Red Cross would need to be on the site hear what the LOcals are saying.. are they IDF there ??

And i doubt that all the HRW people have the neccesary traning to identify traces of military activity, and i dont see that they have asked IDF for any evidence that it was military targets

Of the numerous bombing, I don't see that the IDF provided any evidence too...onlt what they claimed. They do.. like that the Qana bombing... but there were just too many.. but after this conflict we'll see.

You must be joking... its NOT MO in Northern Europe to place combat troops at schools or hospitals in wartime
And secondly a single soldier on leave does not make a target out of a house

Didn't they IDF says that they have bombed entire apartment blocks , jusr because some Hez leader are said to be living there..?

(look at the swiss where all reservists have weapons and uniform at home)

The Irony... then they are a military target.. well according to the IDF.. Blending with civilians.. Weapons cache..., you have just describe the average Hez Joe.

Are you saying that the Israelis are carpet bombing?

no.. no.. no, The IDF only used precision bombing with faulty intelligence.

Yes and then hizbulla wouldnt be commiting any warcrimes as they are doing now by shelling Israeli towns indiscriminately

What's new.. they are after all said to be a terrorist.

Yes and why the hell didnt UN command whitdraw them the day before when the fighting erupted,

Because that's their job ?? and going out during arty bombardment isn't wise.. since IDF do make mistakes.

The UN command says they tried to get the Israelis to stop for 6 hours, for how many hours did they try to get hizbolla to move away or stop firing at the Israelis?

sick logic... did the Hezbollah attack the UN post or attack Israel within the their compund.

Why does UN first go out whith a statement that there was no Hizbolla activity, a statement they had to retract when the E-letter from the killed Canadian was publicised?

Still, Hez did not operate within the UN Compound to be hit by a Precision bomb and gets shelled for...

And there is no evidence saying they placed equipment and prepared positions BEFORE the Israelis counter attackt?

Precisely the point ...

Both of us are Bias.. admit it..

IDF is a legit standing Army.. once the conflict is over.. we shall see whether the IDF have fouled any International laws... don't be surprised.

SingaporeTyrannosaur SG

I suspect a lot of deaths in this conflict was due to the messiness of the whole thing rather then deliberate malice. That said, both sides simply don’t care as much about civillians as they ought to. Deliberately targeting civillians? There are cheaper ways to do it then with airstrikes.

MobyDog SG

Like sending in Troops, bio/chemical weapons, nukes or cliams faulty intelligence to bomb them into submission ? They were reluctant to send in troops initially, and using Bio/chemical/nukes weapons are bad PR move...

I don't want to believe they target Civilians delibrately.. but certainly they don't seem to give a damn.

cmeptb SG

Now that the UN’s gonna deploy “peace keepers” in Lebanon, do you think if Hezbollah’s gonna follow the Serbs ’ example – kidnap UN troops & use them as human shields while continuing attacks against the Israelis?

MobyDog SG

If that's the case they would have done long ago... and don't you know.. the Hez have been said to fight near UN post.. that got it bombed.

Shotgun SG

I feel that it is likely that Hezbollah launch rockets o attack Israel with suicide bombings. Now that you have a 4 ring circus on the ground, (Lebanese, UN, Hezbollah, Israel), they may actually launch surprise attack to lure Israel into retaliatory action and confrontation with UN and UN troops.

Whether the UN troops give way to the Israeli actions or stand against it (UN troops vs IDF?) would both reflect negatively of the UN's ability to "keep peace." Again, world opinion would be unfavorable against the Israelis, and perhaps more will flock to the Hezbollah cause.

I'm not a seer, I'm just suggesting a probability.

SingaporeTyrannosaur SG

It's going to be tough to beat Hezbollah on the propangada front. Simply because Hezbollah's main idea is to cause as much damage as possible to their opponents physially or propangada wise and pitch that as a victory.

It dosen't matter if they have taken heavy losses or are military-wise gutted or have become a skeleton force. As long as they are able to keep talking and oppose Israeli with a minimal level of resistance they basically have things going for them. One rocket into Israeli, even if it causes very little damage is worth far more then several of their equipment and men killed by Israeli airstrikes.

It's going to be difficult for Israel to beat Hezbollah, for the simple reason it's hard to beat in the conventional sense. Nothing short of its total destruction would suffice, and that is very hard to do.

VikingS SG

Originally posted by MobyDog:
Vikings, you know I'm getting tired of all this .. It's getting no where. You have your view and I have mine.

Both of us are Bias.. admit it..

Intresting, i have tried to point out what international law says about this and since that is against many of your views, i am biased Shocked

IDF is a legit standing Army.. once the conflict is over.. we shall see whether the IDF have fouled any International laws... don't be surprised.

No not at all, you have actually managed to point out one thing so far, that can be debated if its whitin the laws.

MobyDog SG

The problem is no one can proof that the IDF does not delibrately target civilians.. even though the Civilian death are high and villages bomded flat.. something any govt would deny.. also because the use of words like ‘Human Shields’, and when situation are not like what the IDF claims they become a ‘Mistake’. And with the US total support, they would indeed veto and resolution..

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