July 9,
2008: With Hizbollah installing
thousands of rockets along its northern border, and some longer range rockets
further away in central Lebanon, Israel is developing tactics it hopes will
minimize the damage if there's another war like the one in 2006. Back then, the
Israeli Air Force thought it could shut down the Hizbollah rockets from the
air. But Hizbollah managed to launch 4,200 rockers, while the Israeli Air
Force, despite flying 11,870 sorties, only found and destroyed 126 launchers.
So the
next time around Israel is prepared to use anti-missile missiles against some
300 long range missiles (supplied by Iran via Syria). In 2006, Hizbollah fired
some 200 long range missiles. Next time, Israel expects about 5,000 short range
(6-20 kilometers) missiles, and will take those out with ground forces, using
new equipment and tactics.
The UN
peacekeepers now patrolling the Israeli border in southern Lebanon are not
stopping Hizbollah from installing these 5,000 missiles. Hizbollah has
intimidated the peacekeepers, who simply pretend then don't see the Hizbollah
preparations. Otherwise, Hizbollah has made it clear that it will go to war
with the Peacekeepers. So, in order to keep the peace, the Peacekeepers just
pretend to do their job.
