ISRAEL: Army declassifies intelligence material showing Hezbollah's tactics

In the past, Israel has released intelligence material to justify controversial strikes in the vicinity of civilians, showing weapons caches and armed combatants nearby. Often, by that point, few are listening and the damage is done.

But as Israel continues to grapple with the Gaza operation and the Goldstone report, the learning curve is up and officials are getting proactive. Now Israel is presenting information in advance as a warning and to early on establish legitimacy for its potential targets in Lebanon.

Since the second Lebanon war, Hezbollah has turned more than 100 villages in southern Lebanon into military bases, the Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday. The army presented declassified intelligence material, with maps and aerial photographs tracking Hezbollah's practice of storing weapons near civilian facilities such as schools and hospitals, as well as a 3-D animated video marking their locations in a specific village, Al Khiam.

The army noted a shift in Hezbollah tactics. In the second Lebanon war, officials said, Hezbollah largely stored weapons in open areas, making them relatively easy and acceptable targets. Since then, the caches have been moved into the villages, "essentially institutionalizing the tactic of using human shields on a large scale," the army said.

Israeli army Col. Ronen Marley said Hezbollah was driven into built-up areas by the deployment of U.N. forces in southern Lebanon in keeping with Security Council Resolution 1701 that ended the war. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon has no authority inside the villages, he said.

Relations between Lebanese civilians and international peacekeepers in southern Lebanon have become increasingly tense as U.N. forces were perceived as exceeding their mandate, intensifying patrols and their presence in the villages. After a few minor scuffles, one altercation went downhill as French peacekeepers fired in the air to disperse a crowd. They were attacked, and two of their guns snatched before the Lebanese army intervened.

Marley said Hezbollah was stepping up intelligence gathering, stockpiling armaments and laying infrastructure for a future conflict. Most experts agree another armed confrontation will erupt sooner or later. The current wisdom is the other side -- consisting of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah in the big picture -- isn't looking for trouble just now, though interests change. Haaretz columnist Aluf Benn even declared Syrian President Bashar Assad his "man of the week" for showing a balanced position, though on something else: Israel's relations with Turkey.

So Hezbollah is moving into the villages and trying to keep UNIFIL at a harmless distance. And Israel just made a move that put the you-know-that-I-know on the record for future reference, trying to out Hezbollah for everyone else to know too -- before things blow, not after.

The timing is interesting. It's been a decade since Israel withdrew from the security zone it declared in southern Lebanon after the first Lebanon war and four years since the second, and Israel is still learning lessons from both.

Hezbollah's rockets during the war in 2006 pinned down a third of the country and confined Israelis to bomb shelters for weeks. Since then, Israeli officials say, Hezbollah has quadrupled its arsenal and extended its rocket range to reach deeper into Israel. Predictions about the next round of fighting say Hezbollah may fire 600 rockets a day into Israel. One of Israel's lessons from four years ago was the need to improve home-front preparedness and coordination of emergency and civilian authorities. It now tests these in an annual nationwide drill.

The subtext of recent war "anniversary" summaries was that they are only halftime summaries. Recently, Israel's deputy chief of staff, Benny Gantz, was quoted by Defense News as saying that Israel would win a third Lebanon war, though it probably wouldn't be the last. Lebanon keeps a bull in its china shop, he said, and when the china starts breaking, it shouldn't blame Israel for the damage.

But maybe there's another thing with the timing. Summer is when Israel prepares its budget and government bodies fight for bigger pieces of the pie. And the defense establishment has a long shopping list.

-- Batsheva Sobelman in Jerusalem 

Illustrations: Intelligence materials released by the Israel Defense Forces. Credit: IDF, YouTube

Comments

[David Sketchley]

The second video purports to show weapons being moved, but we have to take the IDF's word for it, as it is impossible to verify. Sheer propaganda. But the sheer criminality of the exercise is without precedent. Preparing an excuse in advance to massacre civilians shows how far the psycopaths are prepared to go.

Let's show a little balance too please. I've yet to read a similar report in the western press about the locations of IDF facilities. According to former BBC journalist Jonathan Cook who lives in Nazareth, "Several Israeli armaments factories and storage depots have been built close by Arab communities in the north of Israel, possibly in the hope that by locating them there Arab regimes will be deterred from attacking Israel's enormous armory. In other words, the inhabitants of several of Israel's Arab towns and villages have been turned into collective human shields – protection for Israel's war machine."

In another article talking about Nazareth and the 2006 Lebanon war "...close by the city are a military weapons factory and a large military camp. Hizbullah knows the locations of these military targets because this year, as was widely reported in the Israeli media at the time, it managed to fly an unmanned drone over the Galilee photographing the area in detail -- employing the same spying techniques used for many years by Israel against Lebanon."

"One of Hizbullah's first rocket attacks after the outbreak of hostilities -- after Israel went on the bombing offensive by blitzing targets across Lebanon -- was on a kibbutz overlooking the border with Lebanon. Some foreign correspondents noted at the time (though given Israel's press censorship laws I cannot confirm) that the rocket strike targeted a top-secret military traffic control centre built into the Galilee's hills."

"There are hundreds of similar military installations next to or inside Israel's northern communities. Some distance from Nazareth, for example, Israel has built a large weapons factory virtually on top of an Arab town -- so close to it, in fact, that the factory's perimeter fence is only a few metres from the main building of the local junior school. There have been reports of rockets landing close to that Arab community."

Cook also points out: "Armed and uniformed soldiers can be seen all over Israel, sitting in trains, queuing in banks, waiting with civilians at bus stops. Does that mean they are "cowardly blending' with Israel's civilian population?"

[Stefano888]

Just a few points here: (1) let us not forget who the first terrorists were in the Arab-Israeli conflict--the Jewish Irgun and the Stern Gang; (2) as to the use of blatant human shields, it was Israel using young Palestinian boys tied to the front of their jeeps and trucks during the first intifada, reminiscent of Mad Max; (3) imagine if Arabs and Muslims owned, managed, or heavily influenced 95% of the Western media and almost all major book publishing companies in the Western world; (4) that those same people could virtually buy and sell most of America's politicians in any given year. Perhaps we might have a reversal of good versus evil, and really come closer to truth and justice; and (5) Hezbollah are national freedom fights, not ideological terrorists, who have to rearm in anticipation of Israeli real politik policies and usual aggression.

[David_G.]

By the way, when the LATimes runs a story on the IDF like this one, we can trust them to tell us if the reporter, Batsheva Sobelman in Jerusalem, has served or is currently serving in the IDF, can't we?

[ABG]

It must take a lot to be a constant Israel basher. A lot of exaggerations, a lot of hubris, a lot of anger and frustration and, of course, a lot of name calling, a lot of historical revision, and a lot of untrue facts. In short, it takes a whole lot of nothing to hop on the LA Times website and post some kind of politically charge, religiously motivated anti-Israel slander.

[Rob]

I don't see Israel attacking Lebanon, unless their looking for ANOTHER ass-kicking, Hezbollah humiliated the Israelis last time. The IDF with all its western US technology & arms couldn't defeat the superior forces of Lebanon, it goes to show show that it isn't the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.

[Louis K.]

Any civilian that is injured due to the intentional basing of military materials or defensive/offensive activity in its vicinity should be "automatically" a "human rights" violation. Placing such military hazards near civilians at any time "before" any conflict, should be assumed to have been done to use civilians as human shields, and should also be declared an "immediate" human rights violation. Anyone who gives substantial evidence of such activities to the U.N. or other neutral bodies should not be held accountable in any future warfare.

The exact opposite should happen: the government or military forces who put civilians in the line of fire and at obvious greater risk, should be blamed as a simple rule of law and common sense. It is this kind of common logic that any 5-year-old could understand, although the Goldstone Report lacked that ability.

[Stefano888]

Is the Israeli regime now trying to set up a war to divert attention away from its internal problems and faulty foreign policy endeavors? All the insiders know that both the current Israeli government and the IDF have been eager to attack Lebanon and/Syria since the last war. All they need is some plausible, not real, context to do so. The media will help them set the stage for doing so, especially shameless FOX, and the rest will facilitate such and then perhaps criticize Israel under some sort of supposed unbiased scrutiny with a few apologies. But the effect will be the same: just a more sophisticated Zionist form of the yellow press forcing the American government and most of its people to support a nation/regime that appears to be out of control, but really knows what it wants: territory, resources, and domination.

[Kimo Al Quds]

For Arabs and those on the left, Israel will always be an anathema. However this is undeniable evidence that arabs are craven cowards hiding behind civilians. It also shows Hezbolahs intent on the next war it hopes to start and suck in smarter arab nations when it screams and whines like little girls how Israel is attacking civilians. Like its sponsor Iran it shows itself for what it is. Arabs are smarter than what Iran gives them credit for. Besides what Arab would follow the lead of aspotates

[CyberCosmiX]

I'm so sick of this, I'm so sick of people always criticizing Israel as oppressors.

The fact is, it is up to the Palestinians to recognize Israel's right to exist, because they are not going away.

Why doesn't Obama take a firm hand with the Palestinian elected officials, especially Hamas? Because they are classified as terrorists, that is why. Much like the PLO before them, and Yassir Arafat.

Our hands then are tied, and we have to always come down on Israel for their settlement building, something that frankly weakens Israeli negotiating hand and focuses undue attention on a relatively small issue and diverts the 'big-picture' which is Hamas charter still reads that they don't recognize Israel's right to exist.

If Mexico lobbed bombs into the U.S., created a document stating that they refuse the U.S. right to exist, and rewarded suicide bombers to penetrate into Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami and blew themselves up, and smuggled missles and armaments in to fight against us, would we sit idly by?

Yet, this is what is happening in Israel. Blind, biased fools, the media is slowly brainwashing the masses, converting them into mindless parrots repeating the same message that somehow Israel is always at fault, and are the oppressors. How wrong, how very wrong.

Should Israel just fade away, disband their country? Furthermore, Israel is just a tiny sliver of land compared to the whole of the middle east, why doesn't other 'moderate' countries offer to help the Palestinians out? Look it up, some countries (like Syria and Iran) have hopped aboard the Palestinian 'cause' in order to 1) put Israel (and the U.S.) down, 2) to win support from the angry Palestinian masses, 3) justify keeping a military presence in the area (to use against Israel as well as keep other moderate countries at bay), 4) win influence amongst muslims worldwide.

We should be ashamed. We should be pressuring Hamas to rewrite their charter and accept Israel. We should be STRONGLY warning other countries not to send in military weapons into the area. We should be sticking up for Israel in a much more PUBLIC, PROMINENT way than we have been doing. Failing to do so, we are failing our own principles, our own ethics. Israel is at war against terrorist oppressors and literally bombs falling on their heads. WE MUST CHOOSE THE RIGHT SIDE AND NOT LOOK TO SIMPLY APPEASE ALL SIDES!

The United Nations is a joke, there is such an incredible imbalance of bias stacked against Israel, it is so overwhelming, that many simply see the amount of bias as proof that Israel is wrong. Unfortunately, there are too many people that don't look at the OVERALL picture, and don't have more than a biased media picture of the situation Israel is facing. Our government has been on the wrong side, or giving such muddied reactions to events in Israel that we are betraying ourselves, and it is a sad thing to witness...

[loxan]

Nice try ,Israel.Are you trying to justify your indescriminate killing of civilians.The world is finally learning of your diabolical nature. You are an illegal state.You are a fascist state.Zionism=Aryanism=Nazism.

[Ben]

It still won't make any difference. Whether it's Hezbollah or the Palestinians, using civilians as human shields has been part and parcel of their strategy for a long time. Everyone knows this-- but for the truly committed left wing, for whom Israel (and the West at large) is ultimately always culpable, the facts of the matter are mostly irrelevant. Israel is guilty and Arabs are the oppressed class.

[Shukri]

Why would Israel use a virtual 3d video if they actually had solid evidence? After seeing charges being filed against Israeli snipers who shot civilians in cold blood, I'm very suspect of their PR claims.

[Dean Blake]

The Arab militants have always claimed that there are no Isreli civilians as a justification for murdering gransmothers with grandkids in their strollers on the street and parks. Looks like their own kind are being set up for disaster, too. This is not the same thing as collateral damage where the intention of the IDF is to protect itself, this is Arabs using Arabs as human shields justifying it under the rubric of 'martyrdom' to their own kind and claiming malicious intent by the IDF. Its a win/win for the Arabs. They hide their arsenal among civilians claiming to protect them knowingly inviting Israeli strikes and collateral. Arabs can claim victory whether they die or kill Israelis and then complain to the West that the Jews are vicious and they are victims!?!? To paraphrase our own Barney Frank, "Arabs may be entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own Rules of War."

[M.A.]

What is this supposed to be? An a priori justification for civilian killings in Lebanon and Palestine? I was just remembering 2006 when the Israeli army bombed a truck kiling severel persons and claiming they where loading rockets or something. Afterwards these "terrorists" where proven to be workers loading ordinary construction material. So far my comment to the credibility of Israeli anti-Hisbollah campaigns.