ISRAEL: Hezbollah news conference brings truth on botched Lebanon raid

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah held a news conference in August  blaming Israel for the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005. His evidence — footage from Israeli drones — was dismissed in Israel as a mishmash of unrelated incidents in an attempt to deflect the increasing heat from the U.N. tribunal investigating Hariri's death.

The announcement may not have helped with the tribunal, but Nasrallah's appearance did shed light on an old incident and has forced the Israeli army to finally acknowledge something that has been a bit of an open secret.

In 1997, an Israeli commando operation in south Lebanon was over before it began when an elite force walked into an ambush in Ansariya. Eleven commandos and an army doctor were killed in an ill-fated operation that became known as the "Shayetet disaster," for the "Shayetet 13" naval commando unit, which was also involved in the deadly raid on a Gaza aid flotilla this May.

Army inquiries into the 1997 operation said the force got hit in a random ambush and dismissed as highly unlikely the possibility that troops had been compromised.  But rumors persisted and doubts nagged about the circumstances that wiped out nearly the whole group of highly trained commandos.

The army held its ground, even when Israeli journalist and author Amir Rappaport wrote in 2007 that the operation had been compromised by none other than the army itself. Drones flying repeatedly over the channel the soldiers were to take revealed their route. Images from the Israeli drones were intercepted days in advance and in real time. Other things had gone wrong, and there were murmurs of a double-agent,too.

In those days, only "Sayeret matkal" — another elite unit entrusted with reconnaissance and intelligence-gathering, among other things — used drone encryption. The images taken while preparing for the Ansariya raid could be picked up on household television sets, said media reports. That's changed.

So has Israel's appreciation of Hezbollah's technical capabilities — underestimated at the time, as was the extent of Iranian support in this emerging battlefield. A Jerusalem Post editorial shortly after Nasrallah's  August news conference cautioned against "hubris" in underestimating the enemy.

After the news conference, Israeli Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi ordered a panel of experts to examine the footage shown by Nasrallah. The pictures were authentic. These days, navy commander Eliezer Marom is making the rounds of victims' families, presenting the army's findings and confirming the force was compromised.

Moshe Rodovsky, whose son Gal was killed in the incident, accused the army of a whitewash and said the families had been treated as enemies. He petitioned the court  demanding all the information the army has on the incident, including the details from the four internal committees that investigated the events. The court rejected his request, instructing him to wait for the army to respond to his requests first.

On Sunday, Marom met with Nahshon Tebi, whose son Raz was one of the victims. Four or five days before the operation, IDF drone footage was picked up by Hezbollah or another element; it is highly probable that this revealed the force's route, Marom told the family.

Tebi is still outraged. He wants the then-commanders and investigators who insisted the affair was just bad luck to apologize to him in person — and visit his son's grave — before he can forgive them for misleading the families for so many years. It hurts to learn the truth from the enemy, he told the media.

— Batsheva Sobelman in Jerusalem

Comments

[Jack]

Animosities between Arabs and Israelis are because of land dispute, it's not a religious dispute no matter how far you want to exaggerate the facts.
You can also check for "Islam phobia" definition while you at it, it's a racist's trait to put down anyone for having a different ethnicity or religion background, also you can through Zionism to mix of Fascism and Totalitarianism since Zionism is a racist movement even recognizes as such by UN.
Islam is a Semitic religion as much as Judaism with difference of being evolved as a republic, Judaism took a trait from Pharaohs by requiring bloodline lineage (maternal) and hence limited number of eligible followers which can never be as populous as Christianity and Islam and hence their exaggerated fear of being overwhelmed by others, Judaism is a niche market religion much like Zoroastrian by their own internal policies faults and not by "outsiders" faults.

[Dean Blake]

Can't we all just wait and see what the UN investigation concludes!?!? Then let's read it and critique it. Then hold on to your hats if they point a finger at Hezbollah's current leadership and at Syria. "We're in for a short ride on a fast machine."
This 'indictment' will pave the way for quashing the militants in Lebanon and putting the elected government back in charge of South Lebanon; restoring peace, the economy and also quite on the Israeli border as well as putting Syria on the hot seat and cutting off Hamas in Gaza from effectuating a two front war on the Israelis.
Undoubtedly the current Syrian regime will plea bargain a deal to get let off the hook in exchange for distancing itself from Iran.

[geo88a]

@ steve68
2)
d) Maybe, just maybe these people got better at fighting.

[Jessica]

@Tomorrow: From Dictionary.com For your convenient understanding: The term Islamofascism is a neologism which draws an analogy between the ideological characteristics of specific Islamist movements from the turn of the twenty-first century on, and a broad range of European fascist movements of the early twentieth century, neofascist movements, or totalitarianism.
I think that is appropriate here, where Islamic radicals are comparable to the Nazis & Third Reich, both with one mission and one mission only to use any and all means to get rid of the JEws first... and then anyone they dont think has a right to live next.

[tomorrow]

Anybody who uses the term "Islamo fascist" reveals themselves to know nothing about the Middle East.

[steveg68]

All of the comments in this section so far have been remarkably off-topic. This article has two main points.

1)Hezbollah spokesman are using old video footage from unrelated events to support invalid and illogical arguments. What isn't really said in this piece:
a) According to an article in Spiegel (not the department store catalog) the UN investigation is pointing the finger toward Hezbollah itself.
b)Another article said it looks like the assassination was a suicide bombing.
c) Blaming Israel for confusing and mystifying political events is an often used extension of Islamo fascist anti-semitic rhetoric with the intention of obfuscating the facts. It's like saying Israel created Hezbollah, or Israel is really behind Al Queda (just a bunch of moronic talk aimed at the average third-grade education leveled middle easterner).

2)Israel (had and probably still has) a serious security problem in Lebanon but refused to admit it to the grieving families who wanted to the know the truth behind their loved one's deaths. Possibilities suggested in this article:
a)There were spies.
b) Hezbollah has the technology to detect the drones' frequencies.
c)Hezbollah got intelligence aid from another source, (Syria, Iran??).

[geo88a]

I think it's time to give peace a chance.
A lot of good people on both ends of the aisle are dying.

[Camile]

In Communist China today, you cant have more than one child and if you do a mistake you will be facing jail time, as a Chinese you cant have two citizenship, one will be taken away from you.
The US death penalty is still active and deporting US born children from Lebanese parents is also active in violation to the US constitution.
The UN website Lebanon is categorized as an Arab country with Iran,
This another idiodemocracy failed the world on its real mission to protect the minorities of the middle east.
Israel continues to occupy, violate Lebanese airspace unpunished and actively promoting anti-Lebanese policy worldwide with the blind support of NATO and US.
Here we can match the quality of Communism and Idiodemocracy of our age.
We are writing to you asking your immediate action by contacting your local leaders to stop some Lebanese politician from trying to put into law the elimination from schools two major languages, English and French. Why they are doing this, because they are edicted to Arab oil money.
Let me explain to you that in the Arab world this policy doesn't exist.
Whether the Lebanese as members of the Francophone and Arabphone need to force themselves to the Arabic or French identity?
As well we want you to support our ideas to distance the Lebanese army from adopting this wrong policy. Languages are our Phoenician ancestors bridges to the world.
Lebanese are the ancient Phoenicians and our Phoenician heritage is our national treasure.
Phoenicianism is our legacy and we must protect it from our own corrupted leadership and the world Anti-Lebanese policy. Lebanese today enjoys three different languages in their public life, let us protect that today and fight the wrong Lebanese politicians who are leading us to communism and idiodemocracy.
Today we write you because we believe in you to support our Phoenician heritage.

Thank you,
The United Phoenician Party
www.unitedphoenicianparty.org

[Camile]

Today in Lebanon are some politicians who believe in the resistance, let me explain to you why they are wrong on every corner of the front.
The resistance they are talking about is only against the Lebanese people and their democratic government, the resistance in giving arms to the authorities and maintaining illegal front resistance against the freedom of Lebanese people, it will only give Israel excuse to continue its occupation to Lebanese land and air violation to Lebanese space, Why?
The answer is clear Hezbollah and their allies are doing big favor to Israel in making it very easy to raise funds for its military machine and imagine if Hezbollah is not there, the Zionist will fail to convince the world Jews fund for support to their illegal actions against Lebanon.
Let me ask you why Syria in fifty years war never shot a single bullet from its land toward Israel?
Again Hezbollah is a tool to destroy what we have left, let's not fall to this trap, talk to your leaders now and get active to urge leaders to make change in their policy and views and be alerted to the real threats against our nation and people.

Support our Phoenician heritage.

This message is approved by the United Phoenician Party

www.unitedphoenicianparty.org

[tomorrow]

Blame Israel
Rinse and repeat

===========

Deny Israeli involvement despite its bloody fingerprints all over the Middle East.
Send more American bombs and US taxpayer funds.
Rinse and repeat.
Ad nauseum.

[James Zazueta]

Israel is obviously the attack dog and vassel state of the USA! They do all the dirty work for Uncle Scam and get rewarded by Billions of US taxpayer dollars! Israel is an extremely dangerous and lethal sponsor of state terrorism and uses death squads all the time, which are unfortunately financed by the USA. I am not real supportive of Hezbollah which Israel/Mossad created and financed in the 1970's and 80's, as a right-wing counterforce to the PLO. Double agents are used by both sides and the ZIOFASCISTS got popped! Unfortunately, in the Arab world Hezbollah and by extension Nassrallah is viewed as the most advanced and credible military force to fight the ZIOFACSIST military black ops. Hezbollah does not back down and compromise like the PLO and actively engages the IDF militarily. They recently destroyed the IDF intellegience sector in Beiriut, because they realized that the phone lines were compromised. This is all information available on-line and has been verified. Because of these facts Nash and the Hez are viewed as the New Al-Saladin.

[today]

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah held a news conference in August blaming Israel
===========
Blame Israel
Rinse and repeat