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Analysis: Israeli Forces Thrust into Lebanon

Council on Foreign Relations

August 1, 2006
Prepared by: CFR.org Staff

With diplomacy stalled and major international actors largely silent at midweek, Israeli ground forces thrust further into Lebanon (BBC), engaging Hezbollah fighters as far north as the Litani River, some fifteen miles inside the beseiged nation. Air strikes, supposedly curbed in the wake of a disastrous Israeli strike on the village of Qana that killed dozens of civilians Sunday, continued in support of the Israel advance. Israel said it plans to resume the full force of its aerial assault overnight Wednesday (al-Jazeera).

Diplomatically, efforts to win agreement on a UN Security Council plan continued behind closed doors, and reports suggest the gap between the European and U.S. positions closed a bit (LAT). The European Union issued a cease-fire demand stripped of earlier language that advocated "an immediate cease-fire," something Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert insists will not happen until Israelis are able "to live in safety and security" (NPR). Instead, the August 1 EU crisis meeting produced a call for a phased halt to the fighting (Reuters). Even so, European and Arab public opinion appears united in the belief that a cease-fire must precede any deployment of international peacekeepers.

Muriel Asseburg, a Mideast expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, argues disarmament of Hezbollah—one of Israel's avowed goals—can only be achieved by political means (PDF). France, tipped to lead such an international force and the author of a draft peace plan circulated at the Security Council, insists no such force can be organized prior to a cease-fire (Toronto Star).

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2006 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.