Hezbollah 2001 to 7/2006 killed Israelis but was protected by Syria/Leb.

[papau]

I saw posted at DU – a “Greatest Post” no less – that there was an "Unspoken Fact: No Israelis Killed by Hezbollah 01/2001-07/2006" http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1755758 . I guess the truth of that statement depends on the meaning of the word "killed".

Of course Hezbollah in Lebanon, as Iran’s forward military arm against Israel, funded the Hezbollah cells that in 2004, to take one year, in the Gaza Strip and in Judea and Samaria perpetrated 68 terrorist attacks in which 24 Israelis were murdered and 52 wounded. But this appears not known to all on DU, or it does not fall under the rules for a "kill" by Hezbollah because it was not the Lebanese Hezbollah crossing the border to do the murder, just Lebanese Hezbollah money, weapons, and leadership were involved.

A bit more detail on the years 2000 to 2006:

In two weeks, ending Feb 7, 2000, Hezbollah terror killed 5 and wounded 12. The Israeli air force ended the attacks by attacking a Hezbollah arms depot and three infrastructure targets. The rather wimpy Israeli response is explained by the Air force noting that direct attacks on Hezbollah are not possible without massive civilian loss because Hezbollah's command posts and arms locations are within Lebanese villages as they use the civilian Lebanese population as a living shield.

The air attack does not stop the flow of arms from Iran to the Hezbollah through Syria and into Lebanon, since the Lebanese and Syrian governments assisted the transfer.

On October 7, 2000, three Israeli soldiers, Sgt. Adi Avitan 22 years old, Staff Sgt. Benyamin Avraham 21 years old, and Staff Sgt. Omar Sawaid 27 years old married with two children were abducted by the Hezbollah disguised as UN personnel, using uniforms and vehicles carrying the UNIFIL insignia, from the southern (Israeli) side of the Israeli-Lebanese border which is officially recognized by the UN Secretary General and the Security Council as the Israeli deployment line, and is fully in accord with Security Council Resolution 425. They were not allowed contact with the Red Cross, and were killed by Hezbollah while being held captive by Hezbollah. Hezbollah refused to return the bodies for burial, and Syria was asked to send the bodies to Israel. On October 16, 2002 the Hezbollah Secretary General Nasrallah announced that his organization was holding an Israeli citizen, Elhanan Tannenbaum - 54 years old at the time of the abduction and father of two children who was abducted while in Europe on a normal business trip. January 2004 - the bodies of Avitan, Avraham, and Sawaid are returned along with Tannenbaum and Arad in a prisoner exchange. Of course killed while captive may not meet the rules for "killed" or they may have been killed early, thereby avoiding the 1/1/01 starting point for the prior post.

On August 8, 2003 a letter is sent to Kofi Annan, Secretary General by Ambassador Dan Gillerman asking that the UN take note of that mornings’s Hezbollah cross-border attacks and their massive artillery attack on northern Israel in addition to two hours of shelling, mortars, missiles, Katyusha rockets and rounds from automatic weapons fired across the Blue Line from Lebanon and hitting communities in Rosh Hanikra, on the northwest coast of Israel, the eastern positions in the Har Dov and Hermon regions, and destroying homes in the towns of Masadeh and Majdal Shams, causing civilian casualties when their missiles hit a home in the town of Even Menahem. This was of course another violation by Hezbollah, Syria, and Lebanon of the provisions of resolutions 425, 426 (1978), 1310 (2000), 1337 (2001) and 1373 (2001), which call for the restoration of international peace and security, the return of the effective authority of the Government of Lebanon in the south, and the prevention of cross-border terrorist attacks.

Jan 9 2005 Hezbollah kills Sharon Elmakayes, 23, of Atlit, via a remote controlled roadside bomb place on a road in the town of Har Dov. On January 14, 2005, Hezbollah detonated an additional explosive device in the same area, but no one was harmed.

Nov 21, 2005 Hezbollah attacks the areas of Metula, Rajar, and Mount Dov with rocket fire, mortar shelling, and gunfire, severely wounding 2 persons.

Nov 21, 2005, Hezbollah cells attempt to kidnap Israeli citizens in the Rajar and Mount Dov regions and 11 Israeli’s are wounded as the cells are stopped from doing so. At the same time, shells and rockets land and destroy a house in Metula.

Again the above is obviously not a list of the 3000 terrorist attacks on Israel each year – and we have not even discussed suicide killings -

But I find body count comparisons enough like Viet Nam to make me puke -

and the prior post was voted a "greatest" post..... :-(

[acmejack]

1. How many homes were bulldozed during this period in reprisal?

I know of at least one, it seems a young lady inconveniently got in the way of a bulldozer, so it was forced to crush her to death. I am sure that was only an isolated incident & there are no reasons for people to be so insane with hatred that they feel compelled to strap explosives to their persons. One man's terror is another's martyrdom, it will not ever stop of it's own accord, we cannot even agree here.

[Minstrel Boy]

2. most targets and fatalities were military

not to excuse them, but I think attacks on military personnel should always be distingushed from attacks upon civilians. A military cannot be "terrorized."

From your own example of the five abductions from October 2003, the three soldiers were killed, and the two civilians returned alive.

And

"Jan 9 2005 Hezbollah kills Sharon Elmakayes, 23, of Atlit via a remote controlled roadside bomb place on a road in the town of Har Dov"

From The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs: "An IDF officer, Captain Sharon Elmakayes, 23, of Atlit, was killed when an explosive device planted by the Hizbullah terror organization on a road leading to an IDF post on Har Dov"

Some representative examples from this pro-Israel site (which also lists several atrocities upon civilians ascribed to "a Hezbollah-linked Palestinian terrorist cell":

26 Nov 2000 - A charge was detonated near an IDF convoy. IDF soldier Khalil Taher was killed and two other soldiers were wounded.

16 Feb 2001- Fire at an IDF convoy on Mt. Dov. IDF soldier Elad Shneor was killed, and three other soldiers were wounded.

29 Aug 2002 - Fire at an IDF post in the Mt. Dov sector. IDF soldier Ofer Misali was killed, and two other soldiers were lightly wounded.

22 Mar 2003 - Hezbollah fired rockets and mortars at Israeli army positions in the Sheba' farms and adjacent areas. This attack followed eight incursions into Lebanese airspace by Israeli aircraft.

Again, I'm not an apologist for anyone's violence. But it does strike me that historically, Lebanon's Hezbollah has been more discriminating in its targets than the IDF.

[papau]

3. things I do not know - such as how many Leb. civilians were Hez and part

of the supply chain of missiles, shells, guns - or perhaps were day labor for the attacks?

As to discriminating in its targets it is a hard call given that shooting missiles for terror by definition means means something like 10,000 to one chance against hurting a military person rather than a civilian - and the missile shooter not giving a damn who gets killed.

The lack of dead civilians from missiles shot by Hez is due to civilian's having luck as to landing site - not because of a discriminating choice of target.

The Hez cells that randomly kill civilians and the suicide killers taught and funded by Hez actually try to maximize civilian deaths.

In any case. like yourself, I'm not an apologist for anyone's violence. And while the bombing of bridges makes sense and indeed has worked as planned, the bombing of homes to get leaders is a lousy tactic, hurting too many civilians that are real civilians.

Asking who started the violence and who simply responded and are simply defending their nation is a pointless exercise unless we can agree a calm starts a new round - and the calm following the pull out from Lebanon, and the calm following the pull out from Gaza lead to seeing Hez and Hamas "starting" new violence with Israel as the responder. For some reason this is not seen as important - and perhaps not even true - on the left.

It is a lousy lesson being "taught" to Israel - and I hope they chose to not learn it - because the lesson is to beat the crap out of the population whose land one occupies and never stop or leave until the population agrees to a "peace" - and even then not leaving because, as shown by Leb so agreeing and then going back on its word, it is perhaps better to never leave. Sort of the Ottoman school of occupying other countries.

I am just amazed by Commondreams articles that try to give Hez and Hamas a white hat, while saying Israel, in responding to attempts to kill every Jew and attempts to end the Jewish state of Israel, is going too far in defending itself.

I want to think Israel caused violence, the effect of which is shown on TV because it was effective in killing, makes folks hate the folks doing that effective violence. But it is a he said/she said approach where equal weight is given to the morality of the person trying to destroy a State and every Jew in its population, as compared to the morality of the person trying to protect their population and asking to be left alone.

But apparently some on the left hate the folks with the better ability to kill.

It almost makes sense - but when you think about it, everyone just stopping makes more sense. Sadly Hez and Hamas say they will never stop until there is no Jewish Israel or any Jews - but the left does not care about Hez/Hamas positions.

And I suspect if the US population saw EU TV and the dead baby videos, the US would also be all over Israel like the EU is. Of course the EU does not show body parts from suicide bombs, so if the US did perhaps the situation might get a "pox on both your houses" response - again unfair as it gives equal moral authority to the folks in one country who attack across borders compared to the folks in the country attacked - but a better response than I see on DU day after day.

In any case it is late - night :-)

[MsMagnificent]

5. All those ghetto HOMES were Military?

By bulldozed is meant, of course, Palestinian -- Israel just chucks bombs into Lebanon!

Rachael Corrie was military?

Those kids, shot in the back while walking to school, were military?

Those kids throwing stones were military?

The last Mt. Dov killing by Hezbollah is dated April 14, 2001 -- of which the ADL says the last Hezbollah killings were, indeed, in 2001.


I do see one death attributed to Hezbollah post 4/14/2001 - the Aug. 29, 2002. Single death of a soldier.
I don't know why it's not included in the ADL list, I'll try to find out.

One death.
Yes, it's bad.
But this? FOUR YEARS LATER?!
Puh-leeze!

FYI:
Hamas is Palestinian Sunni
Hezbollah is Lebanese Shi'ite

Those two groups, beyond being from two separate countries, don't get along so well -- is that news to you? :eyes:

[Minstrel Boy]

6. Hezbollah's targets were mostly military, not Israel's n/t

[MsMagnificent]

7. Deepest Apologies

I didn't catch that
Obviously :(
Mea culpa.

I think that perhaps this is the first refutation against Hezbollah as being complete, absolute & utterly evil minions of Satan I've seen here on DU (other than 'they've done social work/services for the Lebanese people' of which statement itself is met with cries of derision).
It's taken me quite by surprise! Although you're absolutely right in pointing out there is a huge difference between military targets and civilian targets.
The difference of which spells out 'War Crime'.

Even if you're 100% correct (I'm just wondering, were the waves of rockets all toward military targets? Even though the aiming ability of those are beyond pathetic, were they still lobbed at only military? And yes, I realize there is an ubiquitous military presence throughout all of Israel) I'm afraid you'll still probably take some flak for it :(

Again, please accept my humblest & most profound apologies.
*deep bow*

Edit: Spelling.

[smacky44]

8. Don't feel bad. It's the same twisted and successful tactic that has

fooled the masses in the US and continues to make stooges out of our Congress. Don't bother them with the facts, just give them some half-truths and re-framed arguments, and continue playing up the "little country in a sea of Arabs." And Rachel Corries was one of the biggest terrorist around?

Have you heard of any Palestinians or Hizbollah bulldozzing to death innocent civilians?

[MsMagnificent]

4. Links please?

Come on -- quote your source/s!

I'm quite eager to see those that refute the Anti-Defamation League!
Of which you're telling us SYRIA and LEBANON somehow coerced THE ADL into publishing that twisted propaganda!
Incredibly, I think you're actually trying to pass off Hamas as the same as Hezbollah or Fatah!

THEN you mention suicide killings, which are not part of Hezbollah's MO. Of the few claims made, none have held up to any scrutiny.

It ain't gonna work, bub: we're not dumb freepers who long ago forewent any type of critical thinking, although I'll give you this -- you sure keep trying!

[MsMagnificent]

9. LINKS PLEASE??