Daily Report

“Israeli” occupation forces damaged several houses in South…(1)
““Israel” staged several air raids while its artillery launched fire barrages in Nabatieh. Two houses were damaged in “Israeli” shelling on residential areas in Yohmor on Thursday evening.

“Two “Israeli” jets fired four missiles at a valley near the village of Zawtar Sharqieh in Nabatieh, an area widely believed to be used as a launching pad for resistance operations.

“Elsewhere, the houses of Khairallah Souaid and Ali Zouhour in Yohmor were badly damaged in “Israeli” shelling from the Beaufort Castle post”.

In its statement, the Islamic Resistance (IR) reported the following aggressions which were launched at the Lebanese liberated areas (2):
Between 5:30 and 7:20, Mount Sojod was bombarded by twelve 155mm missiles and four 120mm shells.
5:30, four 120mm shells hit the perimeters of Loweizeh village.
6:40, four 155mm missiles fell on the peripheries of Touline and two 81mm rounds on the road of Ilman, whereas the surroundings of Qssair position exposed to a volley of 12.7mm heavy machine gun bullets.
7:25, the outskirts of Majdal Zoun village came under six 81mm rounds.
13:35, three 155mm missiles landed west of Yater village.
15:15, Mlita Hill was shelled by five 155mm missiles.
17:30, five 155mm missiles struck Haddatha woodland.
18:00, nine 105mm missiles slammed into Haddatha woodland.
18:25, Yohmor village came under one 105mm missile and a barrage of 12.7mm heavy machine gun bullets.
18:30, the road of Sawan was shelled by five 155mm missiles.
Between 19:50 and 23:35, Mount Sojod was targeted by five 120mm shells.
At 20:10 and 20:15, the Israeli warplanes staged two sorties in Ain Simmahieh area.

Lahd warns of trouble from SLA soldiers after pullout…(3)
”The commander of the South Lebanon Army (SLA), General Antoine Lahd, said yesterday that he will not be responsible for his soldiers' deeds in the event that “Israel” decides on a unilateral withdrawal from South Lebanon. He expected that, in such a case, "my soldiers will take all sorts of steps." Lahd made the statement yesterday at a ceremony for graduating SLA officers in South Lebanon.

“When he was asked whether he believed that Prime Minister Ehud Barak was intent on withdrawing from Lebanon and in what manner the pullout would be completed, Lahd responded "From my knowledge of Barak, he is a serious and ardent individual. But even his closest ministers don't know what's in his head, so who can expect me to know?" Lahd added that from his conversations with Barak and “Israel” security officials, he understood that “Israel” doesn't plan a unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon”.

Military Operations…(4)
The IR team of martyrs Merhi Nayef Merhi and Mohammad Hassan Ghanem attacked, at 4:00, enemy movements inside Haddatha compound with the rocket-propelled grenades scoring direct hits.

Also, the IR squad of martyrs Nabil Akhdar and Ali Zoheir Zehri targeted, at 15:00, Sojod outpost with the machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. Direct and definite goals were chalked up, the militants reported.

Moreover, the IR group of martyrs Hussein Atwi and Abbas Salman attacked, at 18:00, the Beaufort Castle with the adequate arms scoring direct hits.

At the same time, the IR unit of martyrs Habib Tarhini and Ali Saouli fell upon Dabsheh outpost with the appropriate weapons. Direct goals were chalked up, the militants told.

Ten minutes later, the IR team of martyrs Mustafa Nazar and Ahmad Nour rushed upon Ali Taher outpost with the proper arms. The mujahedeen managed to score direct goals.

Furthermore, the IR militants observed, at 18:45, enemy movements inside Haddatha compound. Shortly afterwards, the IR squad of martyrs Mohammad Ahmad Ramadan and Ali Hassan El-Hoq rushed upon them with the suitable weapons chalking up direct hits.

In the meantime, the IR group of martyrs Mahmoud Moussa Harb and Hamid Mohammad Al-Doghli fell upon Rshaf outpost. Using the rocket-propelled grenades, the militants were able to score direct hits.

Meanwhile, the IR unit of martyrs Bilal Mohammad Chokr and Abdel-Karim Mohammad Hemayed targeted Baraasheit compound with the adequate arms chalking up direct and accurate goals.

At the same time, the IR team of martyrs Mohammad Ali Moqallid and Fidaa Mohammad Madi attacked Jamoussa position as it was trying to back up the targeted posts. The militants, who used the machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, managed score direct and accurate goals.

Also, the IR mujahedeen spotted, at 23:15, enemy movements near Sojod outpost. Immediately afterwards, the IR squad of martyrs Ghassan Zaatar and Mohammad Ghazi El-Husseini rushed upon them with the machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. The mujahedeen were able to chalk up direct and certain hits.

Northern exposure…(5)
The looming end of their symbiotic relationship with the IDF is giving civilians on the Lebanese border withdrawal symptoms
Had it not been for the insult, it is possible that today they would not be standing in the way of withdrawal. After nearly two decades of living as neighbors with the “Israel” Defense Forces*, enjoying a close relationship, almost a military alliance, the heads of “Israeli” towns in the north expected that their military partner would treat them with due understanding, courtesy and respect. This was not to be. Lately, they have noticed that the officers are not returning their phone calls and are showing indifference to concerns that keep them awake at night. "Once they used to come over nearly every day to ask how we were doing and keep us posted," says the security guard of one of the settlements on the northern border. "Today, even when a shell falls, they don't bat an eyelash. They ask where it fell and if anything happened. I think they've stopped paying attention to us because of the withdrawal."

Accustomed to this one-on-one defense arrangement, the northern towns are in shock over how impatient the army is to pull back. For years, they were told how important they were to “Israel’s” defense and made to feel they were partners with the IDF. Suddenly, the attitude has changed without a word. "They can't just leave us high and dry," says Shlomo Bouhbut, the mayor of Ma'alot. "We are being abandoned."

As time passes, anger and insult have intensified. Last month, Bouhbut asked to see Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Bouhbut has been chairman of the Forum on Border Communities for four years, and now that plans to withdraw from Lebanon are imminent, he thought a meeting would be speedily arranged. There was no response. Bouhbut submitted another request. Nothing. He was furious. After the sixth time, he warned that if the Prime Minister did not meet with him within a few days, he would stage a sit-down in front of Barak's house in Kochav Yair. "I'll show him who Bouhbut is," he told his friends. The next day, Shimon Batat called him from the Prime Minister's Office. "Don't you threaten the prime minister," he cautioned.
Bouhbut: "I'm not threatening, but I want you to know that on Sunday I'll be demonstrating outside his house."

Batat: "You know very well that the prime minister is not afraid of threats."

Bouhbut: "Well, Shlomo Bouhbut is not afraid of those who are not afraid."

Two days later, the heads of the Forum on Border Communities were ushered into Barak's office. Barak greeted each of the guests with a chummy slap on the back, as is his wont, reminiscing about old times in the army, commending them for their courageous stance against the Hezbollah, promising that everything would be fine. As Barak spoke about the defense implications of withdrawal, his guests talked about jobs and economic advancement. At the end of the meeting, they presented him with a plan for economic growth costing a grand total of $4.5 billion. The package included demands to bolster settlements, improve defense, cancel cutbacks, invest in infrastructure, assist tourism enterprises, subsidize development loans, pave roads, build more security rooms and bomb shelters, provide a cable link-up and compensate residents for damage incurred over the years.

Barak perused the document with a stony expression on his face, perhaps contemplating the annoying tendency of solutions to major disputes to spawn new disputes.

Payback time
The Forum on Border Communities is made up of 13 local councils. After the Grapes of Wrath operation, the government showered them with benefits and tax exemptions, most importantly, a 15 percent rebate on income tax. Talk about imminent withdrawal from Lebanon has filled residents of the north with anxiety and dread. Questions about the future keep gnawing inside. What will happen on the day after? What will their lives be like after the pullback? Who will protect them from Katyusha rockets falling in their backyards? What about their benefits? Will the income tax rebate be canceled?

Angry and hurt, the heads of these northern towns made an appointment to see Major General Gabi Ashkenazi, chief of the Northern Command. This meeting, held two weeks ago at Biranit, an army base on the border, may have sparked the rebellion that raged in the north this week. For the first time, Arab council heads were permitted to walk through the gate of the IDF base responsible for defending the settlements of the Western Galilee. Among the 13 local councils are three Arab villages (Fasuta, Me'iliya and Gush Halav), and one Druze village (Khurfeish).

The committee members sat in a circle around Ashkenazi, looking forward to an assorted package of farewell gifts from the army. Their ardor soon cooled. "I was in shock," recalls Bouhbut. "We invested our hearts and souls in these towns, and instead of appreciating what we did, the army treats us as if we were a hindrance and an obstacle to withdrawal.

"Ashkenazi was insensitive to our problems," Bouhbut continues. "He talked to us about barbed wire. We told him that for us, fences are like a ghetto and he could forget about turning our towns into army bases. It was like the guy was trying to push our heads down even further. He said the army could offer no promises that we wouldn't be shelled or terrorists wouldn't infiltrate our settlements."

The meeting went on, but the council heads were no longer listening. When Ashkenazi finished with his explanations, they asked to use his office for a consultation. "You want me to leave?" he asked. "Yes," replied one of the council heads. "Listen, people," Bouhbut told his colleagues. "The only choice left is to declare a strike. The army is messing around with us, and the government doesn't care. We'll show them who they're dealing with!"

The fury
This Monday, the mayors of towns on the northern border parked their fancy cars at the entrance to Biranit and huddled inside a makeshift protest tent. Education Minister Yossi Sarid rushed to their side. Visiting Ofakim the day before, he had been welcomed with open arms. The man who preached from Day One against “Israel’s” military campaign in Lebanon in 1982, found himself comforting those mourning over prospects for a speedy withdrawal. When they screamed criticisms against the government, Sarid listened intently. When they demanded compensation, Sarid nodded his head in agreement. When they protested against being accused of blackmail, Sarid commiserated. He sat in the middle of the tent and took down requests for aid as if he were Rothschild himself. "Write it down!" he ordered his assistant, each time a request was whispered in his ministerial ear.

"I've always felt close to the development towns," explained Sarid, before returning to Jerusalem to overturn a motion of no-confidence against the government's social policies. "The moment I heard they were demonstrating, I canceled all my appointments and came to be with my friends. Contrary to what people think, I feel that my natural place, and that of my Meretz colleagues, is here." The prime minister's declarations about his refusal to overstep the national budget do not make Sarid flinch. He is convinced that nothing bad will happen if another NIS 1 billion are tacked on to meet social welfare needs. "On the contrary, only good will come of it," he says.

Some of the mayors peeled off their suits and ties and put on T-shirts with the words "Yes to Withdrawal, No to Abandonment" emblazoned across the front. Very few of them spoke about defense issues. Making a living was the preferred topic. After carefully exploring the issue, their conclusion was that the price of peace was liable to far exceed the price of war. For years, they have lived a symbiotic existence with the IDF, the security zone forming a tight belt around them. Tearing themselves away from that belt is no easy feat. They have become addicted to it, creatures of habit.

Some of the speakers instilled panic, describing the horrors of the "day after." "Who will guarantee us that no buses will be attacked?" asked Avraham Ma'atuk of Merom Hagalil, his voice quavering. "Who will promise us that no terrorists will come over the border to kill us? Don't forget, we were “Israel’s” shield for 20 years. Please, we beg of you: Don't forsake us."

Yehuda Deri, chairman of Shomera, a moshav on the northern border, interrupts. "When the army pulls out, we'll be back where we started before Peace for Galilee," he shouts. "Why are they doing this to us? Who will stay in the Galilee when the army leaves? Our young people have already run away to Tel Aviv. Our orchards are shriveling up, and the chicken coops are in shambles. Now they've cut off the water. It's not fair. The center of the country is developing and people there live the good life. Here, we live like dogs. No cable TV, no culture, no sports. It's like we're back in the 1950s. It's obscene. We have nothing against the army. Our soldiers mean the world to us. But for god's sake, let us make a living!"

The struggle in the north has attracted some uninvited guests, the kind for whom withdrawal is a dirty word and against everything the Zionist enterprise is seeking to achieve. Former MK Uriel Linn was there, mingling with the demonstrators, trying to boost their spirits. He is convinced that “Israel” is suffering from total blindness with respect to the intentions of its Arab neighbors. "We don't understand how uncompromising the Arabs are on the subject of “Israel’s” right to exist," he says. "It began with Menachem Begin's naivete, and ended up spreading to the Labor party." After bidding his hosts goodbye, he retraces his steps to share his horrifying vision of what the north can look forward to. "Remember what Uriel Linn tells you," he says. "Withdrawing from Lebanon means an all-out war with Lebanon and Syria, and the towns of the north will be the first victims."

The fear
David Uzana takes a break from the demonstration and goes home for a rest. He lives in Zarit, “Israel’s” northernmost settlement, which almost kisses the Lebanese border. Uzana's house and the border are less than 100 meters apart. From his living room, the Lebanese villages of Ramiya and Marwahin are clearly visible. Fewer than 60 families live in this poor moshav, where residents have come and gone at a dizzying pace. Zarit, like other villages and agricultural settlements in the region, was established in the 1960s. "Whoever comes to live here is given a gun and feels like he's joined the army," says Uzana. "We've been through military training and we know what to do in the event of terrorists crossing the border or shelling."

Partly in search of work, partly out of patriotism, Uzana left his home in the Haifa suburbs and put down a stake in this godforsaken place. "At that time, don't forget, they were talking about Judaizing the Galilee," he says, "and like many people, I was looking for a place I could Judaize." In a few days, he will be celebrating his 20th year in Zarit. Not much of the old patriotism has remained, and sources of livelihood have greatly dwindled. The expected withdrawal from the security zone has only exacerbated the gloom. The field crops are yellowing and the poultry run is in financial straits. The apples were not picked this year, and they hang on the trees, rotten and shriveled. "It's not worth picking them," Uzana explains. "How can we earn our bread if all we get for a kilo of apples is half a shekel? It doesn't even pay to water the trees. Better that the fruit should die."

It is noontime, and the place is a virtual ghost-town. With agricultural branches disappearing, desperate farmers have been forced to look for work in other towns. A police van is parked outside the home of D., Zarit's security guard. This morning, five mortar shells fell near the border and shook every house in the village. No one makes a fuss over such incidents anymore. Even the soldiers at the nearby army base barely raise an eyebrow. "I called one of the officers this morning and he asked me if there were any casualties," relates D. "I said no, and he said great. He didn't even come over to have a look."

The security guard can no longer count how many times Zarit has been shelled since he moved there nearly 30 years ago.

Hundreds of times, maybe thousands. As time goes on, one learns to live with paralyzing fear, as if it were an inseparable part of life. Perhaps that is why the prospect of changes in the wake of withdrawal only increase the fears of the northerners rather than allaying them. "We are not against the army leaving, but against being deserted on the battlefield," says Uzana, pointing to the military outposts on the nearby horizon, which look like fortified hills jutting out of the landscape. What are he and his friends asking for, when all is said and done? That the state make it possible for them to earn a decent living, that it continue to look out for their safety in the name of the Zionist cause that brought them there in the first place.

But the fear of a new reality gnaws at their innards. The security guard says that Barak is naive if he thinks there will be quiet after the pullback. Thousands of Katyushas and hundreds of attempts to cross the border have made residents of the north wary of their neighbors' intentions. "Who knows who'll be sitting in those villages when “Israel” withdraws," says D., glancing in the direction of the border. "One thing I can tell you is that the villagers of Ramiya and Marwahin are in for a hard time. The Lebanese see them as collaborators with “Israel”. After the withdrawal, the Hezbollah will march in and evict them all. Maybe kill them, even. And then who'll stop them from coming over here? A hop and a skip, and they're in my living room."

The visit to Zarit is over, and the guests, it turns out, were unlucky: Not a single Katyusha lobbed in their direction. "Too bad it's so quiet today," says Uzana. "If you were lucky, you'd have seen at least a couple of them fall. It's a real show." With luck like that...

Demography
Avi Karampa, chairman of the Ma'aleh Yosef regional council, which incorporates all the front-line settlements, sheds a different light on the cost of withdrawal. "People don't come here out of Zionism any more," he said, standing outside the protest tent. "And if anyone stays, it's because of the tax breaks. No tax break, no citizens. It's as simple as that. Now, with the pullback, people will run away and the whole Galilee will end up looking like Kiryat Shmona."

Karampa has a national objective, and he is amazed that it has not yet penetrated the skulls of the country's leaders. "The north must be strengthened," he says. "We must bolster the population and keep the benefits coming. We have a national mission to carry out. If the soldiers are taken away, citizens must be brought in to replace them. Otherwise the Galilee will lose its Jewish majority. Today, the Arabs already make up 40 percent of the population, with 60 percent being Jews. I'm not saying we should curb the Arab birthrate, but it is our national duty to bring Jews here. As many as we possibly can.