Latest Israel Defense Forces Stories
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The State Department is investigating whether Israel's use of U.S.-manufactured rockets armed with cluster bombs in Lebanon violated agreements with the United States restricting use of such weapons, The New York Times reported on Thursday. Unidentified current and former U.S. officials told the newspaper they doubted the investigation would lead to sanctions against Israel, but that the probe might be intended to help the Bush administration blunt criticism...
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert may order a state inquiry into the Lebanon war, Channel 1 Television reported on Wednesday, a move that could trigger a political and military shake-up. The station said Olmert was "considering favorably" setting up a state inquiry commission to review the handling of the offensive against Hizbollah. Such a body, usually chaired by a supreme court judge, has wide powers and holds public hearings. A government official said Olmert...
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert may order a state inquiry into the Lebanon war, Channel 1 Television reported on Wednesday, a move that could trigger a political and military shake-up. The station said Olmert was "considering favorably" setting up a state inquiry commission to review the handling of the offensive against Hizbollah. Such a body, usually chaired by a supreme court judge, has wide powers and holds public hearings. A government official said Olmert...
By Jeffrey Heller JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli reservists, in a scathing open letter published on Monday, accused government leaders and top army officers of inept handling of the war in Lebanon and called for a broad investigation of their actions. The letter, which appeared in the newspaper Haaretz, was signed by hundreds of veterans of the Lebanon campaign, the left-leaning daily said. An Israeli general said the military had been "guilty of the sin of arrogance" in its approach to...
GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli aircraft carried out two air strikes in Gaza on Monday, hitting houses where members of militant group were living, witnesses and the Israeli army said. The first strike, in the Jabalya refugee camp, targeted the home of a member of Islamic Jihad, a group which earlier on Monday fired at least two rockets into Israel, the army said. Residents of the building were told to leave before the strike, but medics said eight people living nearby were injured. A...
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot dead a Hizbollah fighter in Lebanon on Monday after he opened fire on them, marking the first casualty since a ceasefire went into effect, local media reported. Army Radio and the Haaretz newspaper's Web site said the shooting took place in southwest Lebanon. A military spokesman said the man was among a group of "armed terrorists" who approached the army position, but he declined to say whether the gunman had been killed. "We will continue to...
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli troops on Monday shot a Hizbollah fighter in Lebanon who tried to open fire on them, the first casualty since a truce went into effect, an Israeli Web site reported. Ynetnews said the shooting occurred in southwest Lebanon. It was not immediately clear if the man had survived his wounds.
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Five Israeli soldiers declared missing after their helicopter was shot down by Hizbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon on Saturday were feared to be dead, the Israeli army said on Sunday. If the deaths are confirmed, it would bring the number of Israeli soldiers killed in Lebanon on Saturday to 24.
By Dan Williams YAROUN, Lebanon (Reuters) - They move on foot by moonlight. They set up hilltop sniper nests and lookouts. They hit enemy forces at vulnerable points and then quietly retreat. Such are the tactics increasingly used by Israeli troops in south Lebanon -- adopted, in some part, from the very Hizbollah guerrillas they have been trying to beat back for over a month. The shift on the ground is the result of Israel's painful realization that the massive technological...
By Lin Noueihed BEIRUT (Reuters) - International and local activists are planning on Saturday to bring a civilian convoy to southern Lebanon, worst hit by Israel's 28-day-old war on Hizbollah, to deliver aid and show solidarity with suffering residents. "We hope this will be the first of what will become continuous convoys to show that there are civilians being killed and affected by this war," Adam Shapiro, an American documentary filmmaker and human rights activist, told Reuters. "If...
