Israel failed to achieve all its objectives in its summer war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Israeli army chief admitted on Tuesday, but he rejected calls to resign as a result.
Summing up internal army inquiries into the war, which ended inconclusively in a ceasefire after 34 days of fighting, the army chief of staff, Lieutenant General Dan Halutz, said Israeli forces caused considerable damage to Hezbollah and killed "hundreds of terrorists."
At a briefing for Israeli military correspondents carried by local TV channels, he added: "We were not successful in reducing the short-range rocket fire on Israel's north until the ceasefire."
Hezbollah fired approximately 4,000 rockets at Israel during the fighting. Israel pounded Lebanon with airstrikes at Hezbollah targets and infrastructure and ground forces swept through south Lebanon.
"We attacked the Katyushas [rockets], but unsuccessfully," he said.
"There were cases in which officers did not carry out their assignments and cases in which officers objected on moral grounds to their orders" Halutz said, an apparent reference to resistance against attacking south Lebanese towns and villages.
He said these instances of refusal "ran counter to the army's basic values." He said a senior officer was suspended as a result.
Halutz said it would be a mistake to use the military now to try to free the two Israeli soldiers captured in a cross-border Hezbollah raid, which set off the fighting -- though that was one of the goals stated at the outset of the conflict.
Halutz, who is under pressure to stop down because of the shortcomings of the war, said he decided to stay on and "correct what can be corrected." He said resignation now would be "running away," adding: "I have not heard my superiors calling on me to resign. If they do, I will respond."
He noted conclusions of an inquiry by a former chief of staff that included vague definitions of goals and faulty work in command centers.
Halutz said that reserve soldiers would be called up for longer annual service to undergo better training and said a plan to shorten the length of regular service -- now set at three years -- would be delayed.
A committee appointed by the government is in the midst of its investigation of the war and its outcome.
The internal army inquiries did not call for resignations, but the government committee has the power to do so. Halutz said if that committee called for his resignation, "of course" he would comply. Defense Minister Amir Peretz has made the same pledge.
The conflict ended on Aug. 14 with a UN Security Council resolution that posted a reinforced peacekeeping force in south Lebanon with a mandate to keep the area clear of armed forces.
The fighting left more than 1,000 people dead, UN, Israeli and Lebanese officials said.
Lebanon's Higher Relief Council, a government group, said the majority of those were Lebanese civilians. UNICEF also says most of those killed were civilians and that about a third of them were children.
Of the total deaths, 159 were in Israel, including 39 civilians who were killed in rocket attacks.
Israel claimed 600 Hezbollah fighters were killed but that figure was not substantiated, with the group acknowledging only 250 of its fighters killed.
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
It turns out that looming collision between our Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies might not happen after all. Astronomers on Monday said that the probability of the two spiral galaxies colliding is less than previously thought, with a 50-50 chance within the next 10 billion years. That is essentially a coin flip, but still better odds than previous estimates and farther out in time. “As it stands, proclamations of the impending demise of our galaxy seem greatly exaggerated,” the Finnish-led team wrote in a study appearing in Nature Astronomy. While good news for the Milky Way galaxy, the latest forecast might be moot
RSS