I am referring, of course, to what looks for all the world like a two-front war in the Middle East:
BEIRUT, July 13 — Israel bombed Beirut’s airport, a Hezbollah television station and other targets in Lebanon Thursday and imposed a blockade on Lebanon’s ports and airspace in a stepped-up campaign to force the release of two soldiers abducted by Hezbollah in a brazen border infiltration Wednesday.
As the death toll mounted, Israeli aircraft bombed two Lebanese air bases in the first strikes on Lebanon’s military in the current conflict, authorities said. One of the raids targeted an air base at Rayak in the eastern Bekaa Valley near the Syrian border. The bases are used by the Lebanese army’s fleet of about 30 old U.S.-made helicopters. The Lebanese military currently has no operational fixed-wing aircraft.
The two sides also escalated their war of words Thursday, with Israeli officials saying they would strike anywhere in Lebanon — including Beirut — in order to eradicate Hezbollah’s presence along Israel’s northern border. A spokesman for the Shiite Muslim militant group said Hezbollah would respond to such an offensive by launching rockets at Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city.
(…)
Israel’s military response to the attack effectively constituted the opening of a second front for the country, whose troops entered the Gaza Strip last month in search of a soldier seized June 25. Five Israeli soldiers were killed inside Lebanon Wednesday after the army crossed the border in pursuit of the captured soldiers. It was one of the military’s highest one-day death tolls in more than four years.
And then there’s this truly disturbing development:
Israel’s foreign ministry said Thursday that Lebanese guerillas holding the two soldiers captive are trying to transfer them to Iran. Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev did not disclose the source of his information.
If true, that just threatens to inflame the entire Middle East.
Update: And then there’s this:
For the first time ever, two rockets launched from Lebanon landed in Haifa in the neighborhood of Stella Maris. Sappers came to the scene to neutralize the rocket that landed in the middle of a road. One person suffered from shock. The launch represented the farthest a rocket had ever reached into Israel.
Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah warned earlier that his organization would strike Haifa if Israel attacked Beirut. There were no reports as yet that Israel had struck Beirut. Before the attack on Haifa, CNN reported that the US Navy ordered one of their ships that was docked at the Haifa Bay to be moved to a safer location.
Which brings these sobering thoughts from Andrew Cochran
I was a lunch with the Israeli Ambassador to the US when he announced that a Hezbollah rocket hit Haifa - the gasp from the crowd was an audible recognition of the major escalation that the attack represents, in part because it wasn’t clear beforehand whether the rockets had sufficient range. I would draw a parallel to the 1914 Sarajevo shooting of Archduke Ferdinand, which ultimately led to World War I.
This seems to be reaching a point where it will unravel to the point of no return unless something, and I have no idea what that could possibly be, is done.
Others blogging this far more extensively than I: Captain’s Quarters The Jawa Report Michelle Malkin Wizbang
