Israel IDS Tyre as Rocket Source

Israel’s military has identified the source of most Hizbullah rocket attacks against the Jewish state.

Israeli military sources said Hizbullah has been using the southern city of Tyre for rocket strikes against Haifa and the rest of northern Israel. The sources said Hizbullah gunners, based in residential areas, have been firing a range of Katyusha-class rockets, including the Syrian-origin 220 mm Grad, with a range of 70 kilometers.

“Most of the Hizbullah rocket sites have been neutralized,” a military source said. “A major holdout has been Tyre.”

Over the last day, Israeli warplanes struck three Hizbullah rocket sites in Tyre. The air force also destroyed Hizbullah’s command and control center, a six-story building.

The air force strikes have eroded the effectiveness of Hizbullah rocket attacks, the sources said. They said Hizbullah gunners, wary of Israeli fighter-jets and attack helicopters, have rushed their fire and failed to strike strategic facilities in Haifa.

As a result, the sources said, most of the rockets fired over the last three days have landed in open areas. The sources said Hizbullah, which has called for a ceasefire, has been firing between 100 and 150 rockets per day, far fewer than the militia’s plan to pummel Israel with up to 1,000 rockets daily.

“Hizbullah’s rocket fire has been increasingly ineffective although they have thousands of rockets left,” a source said. “If it was up to Hizbullah, there would be nothing left in the north [of Israel].”

On Wednesday, Hizbullah fired about 130 rockets in which more than 30 Israelis were injured. Hizbullah resumed rocket fire on Thursday morning.

The sources said Israeli intelligence has also identified and tracked Hizbullah mobile medium- and long-range rocket launchers around Beirut.

They said most of these sites, identified by the Mossad and military intelligence, have been destroyed.

“Hizbullah has built special rooms inside ordinary residential buildings used to launch rockets,” former Israeli Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya’alon said in an address to the Washington Institute last week. “But they didn’t know that we know that, and were surprised.”

On Thursday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert convened his ministerial security committee to plan the next stage of the war. Officials said most senior Cabinet ministers have opposed the widening of the ground war in Lebanon.

The brunt of the military’s ground operation in Lebanon has been Bint Jbail, where eight Israeli soldiers were killed in a Hizbullah ambush on Wednesday. Military sources said the battalion sent to the Lebanese city of 35,000 was proportionally far smaller than the size of military units deployed in the Gaza Strip earlier this month.

The sources said combat helicopters took six hours to evacuate the injured soldiers. They said the Hizbullah force consisted of 30 fighters, equipped with anti-tank weapons, mortars, improvised explosive devices and assault weapons.

“At this stage, I am against expanding ground operations,” Justice Minister Haim Ramon said. “Our advantage over Hizbullah is in our firepower and not in fighting them face-to-face.”