Militant Islam Monitor > Articles > Two soldiers dead nine injured in clash with Hezbollah based in former IDF post left intact after Barak ordered hasty withdrawal
Two soldiers dead nine injured in clash with Hezbollah based in former IDF post left intact after Barak ordered hasty withdrawal
July 23, 2006
MIM: The withdrawal from Lebanon was pushed by a group of women calling themselves the Four Mothers. The group began after a helicopter crash over a kibbutz which killed many soldiers going to Lebanon caused them to organise and demand that Israel withdraw. Left wing Knesset members Yossi Beilin took helped to promote their cause and the "peace movement" turned into an "appeasement movement" which has lead to the deaths of the Israeli soldiers they claimed to be trying to save. The deaths of the two soldiers near Moshav Avivim can be blamed on The Four Mothers movement and Ehud Barak- who used their movement to justify the Lebanon withdrawal. IDF bases which were abandoned were taken over by Hezbollah. (see below for more on the Four Mothers).
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1153291951810&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Earlier in the day, two IDF soldiers were killed and nine wounded in a clash with Hizbullah forces on the Lebanese side of the border. The forces had been sent in to destroy a Hizbullah outpost directly opposite the moshav.
The outpost was originally built by the IDF and abandoned intact after prime minister Ehud Barak ordered a hasty withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000.
Moshav Avivim still stands determined during tensions
Fifty-five-year-old Ya'acov Ivgi, decked out in a steel helmet, combat belt and M-16 rifle, did not seem perturbed by the fact that a mortar shell had recently exploded inside his moshav of Avivim and that soldiers stationed nearby were firing tank and artillery shells at Hizbullah forces less than one kilometer away.
While others huddled under the roof of the communal area, Ivgi stood out in the open, rushing to the sheltered area only when he heard the shriek of an incoming Katyusha.
Nevertheless, he maintained that Wednesday was Avivim's worst day so far in the current fighting with Hizbullah and one of the worst days in the history of the long-suffering community.
Earlier in the day, two IDF soldiers were killed and nine wounded in a clash with Hizbullah forces on the Lebanese side of the border. The forces had been sent in to destroy a Hizbullah outpost directly opposite the moshav.
The outpost was originally built by the IDF and abandoned intact after prime minister Ehud Barak ordered a hasty withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000.
Ivgi is a member of the emergency squad that is on call 24 hours a day to guard against Hizbullah infiltrators and to make sure moshav residents enter their bomb shelters and safe rooms when there is an alert.
Four-hundred people live in Avivim. About half of them - including almost all of the women, children and elderly people with health problems - have been evacuated from the moshav, according to Shimon Biton, head of the Avivim residents' committee and a member of the emergency team.
The able-bodied men have stayed behind to protect their homes and look after their poultry.
Biton is tough and determined. He lost his father in 1970, when Palestinian terrorists belonging to the Syrian-sponsored Saeka organization fired two bazooka shells at a school bus, killing 12 Avivim residents, most of them children, and wounding about 25.
"We ask the government to support the army and give it another month to do the job," said Biton. "We are prepared to sit in shelters all that time."
Nowadays, there are as many soldiers as farmers in Avivim. A few days earlier, soldiers prevented an infiltration of Hizbullah fighters presumably attempting to seize hostages from Avivim.
On Wednesday, Israeli troops fired tank and artillery shells at the well-entrenched Hizbullah fighters while they replied with mortar shells and Katyushas. During this exchange, a second mortar shell hit a structure within the moshav, causing no casualties but setting off a large fire.
Earlier in the morning, at Dovev - another long-suffering moshav 12 kilometers west of Avivim along the northern border - a group of about 20 elderly residents waited in a plaza outside the community buildings for a bus that was to take them away from all the explosions and tensions.
About 90 percent of the moshav of 520 people have already left. As in Avivim, they too describe past week as the worst time in their history.
Although none of the houses have been hit so far, four Katyusha rockets landed just outside the perimeter of the moshav, including one that destroyed four fruit trees and another that fell 50 meters from a house.
Iranian-born Eliahu Kadusi has spent the last 40 years in Dovev. He fell in love with Galilee because it reminded him of the area along the Iraq-Iran border where he was born - the same hills, the same cold weather and snow.
For these same reasons, Kadusi does not want to leave Dovev despite the dangers. "I like it here," he said.
It is not the first time the moshav has been evacuated. The farmers also had to leave during the 1982 Lebanese invasion and Operation Grapes of Wrath in 1996.
Moroccan-born Mima Peretz has lived in Dovev since 1953 but she too does not remember anything as bad as this. "This is no life," she said. "It has never been like this. I'm afraid to hang out my laundry or go to the grocery store."
Despite the fear of sudden death and the stress caused by ear-splitting explosions, 56-year-old Yoseph Waknin has decided to stay, at least for the time being. "I have to look after my chicken coop," he explained. "I have 1,700 chickens." Among other things, Waknin has to collect the eggs, and make sure the chickens have water and feed.
He and other farmers complain that the chickens have stopped giving their usual quota of eggs because they have been terrified by the loud noises.
"Usually, I produce 10-11 wagon loads of eggs per month," he said. "This month, I'll be lucky if I have seven or eight."
But perhaps the biggest problem faced by all those remaining along the northern border is the lack of sleep. The residents are virtually sleepwalkers who live on almost no hours of sleep. "As soon as I put my head down on the pillow and fall asleep, an artillery gun goes off and I'm wide awake again," said Ivgi.
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http://www.4mothers.org.il/peilut/crying.htm
The cry which became a movement
Many former commanders of the Lebanese war play leading roles
as Knesset members or ministers, and continue defending their
"creation". attempting to frighten and silence anyone who dares
to claim there is a problem.
On the night of the helicopter disaster I became forcefully aware of the terrible price we were paying in the Lebanese quagmire. I made up my mind that something must be done to stop the endless bloodletting. My assumption was that if these were the results, there must be something wrong with the means, that we must call for a change, for improvement in the situation; and not accepting it as if it was preordained.
I made up my mind that something must be done to stop the endless bloodletting.
I spoke about the need "to do something", with two friends: Ronit Nahmias and Yafa Arbel. We had raised our sons together and had shared various periods in their lives and joys, including the beginning of their army sevice.
We were now facing profound sorrow and despair, and also a great anxiety about their future. That same week my feelings were reinforced by the pronouncements of the members of the Kohav Yair Forum , who agreed that our ways of handling the Lebanese situation must be reconsidered and a solution to the problem found. The Minister of Defense ( Itzik Mordehai), accused them of weakening the devotion of the soldiers, and their familie's. Yet their words carried hope, revealing that someone was willing to examine the issue of Lebanon and try to prevent the next disaster. It was then that I started thinking that there may be someone who wants to supress the fact about this beeing a protracted and bloody war. Many former commanders of the Lebanese war play leading roles as Knesset members or ministers, and continue defending their "creation". attempting to frighten and silence anyone who dares to claim there is a problem.
With this in mind I turned to two of my women friends, Ronit and Yafa, who shared my feelings and we wrote a letter of support to Knesset members from various parties, who participate in the Kohav Yair Forum. we were surprised about the prompt replies we received from the most of them, in which they expressed willingless to meet us and continue the struggle.
Meanwhile the Hakibutz newspaper had published an article entitled " "Mothers in the Service of the Army", in which Eran Shahar expressed his amazement at the resignation with which Israeli mothers accept the fact that, at a certain age, their sons become soldiers, dedicating their lives to political or military
goals, without even questioning themselves about it.
I told Eran I feel totally identified with what he had written. after talking it over on the phone, eran asked me to meet him, so he could write down my feelings. I asked my friends Ronit and Yafa to join me. They invited Miri Sela, from our movement, to come too. Our sons serve together in the army. We were asked to describe the way we see the situation in general, and the lebanese problem particullary, in wiew of the fact we live in the north. The article appeared on Passover Eve, under the title "Four Mothers" (a line from a well-known Passover song).
We decided to adopt this as our name. But we did not imagine that our detractors would use it as an opportunuty to bypass the problem and focus on our being women and mothers. Several times we tried to say that fathers and many worthy citizens joined our protest, but we received publicity, mainly as a new phenomenon.
We enlisted politicians from all the parties interested in promoting the peace process and first and foremost in ending the war in Lebanon. Everytime we received publicity, a lot more people joined our ranks, encouraging us to confront the government's entrenched position that "there isn't anyone to talk to", "there is no solution", and other clishes, abandoning us to the calamity of loosing wonderful young lives in the Lebanese quagmire. We engaged polititians from all parties, which were interested promoting peace, and to bring this war to an end. After our movement was established, I chose an additional plan of action, that of educational research. This might lead, in the long term, to peace in our region, with the help of our link with the Jewish Community in the Diaspora, and also the international community.
Today our message reaches many people in all strata of the Israeli public, who protest about the deadlock and politicians lethargy.
Let us hope that this protest will cause the government to wake up and bring the tragedy called Lebanon to an end.
Rachel Ben Dor,
chairman of the Four Mothers Movement.
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