Israel waited 48 hours for diplomacy and tried that route. It failed.

I am sick of the propaganda stunts displayed by Israel to win the psychological war. we all can see your elite soldiers being dragged through the mud on a daily basis while your planes bomb civilian areas to take their revenge ...give it up boys and girls its all over your army is useless and so are your politicians.

Geez, Finally Israel is doing something about this. You could see the need for the ground invasion after week 1 of the current war.

good. more occupation casualties before israel is forced to withdrawal. what a dumb plan. the game is over. go home and end the occupations. that is your only chance for peace. stop acting like lunatics. end the occupations and survive as an equal and as a friend.

It is about time. I am sorry to say, this but as someone living in the North. We have no choice but to take the war further into Lebanon.

It is getting more clearer you are in Guagmire as day to day you sink deeper despite you try hard but you cannot escape . You proceed kilometers and still they are behind you. So your soldiers do not have a front before them as usual two armies confront. Their 4 side are fronts and when you expand you will be worser position. Beside Hizbullah militia's You will kill each other, "friendly fire". Today AFX passed Hizbullah hit one of your Warboats and killed 12 soldiers but nothing confirmed by Israel yet. Israel is trying to press and force them a ceasefire advanteguous for her, but she will not succeed. It is very funny to hear "Hizbullah is in a very difficult crisis", Hizbullah is under the control of a sheikh, he is a religous leader and there may not be a crisis among them. Crisis may be only in your Cabinet, your cabinet and PM, and your Military command, Your people, your reservists.... And They all really happened. You will get a more terrible defeat than even today.

i hope this time they will be given a free role to finish these morons.

he thought its a chess game declearing himself victories this is war baby wake its just the begining

IDF almost lost the war. At least they already lost it morally. It appears that Hizbullah may hit harder when IDF is spreaded upto Latani river. So far IDF used to face stone throwers in the past;, but now for the first time they are faced with an army who can hit them hard and break their moral.

Why Did You wait for 2 weeks? Now it has to be done anyway. Waht aws that waiting all about?

Read into this expansion it is occurring in the midst of a UNSC resolution to end the hostilities, thus look for worldwide condemnation of Olmert's conduct of the war. Let's be honest, when Israel's enemies are winning (67, 73, War of Attrition), no one cares about dead Jews. When Israel begins to turn the tide, everyone is hell bent on a cease fire. All Israel's wars ended with cease fires. ASA the Arabs get some courage, they attack Israel, knowing, if they fail, the UN will simply call for another cessation (favorable to the Arabs). This is what is happening now. Hezbollahs initial gains are in danger...so the UN (and US) want a cease fire. Back to square 1 will be the result. No force will thwart Hezbollah afterwards, who, the French or Spanish? Why did not the UN act prior to all this I ask? Israel takes 1 step forward (losing soldiers), while two steps backwards (Hezbollah will re-arm, and learn from it's mistakes). So back to the future, with Israel the loser.

Good luck guys, hit them hard!!

Too late, Olmert + Peretz. Approving the expansion just as the UN is set to vote to impose a ceasefire is way too cynical a political move to be accepted at face value. You've mishandled this war (not my opinion - the Israeli military establishment as said as much), and squandered a golden opportunity to neutralize one of the advantages that our archenemy Iran had been counting on. Although you certainly won't be in office when it occurs, there *will* be another confrontation with Hizballah, and this begs the question of whether Israel will also be fighting Iran at the same time.

What did Olmert and Peretz go to war for? To come out worse than where they started from? After over 100 lives were wasted and all the destruction, they should consider accepting a negative result? Every single scratch on a Jew, let alone a loss of life, is more painful than I can state. Regretfully, to secure the future of the Jewish state, Hizbullah HAS to be totally destroyed. Any half measure WILL imperil Israel's future. Syria and Iran are orchestrating and watching carefully the situation. Any capitulation by Israel and first Syria will start firing missiles at Israel "supposedly" for the return of the Golan Heights and then Iran will jump for the jagular. Some might point out that I am making these noises from a safe distance. If I were younger I would volunteer to fight for Israel. The point here is that the world may not see what the Islamic game plan is, BUT, Israel cannot afford to follow their example. If Israel totally destroys Hizbullah then it will destroy the main source of Jewish hate in the Middle East. Shabbat shalom.

Olmert is trying to save face by pushing more forces into lebanon before signing the deal -if he didn't already signed- but what he doesn't know that he is sacrifying hundreds of troops, not for anything, just to save his seat.

are on their way out

First time in the history of Israel, it is looking so week & pale. All that is because of its poor, short sighted & inexperienced leadership. They lost this golden opportunity to nail the Hizz. 4 weeks are enuf for anything (We are fighting with Gourillas it not an excuse). Why don't Olmert & team gave Hizz a strong blow (by full scale ground invasion on first week itself). This would have ketp Hizz stunned & surprised. Now if we see, what Israel has gained from this : NOTHING. .. 1. There soldiers are not back neither there there is any provision in this resolution for same. 2. They failed to deal with Hizz... & this new resolution again doest' cover this. 3. The best way to deal with enemies is kept their moral low. its always a psycoligal war, but this could put an hole to Israel's spell(that Israel is undefetable). This may give a psycological strength to all Militants & enemies of Israel that israel is not an Undefetable anymore. History witness that one has to deal with his problems by own. This simple lesson applies here too. Israel can't dependent on UN or internation force to do the job for Israel. Still Nothign is lost, If one can learn from their mistakes then he bounce back & turn in to stronger one. Isreal must learn a lesson from this mistake, rethink about its policy & prepare itself for next conflict with more powerful enemy from now, BECAUSE MATCH IS NOT YET OVER ITS JUST AN HALF TIME.

I mean my gosh they should've done this from the first day. Save the diplomacy for after the elimination of hizbulla

Blood will flow all over the place again. Lots of destruction in the lebanese side and lots of dead IDF soliders so Olmert and Pertez can be happy.

Hizbs are hiding inside soil. Better to just Air raid and finish them using carpet bombs. Keep max. distance between each soldier at ground to avoid mass killings, if their rocket hits.

Anybody with half a brain knows that any kind of offer from the non-islamist area of the world will NEVER be accepted from the Radicals. So...Israel... know this, that the only continued push north until you have removed Hez. and only then hand the area to Lebenons forces in hope that they keep the Rads. out can you bring the boys home. To those who read this:...Radical Islam has said repeatedly that they will never stop until ALL the world has either followed Islam or those who haven't have been killed. The neverending preachings that come from the clerics of the mosque continue to preach JIHAD!! They are STILL teaching their children to die in Jihad is glorious, they STILL teach that sliting the throats of Zion and the West must be done until ALL have been killed. So don't think for a second that a ceasefire will stop the bloodshed. Push on Israel, as we in the US must until this Holy War is accomplished or our Savior comes.

thanks Olmert of sending more and more Zionist soldiers for us to trap and liqudate, our apetite gets worse by the day for more dying Zionist soldiers, the same Golani soldiers who are responsible for the terror blitz on the Palestinian lands. I think, Hizbullah must and should send a thank you note to these tro-morons for sending their soldiers to be killed by our fighters. way to Go, Olmert! :)

to go to the litani or not to go to the litani i'm glad he finally decided correctly, but why can't this guy make up his mind? his indecision is hurting israel

This offensive will certainly result in lots of Lebanese civilian causalities as well as high number of soldiers dead. The objective of war was to free the two captures soldiers that resulted in more than 50 dead soldiers. Are the two captured soldier’s lives of more value than the already dead one? At the end of the day they might still be alive. This is a big mistake and should be stopped. Sleep well Olmert over the death of more Israelis now...