Israeli Government Approves Escalation of Ground Campaign Against Hezbollah; 15 Israeli Soldiers Killed in Fighting
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, everybody. Thank you all for joining us. Tonight's "Top Story," of course, the massive new offensive against Hezbollah just approved by the Israeli cabinet could start at any moment, even as Israel pays the bloodiest one-day price of the war. Here are the latest "War Bulletins." Israel is pouring rocket and artillery fire into southern Lebanese tonight, but Israel's military denies this is the startup of the large-scale operation authorized earlier today by Israeli leaders. But Israel's military confirms that 15 of its soldiers are dead in today's fighting, with 38 more wounded. That's the Israeli military's highest one-day casualty toll so far. Meanwhile, Hezbollah's leader is still breathing defiance and issuing threats. On TV this afternoon, Hassan Nasrallah predicts, Lebanon will be a graveyard for the Israelis. He's also urging all Arabs to leave the Israeli city of Haifa. And there's late word tonight that a U.N. peace resolution probably won't be ready for a vote tomorrow, after all. Right now, we're bringing in live reports from Beirut, the Israeli-Lebanese border, and the capital of Iran, Tehran. So, the worst day of combat casualties for Israel and a major buildup of Israeli forces on the border with Lebanon, that's where we're going first. Let's join John Roberts, who joins us live from along that border. John, what's the latest you hear from IDF officials?</s>JOHN ROBERTS, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good evening to you, Paula. It was not a very good day for the Israeli army, 15 casualties, four in the town of Aita al-Shaab, another nine in the town of Dibel, which is one of the new fronts in this war, one of the latest towns to be taken. Another soldier died in the region as well. And, while the Israeli security cabinet did approve a plan for a major expansion of this ground war, they're holding off on that for just a moment. Here, in the northern part of Israel, we have seen a battle raging for more than 24 hours now. Even now, at 3:00 in the morning here in Israel, outgoing artillery and mortar fire, the sound of machine guns off in the distance -- Israeli officials insist that this is only another pinpoint operation, Paula. But, from what we have been hearing over these last 24 hours, it sounds more like they're using a sledgehammer.</s>ROBERTS (voice-over): The intensity of the ground war kicked up another notch today, as Israeli forces battled for control of territory just north of the town of Metulla. It is the eastern-most front of the war, an area dotted with Arab villages, where the Israeli army says Hezbollah is well dug in. Tank, artillery, and rocket fire rain down ahead of the advancing force. Israeli troops move along the ridgelines, taking the high ground, while heavy armor rolls in to provide covering fire. (on camera): We have been watching this valley and the surrounding hills for the past week now. We have seen a lot of artillery softening up Hezbollah positions, and some small cross- border incursions. But, in just the past 24 hours, there has been a significant increase in the amount of activity here -- hundreds of Israeli troops streaming across the border, backed by tanks and armor. And now that the Israeli political leadership has approved an expansion of the ground campaign, this may be just a small part of what's ahead in the coming days.</s>OLIVIER RAFOWICZ, SPOKESPERSON, ISRAELI DEFENSE FORCES: The Israeli army is ready for any eventuality. We're continuing to fight Hezbollah and to make the job, because we need to protect our population. We need to protect our people. We need to protect our state.</s>ROBERTS (voice-over): The amount of armor on the border has risen dramatically, an almost nonstop flow of tanks and troop carriers to the front lines. Much of it is massed in the eastern and northern sectors, an indication the Israeli army may be preparing for a drive to Lebanon's Litani River, which, this far north, is only three miles away. There is broad support among the Israeli people for an expansion of the ground war, an operation that would take on Hezbollah face to face and, they hope, avoid the grim images of civilian casualties in Lebanon produced by the air campaign. Privately, some army officers admit, it was a mistake to rely too much on airpower in the early going, and that a massive ground campaign should have been launched from the beginning. Military sources say, fighting on the ground may also be a better way to root out those short-range Katyusha rocket launch sites. More than 170 fell in northern Israel today, including this hit, about a half-a-mile from where a rocket killed 12 soldiers on Sunday. There were no deaths today, but the number of Katyusha strikes remains terrifyingly high. An expansion of the ground war would also likely mean more casualties for the Israeli army. It was the military's deadliest day yet. Fifteen soldiers died today in fierce clashes with guerrillas in places the army has been pounding for days. Hezbollah has shown it will not run in the face of Israeli armor. And, as troops march deeper into Lebanon, each new advance will present grave new risks.</s>ROBERTS: For that moment, an expansion of the ground war remains only a threat. Israeli political officials say that they want to give the diplomatic track more time, but it would serve as a clear warning to Lebanese officials of what lies ahead, if they do not quickly agree to an end to hostilities -- Paula.</s>ZAHN: And you're talking about a -- potentially, a tremendous amount of firepower there. John Roberts, thanks so much. Now, as Israel continued to pound Lebanon today, Hezbollah's leader delivered yet another defiant TV message. Let's get the very latest from Beirut. That's where we find Jim Clancy standing by. He joins us now live. Hi, Jim.</s>JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Paula. Well, there's nobody else in this conflict that has more at stake than Lebanon. But this is a battle between Israel and a movement called Hezbollah. There are many people who would like to talk about diplomacy today. But, to be honest, all of that was drowned out by the drumbeats of war.</s>CLANCY (voice-over): The sound of rockets and artillery reverberated across the hills of southern Lebanon tonight in intense fighting between Israeli troops and entrenched Hezbollah guerrillas. Farther north, in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, an Israeli airstrike killed at least five and wounded one, when it targeted the home of a Hezbollah official. Despite the new fighting and the Israeli approval of a new offensive, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah remained defiant. "You will not stay in our land," Nasrallah warned on Hezbollah television. "If you enter, we will push you out. We will make a graveyard to the Zionists. We will wait for you at every hill or valley." Nasrallah used his address to brand the proposed U.N. cease-fire resolution backed by the United States unjust and unfair, because it doesn't call for an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Welch making a surprise call on Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora in Beirut -- the two men discussed possible changes to that cease-fire draft. As part of the discussion, they went over details of what the Lebanese army could do and what it would need to take up positions and ensure security along the southern border. In the embattled city of Tyre, residents weren't waiting for diplomacy to work. They lined up outside a bakery, hoping to buy enough bread to weather the gathering storm. It is the essentials that count now. With Israel still warning that it considers any moving vehicle a potential target, the south of Lebanon is cut off, and it is unlikely more aid will get through. The thunder of artillery does not necessarily mean a full-scale Israeli invasion is under way, nor does the diplomatic wrangling mean a compromise cease-fire is assured. Tonight, both Israel and Hezbollah are showing they are ready to push this crisis to the brink.</s>CLANCY: And standing on that brink are certainly Lebanese civilians. But, when we went to a funeral today for 29 victims of a single bombing here in Beirut, we found them surprisingly defiant, surprisingly supportive of Hezbollah, but still concerned about their future and the future of their country -- Paula.</s>ZAHN: And, Jim, you just mentioned some of the threats that Nasrallah has made once again. Do we have any sense at all of exactly what he has left, militarily?</s>ROBERTS: We don't have a good sense. We know that he probably has thousands of rockets. We know that he has got thousands of fighters, and he has more, he says, standing by. Certainly, Hezbollah has been preparing for this fight for the past six years. I think that's reflected with how far the Israeli army has been able to come up here. And one of the questions that is being asked, when you look at the casualty figures today, Paula, does the Israeli army want to sacrifice all of that, and then hand it over to the Lebanese army or hand it over to an international peacekeeping force? A lot of people here tonight are not entirely convinced that Israel intends to march any further north.</s>ZAHN: Jim Clancy, thanks for the update. And we now turn our "Top Story" coverage to the country of Iran and its role in this conflict. Tonight, there is a report from Israeli TV that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard soldiers have been found among the Hezbollah dead in Lebanon. Iran denies that report, but, for years, Israel has insisted that Hezbollah gets supplies and training from Iran. Tehran denies that as well, but there's no denying that Hezbollah is hugely popular in Iran. Aneesh Raman reports for us tonight from Tehran.</s>ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Fists in the air, they chant praise for Hassan Nasrallah. They chant, as well, death to the United States, death to Israel, as smoke rises from burned American and Israeli flags. This is the scene almost daily in Tehran. And while the numbers vary from a few hundred to thousands, support for Hezbollah does not. The hero status of its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has risen to the point that he shares posters with Iran's current and past supreme leader. And analysts say he's inspiring a new generation.</s>SADEQ ZIBAKALAM, PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, TEHRAN UNIVERSITY: There are thousands and thousands of Iranians who, if the Islamic regime let them, would volunteer and rush to Lebanon to -- to support Hezbollah against -- against Israelis.</s>RAMAN: Iran calls Hezbollah an offspring of its own Shia-Islamic revolution, and has maintained close ties, with Nasrallah repeatedly visiting Tehran, but how close? In a recent newspaper interview, Iran's former envoy to Syria said that, in 1982, Iran was involved in 30 Hezbollah training courses, each with some 300 fighters. Iran denies that, today, it is still training or supplying Hezbollah, as is widely alleged. Instead, Iran says it wants to be a broker of peace, so that, in turn, it can be acknowledged as the major power in the region. It's the same reason Iran has sought engagement with the U.S. on the issue of nuclear development, with Iran facing a deadline by the end of this month on possible U.N. sanctions. Some have suggested Iran engineered this latest Mideast crisis as a way to distract attention from the nuclear standoff. Tehran denies that's the case.</s>ZAHN: And that was Aneesh Raman, reporting tonight from Tehran. Coming up, we have got other top stories we're also following tonight, including one soldier's ultimate sacrifice.</s>ZAHN (voice-over): This young American died in uniform, fighting for something he believed in, not in Iraq, but in Lebanon -- tonight, the passion that prompted his final journey. Amazing new technology -- for the first time, a paralyzed person's thoughts become action, a "Mystery of the Mind" you will have to see to believe -- all that and more just ahead.