IDF Given Green Light to Push to the Litani River, By Herb Keinon (Jerusalem Post)
Excerpts;
The Security Cabinet on Wednesday approved a wider ground offensive in south Lebanon that was expected to take 30 days as part of a new push to badly damage Hizbullah, Cabinet minister Eli Yishai said.
The decision was made with nine ministers in favor and three abstaining. The Security Cabinet authorized troops to push to the Litani River some 30 kilometers from the Israel-Lebanon border. Currently, some 10,000 soldiers are fighting Hizbullah in a six-kilometer-deep stretch from the Israel-Lebanon border.
Yishai said the proposed operation was expected to take 30 days. However, an internationally backed cease-fire was expected to be imposed well before then.
The decision gave authorization to Defense Minister Amir Peretz and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to order the wider offensive and to decide its timing. However, it did not obligate them to act.
Diplomatic officials said that Israel had not come under any US pressure to shelve plans for an expanded operation as various drafts of a US-French cease-fire resolution were being considered in the UN.
According to these officials, the US position that Israel has the right to defend itself was as firm today, with the country coming under a daily barrage of Katyusha fire, as it was during the first days of the war.
This position would only change, they said, once the UN cease-fire resolution has been voted upon. This is not expected until Thursday at the earliest.