ISRAEL'S WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY

‘Israel has a window of opportunity to hit Hizbullah’.

Israel believes it has a 48-72-hour “window of opportunity” to pound Hizbullah and damage its operational capabilities before the world steps in and stops the fighting, senior diplomatic officials in Jerusalem said Saturday night. The officials noted positively that Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora had said Saturday at a press conference that his government would reassert government authority over all Lebanese territory - an allusion to the possibility of deploying the Lebanese army in south Lebanon, which is effectively controlled by Hizbullah. 

Senior sources in the Prime Minister’s Office said that dislodging Hizbullah from southern Lebanon and getting the government in Beirut to assert its authority over the area as called for by UN Security Council Resolution 1559 were among the primary goals of the IDF’s current campaign. However, the officials said, the two abducted IDF soldiers also needed to be returned. “It is a good plan,” one senior diplomatic official said of Saniora’s statement. “The big question is whether he has the ability to do it.”