Zar'it-Shtula incident

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Operation Truthful Promise

Part of 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict

Date	July 12, 2006
Location	Lebanon-Israel border
Result	Hezbollah tactical victory; beginning of 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict.

Combatants

Israel

Hezbollah

Casualties

8 killed,
2 captured

None reported

Military operations of the 2006 Lebanon War
Zar'it-Shtula – Baliste – Bint Jbeil – Qana – Ayta ash-Shab – Baalbek – al-Qaa – Tyre – Shiyyah – Ghaziyeh – Marjayoun – Litani

The Zar'it-Shtula incident was a cross-border attack committed by Lebanon-based Hezbollah special forces on an Israeli military patrol on 12 July 2006 on Israeli territory. The operation was originally named "Freedom for Samir Al-Quntar and his brothers" by Hezbollah, but it was shortened to "Operation Truthful Promise".^[1] Hezbollah militants crossed from Lebanon into Israel under cover of Hezbollah Katyusha rocket attacks and ambushed two Israeli Army vehicles, killing three Israeli soldiers and capturing two. Hezbollah demanded the release of Lebanese prisoners held by Israel in exchange for the release of the abducted soldiers. Israel refused and launched a large-scale military campaign across Lebanon in response to the Hezbollah incursion. This marked the start of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict.

1 Planning phase
2 The incident
3 Location controversy
4 Aftermath
5 See also
6 References

[edit] Planning phase

In the months leading up to the attack, Lt. Col. Ishai Efroni reported seeing increased activity across the fenceline, including more brazen Hezbollah patrols. He had repeatedly seen burden-laden donkeys, which he had believed were being led by innocent farmers, but after the incident suspected were laden with arms and equipment. After a rocket attack on May 28, the colonel, who at 41 had spent much of his career along the northern border, "got the feeling something had changed."^[2]

Hezbollah had carved a hollow from the underbrush, just above the Israeli border patrol track. The "camp was stocked with food, water, radios, rifles, antitank missiles and diagrams detailing the insignia and size of Israeli military units."^[2]

[edit] The incident

At around 9:00 a.m. local time (06:00 UTC), on 12 July 2006, Hezbollah initiated a diversionary Katyusha rocket and mortar attack on Israeli military positions and border villages, including Zar'it and Shelomi.^[3]^[4]^[5]^[6]^[7]^[8]

A ground contingent of Hezbollah fighters crossed the border into Israeli territory and attacked two Israeli armoured Humvees patrolling on the Israeli side of the Israel-Lebanon border between the villages of Zar'it and Shtula (Shetula). The attackers took advantage of a "dead zone" in the border fence not visible from any of the IDF lookout posts and may have used a wheeled ladder to climb the fence.^[3] After hiding in a wadi on the Israeli side of the fence they attacked with a combination of pre-positioned explosives and anti-tank missiles. The team knocked out the trailing Humvee, killing three soldiers inside, and kidnapped two soldiers from the first vehicle.^[2] "Another soldier was seriously wounded, another lightly wounded and a third suffered a shrapnel scratch." The entire incident took no more than 10 minutes.^[3]

A total of seven army posts "reported taking fire at the same time, coordinated attacks that knocked out surveillance cameras." The attack had knocked out command communications with the convoy. Twenty minutes passed until Staff Sgts. Ehud Goldwasser, 31, and Eldad Regev, 26, were confirmed to be missing from the first vehicle, while the gunmen "fled through olive orchards to the Lebanese border village of Aita al-Shaab."^[2]

Lt. Col. Ishai Efroni, deputy commander of the Baram Brigade, sent a Merkava Mark II tank, an armored personnel carrier and a helicopter in pursuit.^[2] Crossing into Lebanon,^[9] they headed down a dirt track lined with Lebanese border defenses.^[2] When it "unexpectedly veered onto the road near a known Hezbollah post" the resulting blast was "enormous, killing the four soldiers inside instantly."^[2]^[10] A fifth soldier died during an ensuing firefight while attempting to recover the bodies from the tanks.

[edit] Location controversy

The UN,^[11]^[12] the EU,^[13] the G8,^[14] the US,^[15] and prominent news agencies,^[4]^[16]^[17]^[18]^[19] including Al Jazeera,^[20] have characterized the Hezbollah action as "cross-border" (and therefore an act of war under international law), although allegedly the Lebanese police, and later Hezbollah, stated that the Israeli soldiers were abducted on the Lebanese side of the border "during a mission to infiltrate the town of Ayta ash-Shab".^[21]

[edit] Aftermath

The IDF confirmed the capture of the two Israeli soldiers on 13 July. They were both reservists on their last day of operational duty.^[22]

Hezbollah released a statement saying "Implementing our promise to free Arab prisoners in Israeli jails, our strugglers have captured two Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon."^[23] Later on, Hassan Nasrallah declared that "No military operation will return them…[t]he prisoners will not be returned except through one way: indirect negotiations and a trade of prisoners."^[24] No Hezbollah casualties were reported.

On 6 August the IDF announced one of the Hezbollah participants was captured in a commando operation.^[25]

On 27 August the Hezbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah has said he would not have ordered the abduction of two Israeli soldiers if he had known it would lead to such a war. "Had we known that the kidnapping of the soldiers would have led to this, we would definitely not have done it," he said in an interview on Lebanese TV.^[26]

Nasrallah stated on 31 October 2006 that indirect talks with Israel on hostage return had begun.^[27]

On 6 December 2006, a previously classified report released by Israel stated that the two soldiers were critically wounded during the abduction.[1][2][3][4]