CRASH HAS ISRAEL WEIGHING POLICY.Byline: The New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times United in grief as they began burying 73 soldiers killed Tuesday night in a collision of two helicopters flying to Lebanon, Israelis were faced Wednesday with hard questions about their country's military involvement there. The collision, the worst military air disaster in Israel's history, has highlighted issues that go beyond the possible technical or human failures that led to the crash. The deeper debate is over the value of sending Israeli soldiers to patrol a nine-mile-wide strip of southern Lebanon
Carved carve v. carved, carv·ing, carves v.tr. 1. a. To divide into pieces by cutting; slice: carved a roast. b. out in 1985, the area the Israelis call their ``security zone'' has become the front line of a guerrilla war by Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Party of God, to drive out Israeli troops. Nearly 70 Israeli soldiers have died there in the past three years, but Tuesday's crash alone claimed more lives. The victims were being ferried to their outposts by air to avoid the danger of roadside bombs planted by Hezbollah against Israeli convoys and patrols in southern Lebanon. Three Israeli soldiers were killed by such a bomb last week. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the collision perhaps the worst disaster to befall be·fall v. be·fell , be·fall·en , be·fall·ing, be·falls v.intr. To come to pass; happen. v.tr. To happen to. See Synonyms at happen. Israel in peacetime, but he ruled out any change in Israeli policy in southern Lebanon. ``It takes Hezbollah three years to do what one malfunction mal·func·tion v. 1. To fail to function. 2. To function improperly. n. 1. Failure to function. 2. Faulty or abnormal functioning. did here,'' Netanyahu said during a visit to the crash site in northern Israel. ``I think the jubilation we heard from Hezbollah tells you who we are dealing with. These people's goal is not to get us out of Lebanon, but to get us out of Israel.'' Sending soldiers to Lebanon involved risks that ``are part of defending the state of Israel against those who would destroy the state of Israel,'' Netanyahu said. ``We are not going to be deterred, and we're not going to relent re·lent v. re·lent·ed, re·lent·ing, re·lents v.intr. To become more lenient, compassionate, or forgiving. See Synonyms at yield. v.tr. Obsolete 1. . We shall defend our country.'' In a similar vein, Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai Yitzhak Mordechai (Hebrew: יצחק מרדכי, born 22 November 1944) was an Israeli general, and later Minister of Defense and Minister of Transport. cautioned that ``as long as there is no other way, I wouldn't suggest that in moments of distress we draw the wrong conclusions.'' Shimon Peres, the head of the opposition Labor Party, said the path to a solution lay in stepped-up peace talks with Syria and Lebanon. ``We cannot pull out unilaterally, but we also cannot stay this way forever,'' he said. CAPTION(S): PHOTO The family of Israeli Sgt. Tom Kitain, killed in a helicoptercollision Tuesday, comfort each other during his funeral Wednesday. Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. |
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