This is a timeline of the 2006 Lebanon War during early August.
August 1 IDF The IDF expands its ground operation, doubling its troops in Southern Lebanon. "IDF expand the operations", Haaretz, August 1, 2006 Israeli special operations forces conducted a large scale airborne attack on the Bekaa Valley. Israeli troops landed near the eastern Lebanese town of Baalbek, Lebanese security sources said, and the Israeli military also engaged in fierce fighting with Hezbollah forces just across the border with Lebanon. Israeli aircraft flew support missions as troops hit the ground about north of Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley near the Syrian border, the sources said. The Lebanese army also reported heavy helicopter traffic east and west of the town, the northernmost ground operation for Israel during the nearly three-week conflict. Israeli troops entered Hikma Hospital in northern Baalbek, where they checked the identification cards of all staff and patients, the sources said, adding that there was no indication that anyone was taken from the hospital. Witnesses, however, said "several" people were taken out of the hospital. The Israel Defense Forces confirmed that Israeli troops operating in Baalbek hit a number of militants and arrested some of them, although no numbers were given. There were no injuries among Israeli soldiers, the IDF said, and the arrested militants were taken to Israel. Today's fighting was concentrated near the Lebanese villages of Tayba, just outside the Israeli town of Metula, and Ayta ash-Shab further west. The IDF said three of its soldiers were killed and 25 wounded in the fighting in Ayta ash-Shab. Five other soldiers were wounded on the Israeli side of the border when they were hit by a mortar shell, it said. In two days of fighting, the IDF said forces have killed or wounded more than 20 Hezbollah fighters across southern Lebanon. Hezbollah said four of its forces died in Tuesday's fighting. * Just outside the village, the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon reported intensive Israeli shelling in the villages of Ramia, Dibil and Qawzah in the morning. In Tayba, the IDF said it took control of several strategic positions that it said have been used by Hezbollah fighters to launch missiles at northern Israel. East of Tayba, Israeli forces Tuesday heavily shelled the town of Kfar Kela a day after pounding it with airstrikes, according to U.N. observers. Israeli forces have also been operating in the areas of Odaise and Rab Talateen for the past two days, according to the IDF. To the west, U.N. officials said, Israel gunboats in the Mediterranean Sea pounded southern Lebanon. Israel said it has killed 300 of the estimated 2,000 Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon during its three-week offensive.Israel At the graduation ceremony at the National Security College in Glilot, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said:"This war cannot in any way be measured by the number of missiles or the range of missiles that are still being fired at us. Not for a moment, not from day one did the defense minister, myself or the Israeli government – and I must say in its support – the military leadership as well – did anyone promise the people of Israel that at the end of this campaign there would be no missiles with a range capable of reaching the State of Israel. No one has the power to make such a promise." The Israeli Security Cabinet earlier in the day had approved an expansion of Israel's three-week-old military campaign in Lebanon. Ehud Olmert further said Israeli forces were weakening Hezbollah daily and that no cease-fire would come until Israel was safe from a future war. "Every additional day is a day that drains the strength of this cruel enemy," Olmert said."Quite a few days of fighting are still before us," Olmert told a conference of local officials. Israeli police reported 14 cross-border strikes hitting northern Israel, two using Katyusha rockets and 12 using mortar shells. Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres, in Washington to meet with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, told reporters the end of the war was "not far away." "You can count it in matters of weeks, not months," he said. But Rice saw the process going more quickly. "Certainly we are talking about days not weeks before we are able to get a cease-fire," she said on PBS' "NewsHour." Despite an overall decrease in attacks in the last two days, Haim Ramon said the Lebanese militia has increased the number of rocket launches from areas north of the Litani River – about from the border—where the Israeli military has asked residents in two locations to evacuate. In its initial quest to create a security buffer to protect northern Israel from Katyusha rockets, the Israeli military said it wanted Hezbollah fighters to push back to the Litani River.United Nations The permanent five members of the Security Council—France, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and the United States—met with Secretary-General Kofi Annan to discuss how to stop the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, deliver aid to civilians and send a multinational force into the area. One option being discussed is deploying a rapid-reaction force after a cessation of hostilities is established, U.N. and diplomatic sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity because talks are ongoing. The rapid-reaction force would secure certain areas and facilitate aid shipments into south Lebanon, one diplomat said, adding that after a political agreement and permanent cease-fire are worked out, a more expanded group of peacekeepers would be deployed.Hezbollah A Hezbollah spokesman said 43 of its fighters have been killed, Reuters news service reported. "Hezbollah has taken a serious beating, and that is why the pressure of a ground offensive will produce the expected results," Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon said on Israeli Channel 10. Hezbollah said its fighters managed to destroy an Israeli warship of the coast of Tyre, though Israel disputed the claim. It issued a statement saying that the IDF had killed three Hezbollah fighters during fighting around Kfar Kila, Adaisse, and Taibeh, near the Lebanese town of Marjayoun. Hezbollah gave its fatalities since July 13 as forty-eight in total. While the IDF reported four Hezbollah dead.
August 2 IDF After air strikes on the town of Baalbek, 100 km into Lebanon, in which 11 people died, Israeli commandos landed by helicopters and fought a lengthy gun battle. The IDF concludes its formal investigation of the Qana airstrike."IDF: We assumed building in Qana to be empty", Ynetnews, August 2, 2006 Israeli jets also pounded a Lebanese army position west of Sidon, killing a soldier and injuring several others, according to the Lebanese army. Early in the day, an airstrike hit the village of Al Jamaliyeh as the IDF was raiding a nearby hospital in Baalbek, The Associated Press reported. Israel's military released video that it said proved the Baalbeck hospital was a Hezbollah headquarters. Hezbollah disputed the account. Israeli special forces captured five militants and killed 10 others, Israel's army said. Hezbollah, however, said Israel arrested five civilians who were not members of the Islamic militia. Israeli video of the scene appeared to show weapons that Israeli soldiers discovered during a search of the hospital, located about north of the Israeli border. "The IDF and the air force demonstrated their long arm, their ability to reach everywhere that Hezbollah sees fit to situate itself, even if it chooses a hospital as its headquarters," said Israeli Brig. Gen. Yohanan Loker. Other images showed Israeli commandos rifling through file cabinets in an office inside the hospital, where the IDF said it found ammunition and weapons. A missile hit the home of Mayor Hussein Jamaleddin, killing his son, brother and five other relatives, according to AP. "Where is the press? Where is the media to see this massacre? Count our dead. Count our body parts," Jamaleddin told AP. Also, a mother, father and their five children were killed in another air raid near Al Jamaliyeh and a van driver was killed when a missile struck nearby, witnesses told AP. Late in the day there was a battle between Israeli forces and Hezbollah guerrillas near Ayta ash-Shab in southern Lebanon. Israel's military reported 55 deaths—including 19 civilians—and 580 injuries during the conflict. Israeli media are reporting around 6,000 Israeli soldiers are operating in southern Lebanon, but the IDF would not confirm the reports. In Gaza, where Israel is engaged in another military operation after militants there kidnapped an Israeli soldier, an airstrike hit a group of militants who were approaching Israeli forces with rocket-propelled grenades, the IDF said. Two Hamas militants were killed in the blast and another died in a separate incident, Palestinian security sources said. Palestinian security sources also reported clashes in Rafah, near the Gaza-Egypt border, after Israeli tanks rolled into the city. It marks the first time Israel has entered Rafah since the conflict in Gaza began June 25.Hezbollah In a statement on al-Manar television, Hezbollah said those captured in Baalbek, one of its strongholds, are "ordinary citizens" not militants."Israel takes 'Hezbollah fighters'", BBC, August 3, 2006 Hezbollah fighters launch more than 230 rockets into Israel from Lebanon, the biggest single-day barrage since the conflict began."Israel hit by Hezbollah barrage", BBC, August 3, 2006 The Shiite militant group pounded northern Israel with rockets, killing a civilian and wounding seven others, the IDF said. One rocket landed in the Palestinian-controlled area of the northern West Bank, marking the southernmost point Hezbollah rockets have reached from southern Lebanon, Israeli police said.Lebanon Lebanese authorities reported 603 civilians and soldiers have been killed and 2,145 others have been wounded in the Israeli military campaign. The Israeli military operation has displaced almost 900,000 people and has caused $2 billion in damage to the Lebanese infrastructure—not counting damage to buildings—according to the Lebanese government.United Nations On the diplomatic front, the U.N. Security Council could consider a resolution on Lebanon as early as August 3, British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said. "I'm confident that by tomorrow we'd be in a position to have a discussion in the council on a text that takes us forward. The prospects now of the adoption soon of a resolution have improved considerably," he told reporters. U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said countries differed on how to make a possible cessation of violence permanent, "but there is near complete agreement on the fundamental, political framework that has to be put in place."
August 3 Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch accuses Israel of committing war crimes for systematically failing to distinguish between combatants and civilians in their attack on Lebanon."Human Rights Watch Accuses Israel of War Crimes For Indiscriminately Targeting Lebanese Civilians" , Democracy Now, August 3, 2006 "Israel/Lebanon: End Indiscriminate Strikes on Civilians", Human Rights Watch, August 3, 2006Hezbollah Eight civilians are killed by rocket attacks in Northern Israel and four IDF soldiers are killed in Southern Lebanon in what was referred to as "the deadliest day for Israel in its two-front war""Hezbollah Rocket Attack Kills 8 People", The Guardian, August 4, 2006