The deaths of seven soldiers in 11 days at the hands of Hizbullah guerrillas in south Lebanon has ignited a political and military dispute so furious in Israel that the Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, visiting Britain and about to go to Spain, yesterday cut short his trip and returned home to try and sort it out.
Two soldiers were killed on Wednesday, and another two on Thursday, amid growing evidence that the Hizbullah fighters, equipped by Iran and given tacit encouragement by Syria, have gained the upper hand in the conflict.
Several leading Israeli politicians are calling for the army to unilaterally evacuate its "security zone" in south Lebanon, scene of the fighting, and withdraw to the international border. Most significantly, Israel's Foreign Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, is proposing a gradual retreat, backed up by the threat of intensive reprisals against Hizbullah should the guerrillas then attack targets inside sovereign Israel.
Unilateral withdrawal, from the "security zone" set up as a buffer in 1985, is also privately supported by some senior army officers and by a public protest group, the "Four Mothers", whose leaders have sons serving inside Lebanon.
An opinion poll published here yesterday showed a record 40 per cent of Israelis now favouring a pull-out. The Israeli public may have been moved by a home video, filmed by one of the latest victims, Uriel Peretz (22), during a recent weekend leave. He is seen in the film imploring his mother to join him, but she refuses, apparently sensing that something bad is about to happen to her son. "Don't worry, mum," he tells her, "nothing's going to happen to me."
The Israeli army's Chief-of-Staff, Mr Shaul Mofaz, the Defence Minister, Mr Yitzhak Mordechai, and many other military strategists firmly oppose a unilateral withdrawal, arguing that Hizbullah would inevitably try to strike inside Israel, and that troops would then have to re-enter Lebanon to international criticism and without the assistance of its current proxy militia, the South Lebanon Army.
Mr Netanyahu, who has formally accepted a UN resolution calling for Israel to leave Lebanon, on condition that the Lebanese government guarantee cross-border tranquillity by deploying its own troops there, said before leaving London that he would now order a re-evaluation of Israeli strategy. He said he was not ruling out Mr Sharon's approach, but also that Israel would not "tuck its tail between its legs and crawl out". The guaranteed path to a solution to the violence in Lebanon runs via Syria: were Israel to relinquish the Golan Heights, captured from Syria in 1967, the Syrians, who maintain a force of more than 30,000 soldiers in Lebanon, would intervene to curtail Hizbullah's activities. But Mr Netanyahu is reluctant to return the Heights to Damascus's control.
Opponents of a unilateral withdrawal are urging a stronger military response to the Hizbullah attacks. But Israel has tried to counter Hizbullah in the past with massive bombardments of south Lebanon, with little success. In 1996, for example, one such assault went disastrously awry, when Israeli shells hit a UN base where Lebanese civilians were taking refuge, killing 100 of them.