Is the war still over?

This is from Arutz Sheva:

Israeli forces carried out a raid deep in southern Lebanon Saturday morning, disrupting Syrian arms shipments to Hizbullah terrorists. One IDF officer, Lt-Col. Emanuel Moreno, died in the operation . . .

In the wake of the Israeli operation, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan called Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Saturday evening to update him on the deployment of UNIFIL forces in Lebanon and to express his organization's dismay at the Israeli raid. Reiterating official positions made public earlier in the day, PM Olmert told Annan that Israel honors the United Nations Security Council ceasefire resolution, but reserves the right to take defensive action to prevent the re-arming of the Hizbullah.

The UNSC resolution establishing the ceasefire prohibits foreign weapons from reaching Lebanon without authorization of the Lebanese government. Israel considered the continuing arms shipments to Hizbullah to be a violation of the ceasefire. As Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said on Saturday, "Israel is entitled to act to defend the principle of the arms embargo."

United Nations Middle East envoy Terje Larsen disagreed, saying on Saturday that such an Israeli raid violates the UN Security Council ceasefire resolution.

Lebanon threatened to stop deploying its soldiers in southern Lebanon following the Israeli strike, which Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora called "a flagrant violation" of the UN ceasefire terms.

The Lebanese government orders regarding the arms held by the Hizbullah, drafted by Lebanese parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri and Siniora, are that Hizbullah may continue to openly maintain its arsenal north of the Litani River, but south of the Litani, weapons would be permitted to Hizbullah forces only so long as they remained concealed.

And as long as Hizbullah does not become a symphony orchestra.

The Litani River bisects Lebanon and runs from between 4 and 40 kilometers (2.5 - 25 miles) from the Israeli border with Lebanon.

Last Monday, Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr stated, "The army is not going to be deployed in southern Lebanon in order to disarm Hizbullah, something that Israel was unable to do in its war." The army is to be deployed, he said, "in order to protect the civilians and to maintain the achievements of the resistance [the Hizbullah]."

That sounds like fighting words to me.

According to a weekend report from Beirut in the Australian newspaper The Age, an internal document distributed among Lebanese army forces over the past week calls for troops to stand "alongside your resistance and your people who astonished the world with its steadfastness and destroyed the prestige of the so-called invincible army after it was defeated."

So Israel didn't lose the war. You can't lose a war which is not over. The war is going badly, however.

Tags: Israel, Lebanon, Hizbullah, Annan, UN