"Crisis" In Israel/Palestine/Lebanon/Syria

[Laura]

'Catastrophe' looms in Lebanon as Israel pushes offensive

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060718/wl_mideast_afp/mideastconflict_060718192710

by Nayla Razzouk Tue Jul 18, 3:31 PM ET

BEIRUT (AFP) - The United Nations warned of a humanitarian "catastrophe" in Lebanon as
Israel launched more deadly air attacks on the seventh day of an assault that has killed at least 245 and displaced half a million people.

Helicopters, ferries and cruise liners began taking foreign nationals to safety but Lebanese civilians remained trapped in a cycle of violence that has left them in fear of each new attack and their infrastructure in tatters.

"The situation is both alarming and catastrophic. There are about 500,000 people displaced already. The situation is extreme" the representative of the United Nations Children's Fund (
UNICEF) in Beirut, Roberto Laurenti, told AFP.

Lebanon's grim body count continued to mount as Israeli pressed on with its campaign to defeat fighters of the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, killing 28 people in attacks that flattened homes and hit an army barracks.

And across the border in northern Israel, a civilian was killed when a rocket hit a park in the resort of Nahariya in the latest of hundreds of rocket attacks by Hezbollah.

Prime Minister Fuad Siniora accused Israel of "committing massacres against Lebanese civilians and working to destroy everything that allows Lebanon to stay alive."

"The intensifying aggression in this barbaric way proves that Israel has decided to push Lebanon back 50 years," he said.

But Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert defended the relentless bombardment, saying it was aimed at obtaining the release of two Israeli soldiers and the disarmament of Hezbollah in line with an existing UN resolution.

He told visiting UN envoys trying to broker a ceasefire that "Israel will continue the battle against Hezbollah and will continue to strike targets belonging to the group until it obtains the release of its captured soldiers and restores the security of Israeli citizens."

Israel said it has not ruled out a massive ground offensive in a bid to crush Hezbollah, which it has branded part of an "axis of terror" along with arch-enemies Tehran and Damascus and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Amid continued fears the conflict could spiral into a regional war involving Israel's arch foes
Syria and
Iran, the Israeli army said it had destroyed four trucks travelling from Syria with weapons and munitions destined for Hezbollah fighters in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon.

"Our planes identified and destroyed these four trucks coming from Syria that were transporting weapons and munitions destined to replenish Hezbollah's stocks in south Lebanon," a spokeswoman said, adding that the contents and destination of the trucks were based on "intelligence".

Israel launched the all-out assault against Lebanon following Hezbollah's capture of two soldiers last Wednesday, battering the militant group's power base in Beirut's southern suburbs and hitting targets across the country.

The international airport has been knocked out, ports bombed, bridges destroyed, power stations set ablaze and houses turned to rubble in scenes reminiscent of the country's devastating 1975-1990 civil war.

Israel, which has sent ground troops back into Lebanon for the first time since it ended its occupation in May 2000, warned that its offensive could last at least another week -- emboldened by strong public support at home.

Foreign nations embarked on a massive operation to evacuate thousands of their nationals away from the bombing raids and devastation by air or sea to the nearby Mediterranean island of Cyprus.

Britain, which is hoping to evacuate some 5,000 of its nationals from Lebanon by the end of the week, started to pull out the first British citizens on board the destroyer HMS Gloucester.

The United States flew 120 citizens out of Beirut Tuesday on the third day of an air bridge that is to be followed by a mass evacuation by sea, amid criticism that Washington's reaction has been too slow.

Apparently agreeing to briefly halt Lebanon's sea blockade, Israel said it has made arrangements with several Western governments for a major evacuation of foreign nationals from Lebanon Wednesday involving 20 vessels.

The United Nations said it was evacuating all non-essential staff from the country.

The overall death toll now stands at at least 245, including 216 civilians and 23 soldiers, according to medics and police. More than 500 people have been wounded.

"I was at work at the time of the Israeli bombardments, and I went back home to find it in ashes," said one elderly woman who has fled her home in Beirut's southern suburbs.

"I was told to leave the area quickly, and for seven days now I've not known if my sons are under the rubble or safe somewhere."

Around 15 petrol stations have been blown up, along with fuel depots and water pumping stations. The highway from Beirut to the Syrian capital Damascus was cut on Tuesday after being repeatedly hit in recent days.

As the
European Union and the United States prepared to send envoys to the region, UN Secretary General
Kofi Annan outlined plans for an international force for Lebanon that he said should be "considerably larger" than the current 2,000-strong UN peacekeeping force.

But Israel -- which has always rejected the deployment of foreign forces in its conflict with the Palestinians -- said it was "too early" to discuss such a possibility.

The US State Department said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would travel to the region, while EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana is also preparing for a trip.

The United States has maintained Israel has every right to defend itself and also urged restraint over the offensive, which has split the international community and raised fears of dragging Syria and Iran into the conflict.

Twenty-five Israelis have been killed since last Wednesday, including 13 civilians in a barrage of Hezbollah rocket fire across the border, and 12 servicemen.

Israel's assault on Lebanon opened up another battleground after it launched a similar offensive three weeks ago against Gaza where militants are holding a third soldier.

At least 87 Palestinians and one Israeli have been killed since Israel sent troops back into the territory to try to free the captured soldier.

 

[Laura]

Lebanon's Expendable People
Mike Whitney

July 19. 2006

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m24811&hd=0&size=1&l=e

The most shocking thing about Israel's assault on Lebanon is the dispassionate precision with which the bombardment has been carried out. From bridge to granary, from granary to power plant, from power plant to factory, from factory to mosque, from mosque to hospital, from hospital to apartment building; each decimated with the calm disdain of a surgeon removing a cancerous tumor. We get no sense of rage in Israel's behavior, just the calculated savagery of men who see their duty as systematically decapitating an entire civilization and leaving it in ruins.

The destruction of Lebanon is the work of robots not men; unfeeling, remorseless bundles of skin and bone.

No one could have done what these men did in just seven days and be a part of the same human family as you and I.

So far, there is no indication that the captured Israeli soldiers have been hurt or mistreated. The leveling of a once-bustling and prosperous metropolis has been executed while the victims are still safely tucked away in some unknown hiding place. There's no purpose for Israel's rampage, the terms for release could have been negotiated in a "prisoner swap" as they have many times before. The bombing is purely a gratuitous act of violence intended to destroy a nation that just recovered from 18 years of Israeli occupation. Now Lebanon has been returned to the Stone Age.

Why?

Have the soldiers been tortured or abused as they would have been in American or Israeli care?

I hope not. I hope they are being treated well. I hope they are set free and allowed to walk southward through the scattered-rubble and body parts so they can appreciate what their leaders have done in their names. I hope they are released so that Hezbollah can claim a moral victory over the forces of inhumanity and cynicism that have infected the seats of government in Tel Aviv and Washington.

Whatever chance there may have been for peace is gone now. We have to be realistic. The next generation of Muslims will despise us and everything we stand for. No capital or city will be safe. The US and Israel are sowing dragon's teeth throughout the Middle East and their bloody harvest will come in the decades ahead. Cheney was right, this war could last 50 years and not end in our lifetime.

Lebanon was the last straw. It proves that everything Bin Laden said was true: "They have come to take your land and your resources; they have come to shame your women and disgrace your culture; they have come to humiliate you in front of your children and heap ignominy on your religion."

Where was he wrong?

Author and writer Pepe Escobar said it best: "The effect of the Israeli bombing barrage will be to draw newer, thicker waves of moderate Muslims toward political-and radical-Islam. The perception in the Arab street- as well as for most of the world's 1.4 billion Muslims-has been reinforced: the U.S./Israel axis seems to hold a license to kill Arabs with impunity." (Pepe Escobar, "Leviathan Run Amok" Asia Times)

Escobar's right. The lives of Muslims mean nothing. They've become the "expendable" people whose security simply doesn't matter. Their wholesale slaughter appears regularly on the evening news while heart-wrenching stories are spun about the suffering of Israeli fathers and mothers who lost loved ones in retaliatory attacks.

Don't Muslims have mothers and fathers? Is it so important to demonize them that they must be stripped of every trace of humanity including parents?

Where will these "expendable" people go as the world's resources continue to dry up and their homelands are increasingly besieged?

Indonesia, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Afghanistan; where will they all go? Will they be shunted off to refugee camps or live as prisoners in their own land; be shot like dogs or stand and fight until the end?

How many will chose to join the growing ranks of jihadis and resistance groups plotting and planning to strike back in any way they can? How many will figure that it's better to die on your feet than live on your knees?

Lebanon has paved the way for a century of war. It's been ravaged and its people evacuated to settle scores with Hezbollah and create a buffer zone on Israel's northern flank. The ruined lives are of no consequence. The city will be rebuilt by loans from the World Bank and IMF and the work will be contracted by Halliburton and Bechtel. We've seen it all before; the utter destruction of a society so that it can be placed in the hands of the global corporatists. Lebanon will be no exception.

Now that Israel's northern flank has been "pacified" Olmert can turn his eyes eastward towards Damascus where the ophthalmologist Bashar Al-Assad will have to be toppled to secure pipeline routes from northern Iraq to Haifa. That way Israel will become a major player in this century's resource wars and a leader in the region.

The geopolitical chess match is unfolding just as it was written years ago by neoconservatives who were dismissed at the time as radicals and lunatics. No one is laughing now. The 12 villagers who were massacred in Srifa yesterday by Israeli bombs aren't laughing nor are the parents of the 11 children who were vaporized by an Israeli missile while taking a swim in a canal at Oasmia refugee camp.

This is the calculus of human misery; the deliberate killing of innocent people to achieve political objectives. It is no different than terrorism. Bush and Olmert are two men who have absolute confidence in the ability of violence to shape behavior. They are not concerned about the rivers of blood that feed their dreams. After all, those people are "expendable."

 

[Laura]

US orders nine warships to waters off Lebanon

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060718/pl_afp/mideastconflictus_060718201447

by Jim Mannion Tue Jul 18, 2006

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States ordered nine warships to waters off the Lebanese coast amid fears of possible terrorist attacks on ships evacuating US nationals, officials said.

Though only 124 Americans have been brought out so far, the State Department defended the speed of the evacuation, calling it "highly organized, very efficient, very active."

Six days after the start of hostilities between Israel and Lebanon, the first US chartered cruise ship arrived in Beirut to pick up US citizens, and the US Navy ordered the nine ships to waters off Lebanon.

The vessels, including four amphibious assault ships now in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, will be used to bring out large numbers of Americans and provide security amid fears of terrorist attacks, said Vice Admiral Patrick Walsh, the commander of US Fifth Fleet.

"I'm concerned about attacks on ships, you bet," he told reporters here via videolink from his headquarters in Bahrain.

Ferries and cruise ships have been able to move freely between Lebanon and Cyprus so far, and the US navy has been making arrangements to hire more commercial vessels to bring out Americans, officials said.

But Walsh said, "It's prudent not to assume anything when we go into an environment like this. So we make all preparations in our planning and deliberations so we're ready for any contingency."

"That sort of scenario is something we are planning for," he said.

The first of four amphibious warships is expected to enter the eastern Mediterranean on Wednesday and the others will arrive over the course of the week, he said.

They include the helicopter carrier USS Iwo Jima, two amphibious dock landing ships, and an amphibious transport dock ship.

About 2,200 marines are aboard the Iwo Jima, including a battalion and a medium lift helicopter squadron.

Walsh said landing craft and helicopters will be used to move Americans to the safety of the amphibious warships which he said can hold about 1,000 people.

A guided missile destroyer, the USS Gonzalez, was already in the area to provide security, officials said. Other warships were coming from elsewhere in the European theater, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, Walsh said.

The Orient Queen, a Greek cruise ship hired Monday, docked in Beirut and was boarding Americans, and another chartered vessel with space for 1,400 passengers was due to arrive Wednesday, Walsh said.

"The threat level presently allows for to us move the ferry back and forth. We will take advantage of that to the maximum extent possible," he said.

"But we'll also have warships positioned strategically and tactically in order to ensure the safe and secure passage of American citizens from Lebanon to Cyprus," he said.

Until now the US evacuation has consisted of a half dozen CH-53 helicopters that have flown only 124 Americans to safety in Cyprus since Sunday.

Walsh said the mobilization of US naval forces had been ordered earlier but took time to assemble because of the distances involved, and because the marines aboard the amphibious ships were engaged in an exercise in Jordan.

France and Italy already have major evacuations underway. About 900 mostly French nationals arrived in Cyprus on Tuesday by chartered ferry from Beirut. An Italian warship brought out another 300 people Monday.

Democrats wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urging that all resources be made available for a swift evacuation of Americans.

"Reports that American citizens who have been registered with the State Department are not being evacuated immediately are enormously troubling," Senator Harry Reid, the minority leader, and senior senators Carl Levin and Ted Kennedy, said in the letter.

Representative Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, criticized the State Department for demanding that US citizens sign agreements to repay their transportation costs.

"I think we moved very fast," Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told CNN television.

"We're highly organized, very efficient, very active. We're on this one and doing a good job," he said.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the United States was in discussions to hire four or five other commercial vessels of varying size for the evacuation.

Israel has imposed a naval blockade on Lebanon, and its fighter jets have severely damaged Beirut International Airport and struck roads, bridges and other infrastructure in retaliation for the Hezbollah missile attacks on northern Israel.

The US embassy has discouraged Americans from trying to get out of the country by road to
Syria, warning of the danger of Israeli airstrikes.

The State Department estimates there are 25,000 Americans in Lebanon, and about 15,000 of them have registered with the US embassy.

Military officials said helicopters flew out 60 people on Tuesday, 43 on Monday and 21 on Sunday. Another 60 passengers were due to fly back later in the day, they said.

But the State Department was generally reserving those flights for Americans with special needs and will rely instead on chartered vessels for the bulk of evacuees, Whitman said.

 

[Borean]

Israel hints at full-scale invasion

By HUSSEIN DAKROUB, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 28 minutes ago

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Israeli troops met fierce resistance from Hezbollah guerrillas Thursday as they crossed into Lebanon to seek tunnels and weapons for a second straight day, and Israel hinted at a full-scale invasion.

Israel warned residents to "immediately" flee a nearly 20-mile swath of south Lebanon along the border. Its warplanes also launched new airstrikes on Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, shortly after daybreak, followed by strikes in the guerrillas' heartland in the south and eastern Bekaa Valley.

The planes also bombed large parts of the south, from which Hezbollah guerrillas fired more rockets into Israel. On Wednesday, Israeli bombings killed as many as 70 people, according to Lebanese television, making it the deadliest day since the fighting began July 12.

A large fight between Israeli forces and Hezbollah guerrillas broke out Thursday evening on the Lebanese side of the border, the Israeli army said, adding that its troops suffered casualties but did not elaborate. Hezbollah's Al-Manar television said three Israeli soldiers were killed and 10 wounded in fighting.

The forces crossed the border as part of ongoing operations to push back Hezbollah guerrillas who have continued firing rockets into northern Israel despite more than a week of massive bombardment.


U.N. Secretary-General

Kofi Annan told the Security Council that "hostilities must stop" between Israel and Hezbollah. He also condemned Israel's "excessive use of force" in Lebanon.

"There are serious obstacles to reaching a cease-fire or even to diminishing the violence quickly," Annan said.

The fighting had triggered a humanitarian crisis, he added. The U.N. estimated that about a half-million have been displaced in Lebanon, with 130,000 fleeing to
Syria and about 45,000 believed to be in need of assistance.

Russia sharply criticized Israel's onslaught, now in its ninth day, sparked when Hezbollah militants captured two Israeli soldiers. Moscow said Israel's actions have gone "far beyond the boundaries of an anti-terrorist operation."

At least 306 people have been killed in Lebanon since Israel's campaign began, according to Lebanese officials. At least 29 Israelis have been killed, including 14 soldiers.

About 40 U.S. Marines landed in Beirut to help Americans onto the USS Nashville, which will carry 1,200 evacuees bound for Cyprus in the second mass U.S. exodus from Lebanon. It was the first U.S. military deployment in Lebanon in 22 years.

Thousands of Europeans also fled on ships — continuing one of the largest evacuation operations since World War II. An estimated 13,000 foreign nationals have been evacuated.

More than 600 relatives of U.N. peacekeepers and other foreigners were evacuated by ship from the southern port of Tyre, a region that has been pounded for days by Israeli warplanes and gunboats.

Hezbollah guerrillas fired 25 rockets into Israel on Thursday. Although they caused no casualties, the continued rocket barrage raised the question of whether Israeli air power alone can suppress them.

The guerrillas have been fighting back hard on the ground, wounding three Israeli soldiers. An Israeli unit sent in to ambush Hezbollah guerrillas also had a fierce gunbattle with a cell of militants.

In another clash, just across the border from the Israeli town of Avivim, guerrillas fired a missile at an Israeli tank, seriously wounding a soldier. Hezbollah said its guerrillas destroyed two tanks trying to enter the Lebanese border village of Maroun al-Ras, across from Avivim.

In the Gaza Strip, where Israel has been fighting for three weeks after one of its soldiers was captured, Israeli forces killed three people and wounded six Thursday. Nine people — eight of them militants — were killed a day earlier.

Israel has mainly limited itself to attacks in Lebanon from the air and sea, reluctant to send in ground troops on terrain dominated by Hezbollah.

But an Israeli army spokesman refused to rule out the possibility of a full-scale invasion. Israel broadcast warnings Wednesday into south Lebanon, telling civilians south of the Litani River to "leave their areas immediately for their own safety" — a possible prelude to a larger ground operation.

"There is a possibility — all our options are open. At the moment, it's a very limited, specific incursion but all options remain open," Capt. Jacob Dallal, an Israeli army spokesman, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Leaflets dropped Wednesday night warned that any trucks traveling in Lebanese towns south of the Litani River would be suspected of carrying weapons and rockets and could be targeted by Israeli forces.

A Hezbollah official said it was "fully ready" for an Israeli ground offensive, dismissing Israeli claims to have destroyed half the guerrillas' arsenal of missiles. Mahmoud Koumati, deputy leader of Hezbollah's political bureau, told the Lebanese Broadcasting Corp. the group has enough missiles to fight Israel for "long months."

The Lebanese government is under international pressure to deploy troops in the south to rein in Hezbollah — but even before the fighting, many considered it too weak to do so without deeply fracturing the country.

On Wednesday, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora appealed for a cease-fire, saying Lebanon "has been torn to shreds."

Dallal said Israel had hit "1,000 targets in the last eight days — 20 percent were missile-launching sites and the rest were control and command centers, missiles and so forth."

Brig. Gen. Ido Nehushtan insisted the Israeli army never targets civilians but has no way of knowing if they are in an area it is striking. "Civilians might be in the area because Hezbollah is operating from civilian territory," he said.

He said that Hezbollah has fired more than 1,100 rockets at civilian areas in Israel since the fighting began and that 12 percent — or about 750,000 people — of Israel's population lives in areas that can be targeted by the guerrillas.

The Israeli military said aircraft dropped 23 tons of explosives on what it believed was a bunker for senior Hezbollah leaders in the Bourj al-Barajneh neighborhood of Beirut between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. Wednesday.

Hezbollah said none of its members was hurt and denied a leadership bunker was in the area, saying a mosque under construction was hit. It has a headquarters compound in Bourj al-Barajneh that is off limits to Lebanese police and army, so security officials could not confirm the strike.

Israel's U.N. Ambassador Dan Gillerman told CNN his country would not comment about the attack until it is sure of all the facts. But he added, "I can assure you that we know exactly what we hit. ... This was no religious site. This was indeed the headquarters of the Hezbollah leadership."

On Thursday, Israeli jets struck houses believed used by Hezbollah officials in the town of Hermel in the western Bekaa Valley, wounding at least three.

Israeli warplanes also destroyed a five-story residential and commercial building that reportedly once held a Hezbollah office in the Bekaa Valley city of Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold, witnesses said. There was no immediate word on casualties.

Two civilians were killed late Wednesday in strikes on bridges in Lebanon's far north, near Tripoli, the National News Agency said.

Israeli jets also raided a detention center in the southern town of Khiam Thursday, witnesses and local TV said. The notorious Khiam prison, formerly run by Israel's Lebanese militia allies during its occupation, was destroyed, they said.

International pressure mounted on Israel and the United States to agree to a cease-fire.

The destruction and rising death toll deepened a rift between the U.S. and Europe. The Bush administration is giving Israel a tacit green light to take the time it needs to neutralize Hezbollah, but the Europeans fear mounting civilian casualties will play into the hands of militants and weaken Lebanon's democratically elected government.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour criticized the rising toll, saying the shelling was invariably killing innocent civilians.

"International law demands accountability," she said in Geneva. "The scale of the killings in the region, and their predictability, could engage the personal criminal responsibility of those involved, particularly those in a position of command and control."


_____

 

[Laura]

Consider the source...

Lebanese Army may join forces with Hizbullah
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1153291959920&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

By JPOST.COM STAFF


The Lebanese Minister of Defense warned Israel Thursday that if IDF ground forces are sent into southern Lebanon, Lebanese troops will fight along with the Hizbullah against Israel.

 

[Ruth]

I wonder how long it will take for Iran to enter the fray? It seems to be the only country in the area that can give Israel a good 'walloping' and I get the feeling that it is being considered and quite soon may become a reality. I wonder if Israel realises that it is sacrificing itself, and the cost that they will pay? If Iran loses its temper and attacks Israel, many Arab States (not to mention a whole lot of people the Israelis consider 'expendible') will get wiped off the map. It begs the question of whether the US actually considers Israelis expendible... Perhaps it does. I suppose the US might consider a Middle Eastern conflict an 'easy' way of obtaining land, perhaps when all the radiation has died down...

 

[Laura]

Russia Criticizes Israel for Offensive

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/07/20/D8IVPE9G1.html

By ANTON TROIANOVSKI
Associated Press Writer

MOSCOW

Russia on Thursday sharply criticized Israel for its offensive against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, saying it went "far beyond the boundaries of an anti-terrorist operation" and repeating calls for an immediate cease-fire.

The Foreign Ministry said Russia affirms the need to fight terrorism and called for the immediate release of captive Israeli soldiers, but it added that "the unprecedented scale of the casualties and destruction" in Lebanon indicates that Israel is using too much force.

The comment echoed a statement by President Vladimir Putin, who said while hosting a summit of the Group of Eight nations Saturday that Russia had the impression Israel was "pursuing wider goals" than the return of abducted soldiers.

While G-8 leaders cobbled together a statement on the Mideast conflict in a bid to display unity, the criticism of Israel and the cease-fire call contrasted with the U.S. stance. Washington has rejected calls for an immediate cease-fire and blamed Hezbollah for the conflict's intensity.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said "international humanitarian law" demands that strikes be launched only against military targets, even if there are suspicions that civilian facilities could be used to support military actions.

Russia has consistently rejected Western accusations that it has used too much force during its wars against rebels in Chechnya, in which thousands of civilians have been killed. The Kremlin refers to the conflict in Chechnya as an anti-terrorist operation.

The statement also echoed Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's calls for an immediate cease-fire, saying it was a "first step that cannot be delayed." The United States has said Israel has the right to defend itself and that what is needed is a "meaningful" cease-fire.

A cease-fire would allow civilians to safely leave areas affected by the fighting, the ministry said.

Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Saltanov met Thursday in Damascus with Syrian President Bashar Assad, who said Syria was prepared to help promote a cease-fire, according to another Foreign Ministry statement.

But Israel's ambassador to Russia rejected the notion of an immediate cease-fire, saying it would not end the Hezbollah threat.

"Let's say a cease-fire is declared tomorrow _ 8,000 rockets will continue to threaten Israel," Ambassador Arkady Mil-Man told a news conference. "The essence of Hezbollah won't change overnight."

Mil-Man also underscored Israel's friendship with Russia, while criticizing Russia for not recognizing Hezbollah and Hamas as terrorist organizations.

"We believe it's wrong and it's not helping things," Mil-Man said of Russia's position.

Russia is prepared to provide Lebanon with urgent humanitarian aid, the Foreign Ministry said.

It also said that Russia hoped the U.N. Security Council would take a broad approach to the growing crisis, warning that "it is unlikely to be successfully overcome" if efforts to tackle the problem do not encompass all its aspects.

 

[Ryan]

But Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert defended the relentless bombardment, saying it was aimed at obtaining the release of two Israeli soldiers and the disarmament of Hezbollah in line with an existing UN resolution.

*cough* *choke* *splutter*

Say WHAT!?!?! How many UN resolutions is Israel in violation of again?

Mind-bending acrobatics of hypocrisy are all in a day's work for the psychopath.

 

[Alada]

The cover of today's Independent speaks volumes, the three lone flags of Israel, the US and UK set against the rest of world opinion. Yet from reading various mindless comments on news sites and blogs, most who repeat the insane opinions created for them by the psychopaths have no idea that they or their politicians hold such a minority view of reality.

This imbalance can be seen elsewhere now too, for example in the "have your say" feedback comments on BBC news website, the vast majority now are voicing their anger against this appalling madness. Having said that, click on "readers recommended" comments on the issue, where you can 'vote' and comments are compiled into a chart, the first page of results is heavily skewed toward the Israeli point of view, the most on this page have been the same for days, yet most people do not seem to agree with this point of view, go figure.

Noticeable over the last couple of days on Sky 24hr News of all places, when they have had invited guests in to discuss the next days newspapers, the guests seem much more to reflect what the majority seem to think as represented by the comments to the BBC, they point out the madness, the disproportionate measure of the Israeli actions, they question the civilian casualties and whether this can be right. Seems when normal people discuss the issue, the perception that it is wrong is clear. It has not been across the board, but enough to be noticeable, and far cry from the reporting you then find either side of said discussions as the program slide from what one assumes is the approved Sky editorial line.

 

[Windmill knight]

Say WHAT!?!?! How many UN resolutions is Israel in violation of again?

Mind-bending acrobatics of hypocrisy are all in a day's work for the psychopath.

Not to mention that in 1996 Israel bombed a UN compound in the south of Lebanon!! Why? Oh, because some civilians were given refuge in there, that's why! Imagine if it had been an Arab country doing the bombing!

Oh-oh, hold on... It just happened again!!:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060721/ap_on_re_mi_ea/lebanon_israel

U.N. post hit in Israel-Hezbollah fighting

By SAM F. GHATTAS, Associated Press Writer 7 minutes ago

BEIRUT, Lebanon - A U.N.-run observation post near the border took a direct hit Friday during fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militants. Israel resumed airstrikes on Lebanon and prepared for a possible ground invasion, warning people in the south to flee.

The Israeli army said Hezbollah rockets hit the U.N. post near Zarit, just inside Israel, but a U.N. officer said it was an artillery shell fired by the Israeli Defense Force. The facility was severely damaged, but nobody was injured as the Ghanian troops manning the post were inside bomb shelters at the time of the strike, the U.N. official said. (...)

And the ground troops are coming:

Israel appears to have decided that a large-scale incursion across the border was the only way to push Hezbollah back after 10 days of the heaviest bombardment of Lebanon in 24 years failed to do so. But mounting civilian casualties and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Lebanese could limit the amount of time Israel has to achieve its goals, as international tolerance for the bloodshed and destruction runs out.

Top Israeli officials met Thursday night to decide how big a force to send in, according to senior military officials. They said Israel won't stop its offensive until Hezbollah is forced behind the Litani River, 20 miles north of the border - creating a new buffer zone in a region that saw 18 years of Israeli presence since 1982.

Israel has stepped up its small forays over the border in recent days, seeking Hezbollah positions, rocket stores and bunkers. Each time it has faced tough resistance from the guerrillas.

(...)

In preparation for a more powerful punch deeper into Lebanon, an Israeli military radio station that broadcasts into the south issued what it called "a strict warning" that Israeli forces would "act immediately" to halt Hezbollah rocket fire.

"It will act in word and deed inside the villages of the south against these aggressive terrorist acts. Therefore all residents of south Lebanon south of the Litani must leave their areas immediately for their own safety," the message in Arabic on the Al-Mashriq station said.

 

[Joe]

Guess what! According to Israeli foreign minister and raving psychopath, Livni, Lebanese civilians are all terrorists, why, they have ROCKETS under their beds!! This woman needs to be kicked off a cliff, for the sake of humanity.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/19/world/middleeast/19israel.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all&oref=login

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said, "Proportionality is not compared to the event, but to the threat, and the threat is bigger and wider than the captured soldiers."

Israel is confronting a regional threat, she and the government argue, which begins with Iran and Syria and their proxy, Hezbollah, and stretches to the radical Islamic Palestinian group Hamas.

Nor does Israel deliberately single out civilians, she argued, as Hezbollah and Hamas do through rocket attacks and suicide bombings. Intent matters, she said.

But in Gaza and Lebanon, civilians are inevitably harmed when militants hide among them. And in Lebanon, she said, some of the dead may be civilians associated with Hezbollah, assisting it or storing its rockets.

"Terrorists use the population and live among them," Ms. Livni said. "It's difficult to target like a surgery. Unfortunately, civilians sometimes pay the price of giving shelter to terrorists." Under pressure or not, she said, citing Israeli intelligence, many civilians in southern Lebanon have Katyusha and other rockets under their beds.

And now thousands of Israeli troops are going to invade lebanon. Remember Sabra and Shatila, remember you thought that such carnage and inhumanity would never happen again....just wait.

 

[domi]

And now thousands of Israeli troops are going to invade lebanon. Remember Sabra and Shatila, remember you thought that such carnage and inhumanity would never happen again....just wait.

Talk about your biblical plague of locusts!

 

[Joe]

South Lebanon, Has Become A Killing Zone

Grim proof ordinary folk are dying in the killing zone

By Ed O'Loughlin

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/grim-proof-ordinary-folk-are-dying-in-the-killing-zone/2006/07/19/1153166454900.html

07/20/06 "SMH" -- -- PARKED outside the small general hospital in Tyre is a badly refrigerated lorry container in which are stacked the bodies of 91 Lebanese civilians, 55 of them children.

The bodies have been placed inside black plastic rubbish bags and labelled in anticipation of the time, days or weeks from now, when their surviving relatives - if any - can come to collect them.

"It's a disaster. It's making me cry," the hospital's director, Dr Salman Zeineddine said. "We can't move them anywhere else. Since the attacks came I've been trying to get wounded out of Beit Jbeil and I can't. How could I get critical patients to Beirut, much less move dead people?"

Since Israel began bombing and shelling south Lebanon last Wednesday, about 380 patients have passed through this 65-bed hospital, plus the 91 dead.

Not one of the victims, he says, has been a member of Hezbollah, the militia group that triggered Israel's onslaught with a border raid last week.

"The army and Hezbollah - I don't care if they kill all of them," he said. "But the civilians - it's very hard. Everyone who has come in here has been a civilian."

Even as he spoke, another volley of ordnance - perhaps shells fired from a ship, perhaps missiles from a helicopter - was crashing to earth a block away. Tyre, with the whole of south Lebanon, has become a killing zone.

While the Israeli Defence Force claims that it does its best to avoid harming civilians, it insists on its right to attack the terrorists who, it says, are using the population as "human shields". Its list of self-declared legitimate targets expanded yesterday to include all trucks south of the Litani River and all "structures used by terrorists".

Yesterday morning aircraft even attacked two trucks in the heart of Christian east Beirut that were reportedly carrying well-digging equipment.

Judging by the list of actual targets hit so far, what Israeli security experts term "the target bank" includes, in practice, civilian homes, minibuses and cars, as terrified families try to run away.

No one in south Lebanon feels safe. Streets and roads are almost deserted, and the few cars still daring to flee north out of Tyre career towards Beirut at breakneck speed, filled with frightened women and children waving white rags at the sky.

Bombing intensified yesterday morning - massive aerial bombs working up and down among the houses on a ridge line to the south, while closer to town sporadic bombs and rockets sent up clouds of debris and plumes of smoke.

There was no answering fire: Tyre is too far north to be a suitable launch site for Hezbollah missiles targeting Israel, and the city has no defence against air attack.

The bombs always strike without warning. The constant sound of jets and unmanned drones overhead, out of sight in the hazy sky, makes it impossible to know an attack has been launched until the earth suddenly convulses and - a moment or two later - the concussion strikes.

Yesterday the Israelis dropped leaflets across the region to "ensure the safety of Lebanese civilian population". A statement said: "The leaflets are intended to warn the Lebanese public to stay clear of areas from which rockets are launched against Israel, as these will be targeted by the [Israeli Defence Force] and civilians present in those areas are endangering their lives."

 

[Ben]

The only good thing about this mess is the opportunity to create some MASSIVE cognitive dissonance among our peers when they find themselves unable to explain how a military force equipped by the richest and most technologically advanced nation on Earth is unable to conduct its operations without a RIDICULOUS ratio of civilian to military casualties. Even then Fox News might put their mind at rest when it inists that militants are hiding among the civilian communities - but Israel can see them of course, hiding under the bed or clinging to the underside of that truck!

Disgusting.

 

[Justin]

The only good thing about this mess is the opportunity to create some MASSIVE cognitive dissonance among our peers when they find themselves unable to explain how a military force equipped by the richest and most technologically advanced nation on Earth is unable to conduct its operations without a RIDICULOUS ratio of civilian to military casualties. Even then Fox News might put their mind at rest when it inists that militants are hiding among the civilian communities - but Israel can see them of course, hiding under the bed or clinging to the underside of that truck!

Unfortunately, the explanation for so many civilian casualties probably will be handled by the MSM with some kind of plausible lie like you suggested. Or maybe the MSM does not even need to explain how the best military equipment can be causing so many civilian deaths. They can just fail to report on civilian casualty numbers or report lies. Or they can continue to focus on the Israeli casualties, mostly ignoring the Lebanese civilian casualties.

All of this is so disgusting and awful. It makes me nauseous every time I read the latest news.