LATEST NEWS - Israel/Lebanon (Graphic Images) [Archive] - Page 4

DeltaWhisky58

08-02-2006, 09:55 AM

Delays hit Lebanese relief effort

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Humanitarian aid did manage to reach the shattered town of Qana

Convoys carrying humanitarian aid for south Lebanon have been stranded in the capital Beirut and other towns, in the absence of safe passage guarantees.

Two World Food Programme convoys and four carrying International Committee of the Red Cross supplies were unable to proceed on Tuesday.
Aid officials say isolated communities in the south, where Israel is battling Hezbollah, are particularly vulnerable.
Bomb damage to roads and traffic jams hamper those convoys which do move out.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/shared/img/o.gifhttp://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/start_quote_rb.gif It is absolutely apparent that the Israelis don't let us into areas where they intend to engage in military activity http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/end_quote_rb.gif
Robin Lodge
World Food Programme

Israeli bombardment has "systematically destroyed almost the entire road network", Mona Hammam, United Nations resident co-ordinator for Lebanon, told BBC News.
She told the World At One programme that the UN was asking for humanitarian corridors to bring in supplies.
"For each cargo there has to be a notification system to ensure that that road can be used and will not be targeted," she said.
Aid agencies' hopes rose on Monday after Israel declared a partial truce for humanitarian reasons but fighting continued in the south on Tuesday.
Some foreign aid has been entering Lebanon through Beirut airport and Tyre's sea port while UN aid has been arriving by land from Syria, through the Arida border crossing.

Family parcels

Annick Bouvier, spokeswoman for the ICRC in Geneva, confirmed that four convoys, each of between three and four lorries, had been unable to leave on Tuesday after failing to receive security assurances from the Israeli military.

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Aid is currently handed over directly to local authorities

Two are stuck in the port of Tyre, where an ICRC cargo ship docked on Sunday, and the other two are in Marjayoun.
An ICRC lorry typically carries 500 "family parcels", each of which is designed to feed a family for a week, Ms Bouvier said.
There is also fuel for village water pumps, and sanitary aid and, once empty, the lorries are meant to evacuate civilians from the relief areas.
In a press release, the WFP said only one of three convoys intended for south Lebanon had been able to leave on Tuesday.
Amer Daoudi, WFP emergency coordinator, said frustration was mounting that people had been stranded without aid in the south for nearly three weeks, many of them poor, sick or elderly.
"We have no time to waste - they are running out of food, water and medicine," he added.

Long trip south

Robin Lodge, a WFP press officer, accompanied an aid convoy from Beirut to Tyre on Monday.

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The journey took 10.5 hours instead of the usual 90 minutes because of damage to the main roads and traffic jams caused by the continuing movement of refugees.
On Tuesday morning, Mr Lodge was on the first WFP convoy from Tyre into Qana, where Israeli bombing killed at least 54 people in a house on Sunday.
Qana appeared deserted when the convoy's five lorries arrived but their cargo of flour and vegetable oil as well as medical and water purification supplies was delivered successfully to the municipal authorities, he told the BBC News website on his way back to Beirut.
The WFP, he said, would be happier to have non-governmental organisations helping with distribution but they had been hampered by problems of their own in obtaining clearance to operate.
No WFP convoys had so far come under attack.
Their movements were reported to the Israeli military and to Hezbollah, and the lorries were marked with UN symbols on their tarpaulin which should be visible to Israeli air pilots, Mr Lodge said.
Hezbollah had so far approved all WFP convoy requests, he added, while the Israelis had responded with a simple "Yes" or "No" without giving any reason.
"It is absolutely apparent that the Israelis don't let us into areas where they intend to engage in military activity," he said. The WFP spokesman added that air drops of aid were a last resort and were not being contemplated in Lebanon at this time - nor was the option of delivering aid from the Israeli side of the border "feasible at this stage".

BBC News Online (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5235768.stm)

Irish_Army01

08-02-2006, 10:09 AM

One News: Mary Calpin reports that more Hezbollah missiles have been landing on cities and towns in northern Israel http://www.rte.ie/news/images/video_sml_but.gif (http://dynamic.rte.ie/av/2162254.smil)

Beaufort

08-02-2006, 10:18 AM

Halutz: Capturing guerillas was not initial goal

By JPOST.COM STAFF (updates@jpost.com)

"The operation harmed those that had threatened us," IDF Chief of the General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz commented on Tuesday night's Baalbek raid.

Halutz spoke of the raid that lasted several hours and involved both air and ground operations.

"The final outcome of the operation is not yet quite clear because we collected materials that must be analyzed," the general said on Wednesday afternoon.

"I have no doubt that more advantages from this operation will be discovered," the general continued, "this was part of the larger-scale operation, and we will continue such actions if necessary. Capturing people was not our initial objective."

The IDF captured five Hizbullah guerrillas and killed at least 10 in a commando raid in Lebanon, Halutz said. He confirmed that the five were being questioned.

Asked in an Associated Press interview who was captured in the raid, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said "tasty fishes" were among those seized.
Hizbullah denied those captured belonged to the guerrilla group. "Those who were taken prisoner are citizens. It will not be long before the (Israeli) enemy will discover that they are ordinary citizens," Hizbullah said in a statement broadcast on its Al-Manar television.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1153292059325&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Snoshi

08-02-2006, 10:23 AM

At least 10 Hizbullah terrorists have been taken out by IDF in the fighting today.

5 IDF troops sustained injuries, one of the soldiers is in critical condition while others sustained light injuries.
http://www.newsru.co.il/mideast/02aug2006/libnan.html

daily666

08-02-2006, 10:46 AM

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via
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Israel sends 10,000 troops into Lebanon

By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer
1 minute ago

BOURJ AL-MULOUK, Lebanon -
Israel pressed the first full day of a massive new ground attack, sending 10,000 troops into southern Lebanon on Wednesday and seizing five people it said were Hezbollah fighters in a dramatic airborne raid on a northeastern town. Hezbollah retaliated with its deepest strikes yet into Israel, firing a record number of more than 160 rockets.
Diplomatic efforts faltered, with France saying it will not participate in a Thursday U.N. meeting that could send troops to help monitor a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah. France, which may join or even lead such a force, said it does not want to talk about sending peacekeepers until fighting halts and the
U.N. Security Council agrees to a wider framework for lasting peace.

Israeli commandos flew in by helicopter before dawn into the northern town of Baalbek, on the border with
Syria, capturing five Hezbollah guerrillas and killing at least 10, said Israel's army chief, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz.

Witnesses said Israeli forces partially destroyed the Dar al-Hikma hospital in Baalbek, where chief Hezbollah spokesman Hussein Rahal said fierce fighting raged for more than one hour.

Israel has not yet released the identity of those captured. When asked by The Associated Press whether any were "big fish," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said: "They are tasty fishes."

A Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give official statements to the media, said that Israeli troops captured "four or five" people, but not at the hospital.

He denied they were Hezbollah fighters, saying one was a 60-year-old grocery store owner and two relatives who work in construction.

The hospital, which residents said is financed by an Iranian charity that is close to Hezbollah, was empty of patients at the time of the raid, the guerrilla group said.

Olmert said that, although the scene of the fighting is called a hospital, "there are no patients there and there is no hospital, this is a base of the Hezbollah in disguise."

Hezbollah fought the commandos with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, while Israeli jets fired missiles at the surrounding guerrilla force, Rahal said.

One of a series of air raids struck the village of Al Jamaliyeh near the hospital. A missile hit the house of the village's mayor, Hussein Jamaleddin, instantly killing his son, brother, and five other relatives.

"Where is the press? Where is the media to see this massacre? Count our dead. Count our body parts," Jamaleddin told The Associated Press on the telephone, minutes after the missile strike.

A family of seven — a mother, father and their five children — were killed in another air raid on an area near Al Jamaliyeh, witnesses said. A van driver was killed when another missile struck nearby.

Fighting ended at about 4 a.m., residents said.

Hezbollah guerrillas hit back, firing at least 160 rockets at towns across northern Israel, wounding at least 17 people and killing a 52-year-old Boston-born Israeli at the entrance to his home in Kibbutz Sa'ar , Israeli police said.

An Associated Press reporter standing on a hilltop overlooking the Lebanese border town of Kfar Kila, within 2 kilometers from Israel, saw dozens of outgoing rockets fly overhead and across the Israeli border. Israeli artillery was returning fire, with a shell falling about every two minutes.

Israel medics said one of the rockets hit near the town of Beit Shean, about 42 miles inside Israel, the deepest rocket strike into Israel so far. Witnesses reported that a Hezbollah rocket hit the
West Bank for the first time, striking between the villages of Fakua and Jalboun, near Beit Shean.

Israeli jets fired at least one missile at a Lebanese army base in the village of Sarba, in the Iqlim al Tuffah province, a highland region where Hezbollah is believed to have offices and bases. One soldier was killed, bringing to 26 the number of Lebanese soldiers killed since the start of the Israeli offensive against Lebanon on July 12, when Hezbollah guerrillas seized two soldiers and killed three.

The Lebanese military has largely stayed out of the three-week-old conflict, though has said it will fight if Israel launches a wide-scale invasion, and Israeli warplanes have repeatedly attacked soldiers. It was not clear what prompted the airstrike on the army base.

In an incident denied by the Israeli military, Hezbollah said in a statement that it had attacked an Israeli army armored unit that crossed into Lebanon on Wednesday morning, destroying two tanks and killing or wounding their crews.

Israel wants to push Hezbollah away from the border, so Israeli patrols and civilians there are not in danger of attack. The army hopes to drive Hezbollah far enough north so that most of the guerrillas' rockets cannot reach the Jewish state.

Israeli officials have said their soldiers were to go as far as the Litani, about 18 miles from the border, and hold the ground until an international peacekeeping force comes ashore.

In Geneva, the U.N.'s World Food Program said Israel had agreed to permit two oil tankers to sail into Lebanon to ease a growing fuel crisis in the country.

At least 540 Lebanese have been killed, including 468 civilians and 26 Lebanese soldiers and at least 46 Hezbollah guerrillas. The health minister says the toll could be as high as 750, including those still buried in rubble or missing. Fifty-five Israelis have died — 36 soldiers and 19 civilians killed in Hezbollah rocket attacks.

The
United Nations warned that the longer a spill of 110,000 barrels of oil is not cleaned up from Lebanon's coast, the more severe the environmental impact will be. The oil spilled two weeks ago after Israeli warplanes hit a coastal power plant.

daily666

08-02-2006, 10:48 AM

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Hezbollah launches rocket onslaught on Israel

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- A Hezbollah rocket on Wednesday struck farther south than ever before, Israeli police said, part of a barrage of at least 110 rockets aimed across northern Israel that killed one Israeli and injured 15 others.

The rocket landed in the Palestinian-controlled West Bank between Faqua and Jelaboun, police said.

The number of rockets launched Wednesday from southern Lebanon is much higher than the daily average fired at the Jewish state since fighting began three weeks ago, police said.

But Arabic-language media, including Hezbollah's Al Manar TV, report that 200 to 300 rockets have landed inside Israel.

Hezbollah has peppered northern Israel with more than 1,000 rockets since the two sides began trading attacks last month.

One Katyusha rocket killed an Israeli at a kibbutz north of Nahariya, Israeli officials said.

Police said 15 people were injured, but none seriously.

Twenty-nine rockets hit inside the northern Israeli towns of Nahariya, Safed, Tiberias, Kiryat Shmona, Carmiel, Maalot as well as in upper Galilee, including some that struck homes.

Air raid sirens could be heard in Afula, Beit Shean and Nazareth. The Israeli navy also sounded sirens in the harbor at Haifa, Israel's third-largest city.

The rocket onslaught came as Israel Defense Forces stepped up its offensive against Hezbollah, raiding an eastern Lebanese hospital in Baalbeck overnight that the IDF said was a base for militant fighters.

Israeli forces killed 10 militants and captured five others in the assault on the Baalbeck facility, according Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, the Israeli army's chief of staff. No Israeli forces were injured in the raid, he said.

Lebanese security forces said 16 people died and 13 were wounded in the attack.

Hezbollah fighters were using the hospital and surrounding area as a logistical base, housing many leaders, Halutz said.

Israeli forces seized intelligence information in the hospital, Halutz said. The IDF also reportedly destroyed a large supply of missiles.

"There are no patients there; there is no hospital," Israeli Prime Minister Olmert Ehud Olmert said. "This is the basis of Hezbollah in disguise. It's named a hospital precisely to mislead you and others that will consider it a place no army will intervene with."

Israeli jets also pounded a Lebanese army position west of Sidon and south of Beirut, killing one soldier and injuring several others, according to the Lebanese army. (Watch Lebanese racing to get out of range -- 1:51)

The Israeli military said an estimated 25,000 soldiers are operating in nine southern Lebanese villages near the Syrian border as part of its campaign to disarm Hezbollah.

As of Wednesday, 570 Lebanese civilians and soldiers have died and 2,131 have been wounded in the Israel's bombardment of Lebanon, Lebanese security forces.

Israel has reported 55 deaths -- including 19 civilians -- and 580 injuries during the conflict, according to the IDF.

Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon said Tuesday that the military campaign has wiped out 300 of the estimated 2,000 Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon.

"Hezbollah has taken a serious beating, and that is why the pressure of a ground offensive will produce the expected results," Ramon told Israeli Channel 10.

Arabic-language networks reported that Hezbollah denied Ramon's assertions.

Israeli attacks on the Lebanese infrastructure have caused $2 billion worth of damage, said a spokesman for the Lebanese Ministry of Transportation and Public Works.

However, the figure does not include financial losses in tourism and damage to buildings.
Northernmost drive

The Israeli operation in Baalbeck represented the Jewish state's northernmost drive into Lebanon. The push into Baalbeck, some 70 miles (112 kilometers) north of the Israeli border in the Bekaa Valley, comes a day after the Israeli Security Cabinet approved an expansion of the Lebanon campaign. (Watch as Israel presses north -- 3:06)

Israeli troops hit the ground about 6 miles (10 kilometers) north of Baalbeck late Tuesday as fighter jets and helicopters flew support missions in the sky near the eastern Lebanese town, Lebanese security sources said.

The Lebanese army also reported heavy helicopter traffic east and west of the town.

Israeli soldiers also engaged in heavy fighting Tuesday with Hezbollah fighters inside southern Lebanon.

Olmert said Tuesday that conditions are not yet right for a cease-fire because the military campaign is successfully disarming Hezbollah.

"Every single additional day is a day which erodes the strength of this cruel enemy," Olmert told graduates from the National Security College near Tel Aviv.

"Every additional day is a day when the Israeli military ... reduces their firing power and their future ability to hit at us."

In its quest to create a security buffer to protect northern Israel from rockets, the Israeli military said it wanted to push Hezbollah fighters back to the Litani River, which is about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the Israeli border.

Ramon said Israeli military forces have said they need at least another month "to accomplish their goals."

Israel began its operations after Hezbollah militants crossed into northern Israel and captured two soldiers on July 12.

CNN's Anthony Mills and Paula *******s contributed to this report.

Irish_Army01

08-02-2006, 11:07 AM

http://news.sky.com/skynews/video/videoplayer/0,,30000-syrian_020806,00.html

Snoshi

08-02-2006, 11:15 AM

Jazeera correspondent : Israeli troops controlled the village Alaouidh are stationed on the road to Al-Kafr

wubanga101

08-02-2006, 11:26 AM

Lebanese report: Hezbollah planted disabled children in basement to dieBy Israel Insider staff and partners August 1, 2006 A French language Lebanese publication, citing an unnamed source in Hezbollah, has claimed that the organization placed a rocket launcher on the roof of the notorious building in Qana to provoke an Israeli attack and brought invalid children inside to serve as victims and blacken Israel's name.

The Lebanese magazine LIBANOSCOPIE (http://www.libanoscopie.com/fulldoc.asp?doccode=994&cat=2), associated with Christian elements which support the anti-Syrian movement called the "March 14 Forces," report that Hizbullah masterminded a plan that would result in the killing of innocents in Qana, in an attempt to foil Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's "Seven Points Plan" calling for deployment of the Lebanese army in southern Lebanon and the disarming of Hizbullah. The magazine reported:
http://web.israelinsider.com/Static/Images/transparent.gif
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Meanwhile, the Lebanese Red Cross reported on Monday that only 28 bodies, 19 of them children, were removed from the rubble. The count is half that of the 50-60 bodies still being reported by news agencies, quoting Lebanese security officials.

http://web.israelinsider.com/Static/Images/transparent.gifhttp://web.israelinsider.com/Static/Images/transparent.gif"We have it from a credible source that Hezbollah, alarmed by Siniora's plan, has concocted an incident that would help thwart the negotiations.... Hezbollah gunmen placed a rocket launcher on the roof in Qana and brought disabled children inside, in a bid to provoke a response by the Israeli Air Force. In this way, they were planning to take advantage of the death of innocents and curtail the diplomatic initiative," the site stated.

The site's editors claimed that Hezbollah staged the event because of Qana's symbolic significance: "They used Qana because the village had already turned into a symbol for massacring innocent civilians, and so they set up 'Qana 2'." The incident has indeed been dubbed "The second Qana massacre" by the Arab media.

The scenario described, which has yet to be confirmed by a named source, would explain the fact that the victims were not residents of the building and also the disproportionate number of small children and the lack of adult males among them.

Meanwhile, the Lebanese Red Cross reported on Monday that only 28 bodies, 19 of them children, were removed from the rubble. The count is half that of the 50-60 bodies still being reported by news agencies, quoting Lebanese security officials.

Israel Insider was among the first publications to draw attention to mounting evidence of a "Hezbollywood" production (http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Diplomacy/8997.htm) in which the terror group used children as sacrificial lambs to blacken Israel's image and turn world opinion against the Jewish State.

F***ING COWARDS!!!

~WU~

Clarsachier

08-02-2006, 11:38 AM

Why Do They Hate Us? Listen to Qana (Again)

Birth Pangs or Death Throes?

By JONATHAN COOK

Counterpunch

July 31, 2006

The crowds in Beirut last year demanding a Cedar Revolution, "the first shoots of democracy" supposedly planted by the United States, are a distant memory. Yesterday we saw in their place the fury of Lebanon directed against the capital's United Nations building -- an early "birth pang" in Condoleeza Rice's new Middle East.

If Israel wanted to widen its war, it could not have chosen a better way to achieve it than by sending its war planes back to the mixed Muslim and Christian village of Qana in south Lebanon to massacre civilians there, as if marking a morbid anniversary. A decade ago, Israeli shelling on the village killed more than 100 Lebanese civilians sheltering in a local UN post.

To the Lebanese, and most in the Arab world, the United Nations now symbolises everything that is corrupt about the international community and its "conscience". The world body, it has become clearer by the day, is a mere plaything of the United States and, by default, of Israel too. It is nothing more than a talking shop, one so enfeebled that it lacks the moral backbone even to denouce unequivocally the murder of four of its unarmed observers by the Israeli army last week. How can Lebanon expect protection for its civilians from an international body as emasculated as this?

The rage we saw directed against the United Nations building in Beirut, as if we needed reminding, will be converted in time into more violence against the West, to more 9/11s and to more London and Madrid bombings. Will these attacks wake up the slumbering Western publics to stop their leaders engineering a global war, or will more of us simply be persuaded that the Arab world is fundamentally irrational and savage?

Why do they hate us? Qana provides the answers but it appears few in the West are really listening.

All morning when Arab channels were showing the crushed building in Qana, and the Red Crescent workers extracting from under it more than 60 bodies, mostly children, embalmed in blood and dust, Israel was showing family movies on its main television networks.

Foreign channels were hardly better. It is in the first responses of the Western broadcasters -- before they have had time to hone and polish their scripts and cover all the bases -- that their partisan agenda is at its most transparent. So all morning their attention was directed less at the new Qana massacre than at the destruction of the UN building in Beirut, as though it was our last rampart against the rampaging hordes of Islam. In this framing of the world, our provocative acts appear so much less significant than the mystifying response, the Other's delusional anger.

Noticeably, our news anchors were careful to avoid referring to the massacre of Lebanese children at Qana as "an escalation" by Israel. That word, intoned so solemnly when eight Israeli railway workers were killed by a Hizbullah rocket in Haifa a fortnight ago, was not uttered on this occasion. According to our media, when we suffer, it is an escalation demanding retaliation; when they suffer, maybe it is time to begin talks about talks about a ceasefire.

BBC World's presenter in Beirut, Lyse Doucet, personifies this moral blindness. She chided Lebanese speaker after speaker for the crowds attacking the UN building. "Why are they doing this when the UN is trying to broker a ceasefire?" she demanded in bafflement of each. The headlines at 11am GMT even began with her quoting an expression of regret she had extracted from a Hizbullah MP for the attack on the Beirut building, as though amid all that morning's carnage the destruction of UN property was the real issue.

This presumably is what our media mean when they talk about "balance".

Jim Muir, the BBC's fine reporter in Tyre, observed in the same broadcast that it was non-combatants who were paying the price in this war, and that the majority of the dead on both sides were civilian. Where did he get that idea? In Israel, the great majority of dead are soldiers, but you would hardly know it listening to our media. In the same spirit, Jonathan Charles in Haifa observed that it had been "a difficult day" for both countries, adding -- in case we could not fathom what he meant -- that Israel had faced a hard day on the diplomatic front. What lengths our broadcasters must go to to remain even-handed when we massacre innocence.

Israel, as usual, can be relied on to defend the indefensible. A government spokeswoman told the BBC in another easy-ride interview that the army would never target an area if it knew Lebanese civilians were there. Then she performed a somersault of logic several times by arguing in her country's defence that the army knows Hizbullah hides behind civilians. If she is right, then even as the pilot fired on the Hizbullah fighters he assumed were inside the building he knew civilians would pay the price too. But, of course, Hizbullah fighters were not in the building.

This endless sophistry is designed to lull us into acquiescence. Only vigilance keeps us asking the right questions. How, for example, after its reconnaissance planes and spy drones have been hovering over south Lebanon for the best part of three weeks, was Israel not aware that hundreds of civilians were still in Qana? But no one raised that question.

Cut through the apology, both from Israel and our media, and the aerial strike on Qana looks, at the very best interpretation, recklessly ambivalent about the likely civilian death toll. A cynic might go further. Was the attack meant as a warning to other civilians still in south Lebanon to get out -- and fast? After its clear failure to win a conventional war, does the Israeli army want a freer hand to begin the job of incinerating Hizbullah, using its cluster and incendiary bombs, the Middle East's napalm? Was the answer to be found in the statement of Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, yesterday that, generously, he was giving civilians 24 hours safe passage to get out of the south.

Or was the massacre crafted as punishment for Qana's villagers, for those living among Hizbullah, for those who are related to Hizbullah, for those who believe that Hizbullah is their best hope of preventing another Israeli occupation? Did Israel's Justice Minister Haim Ramon not make precisely this point last week when he announced in a cabinet meeting: "Everyone in southern Lebanon is a terrorist and is connected to Hizbollah."?

Moshe Marzouk, a former senior Israeli army officer who has turned his hand to being a "counter-terrorism expert" in one of the country's leading academic institutions, told the American Jewish weekly The Forward that one of Israel's goal in this war is to teach Lebanon's Shiite community that it will pay a tremendous price for Hizbullah's actions. Maybe Qana was part of the price he was talking about.

Israel offers a second excuse for the massacre: it says it dropped leaflets on Qana warning civilians to leave the area. Again, our cynic could point out that those leaflets were dropped 10 days ago, as they were across most of south Lebanon. Qana had no reason to expect worse than anywhere else -- and possibly it expected better, assuming that Israel would not dare to stage a war crime here for a second time after it troops massacred more than 100 civilians in 1996.

Our cynic could also note that Israel has bombed the escape roads from the south and is shooting at anything that moves on what is left of them. And he could point out that many of Qana's families have no cars to leave in, that they can find no petrol to fill the cars that remain after Israel bombed all the petrol stations, and that in any case they have nowhere else to go.

Though these things are all true, they distract us from the real issue: that Israel has no right to empty south Lebanon of its population, to make a million people homeless, just because its leaflets say they must leave. Jim Muir let us and himself down when he observed that south Lebanon is "not an area which can become depopulated overnight". No it isn't, but the deeper question is why should it be depopulated? At what point did the international broadcasters fall unnoticed behind an agenda that demands south Lebanon be ethnically cleansed to satisfy Israel?

Our media are oblivious to the double standards. Did Hizbullah's leader Hassan Nasrallah not publicly warn that he would attack Haifa days before he did so, if Israel continued its aggression and refused to negotiate over a prisoner swap? Were Israelis not warned to leave too? And would we allow Hizbulllah to use that as a justification for its rocket fire on Israel?

On Friday Hizbullah fired its first khaibar missile, packed with 100kg of explosives, close by Nazareth -- we could feel the earth tremble from the impact. The Shiite militia waited more than two weeks before launching a warhead of that size, after it made repeated threats to do so if Israel continued its onslaught. Who will point out that had Hizbullah wanted to, if Israel's destruction was the real aim, it could have fired those khaibar rockets from day one?

And on Saturday Nasrallah promised to strike "beyond Haifa" with even more lethal rockets if Israel refused to countenance a ceasefire. Who on the BBC, or CNN or any of our other channels will quote that warning as justification if Hizbullah extends its fire to Hadera, Netanya or Tel Aviv in the coming days?

This is not a war of two narratives, nor even of two worldviews. It is a war in which we, the West, speak for both sides. Where we define the meaning of suffering and death, and of victory and peace. Where our humanity alone counts because we feel only our own pain as the birth pangs take hold.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. He is the author of the forthcoming "Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State" published by Pluto Press, and available in the United States from the University of Michigan Press. His website is www.jkcook.net

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Jonathan Cook News Archive, last updated on Tuesday, 01 August 2006

akd

08-02-2006, 01:04 PM

IDF: We'll control security zone by Thursday

Some 200 soldiers of elite units raid Baalbek area Tuesday night. Senior officer says in press briefing that 15 similar operations have been carried out inside Lebanon so far. Hospital raided by forces serves as Hizbullah's 'outpatient clinic,' place for meeting with members of Iranian Revolutionary Guards
Avi Cohen

In a press briefing Wednesday, a senior officer at the General Staff spoke about the operation (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3285005,00.html) in which 200 soldiers of elite units raided the Baalbek area in Lebanon (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3284170,00.html) . Ten terrorists were killed in the operation around the hospital in Baalbek, all of them armed and wearing bullet-proof vests.

The officer was asked whether the operation at the hospital was aimed at locating intelligence information on the kidnapped soldiers, who may have been treated there before being moved elsewhere, but he refused to answer the question.

According to the officer, the Israel (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3284752,00.html) Defense Forces has so far carried out 15 similar operations, also 120-130 kilometers (74.5-80.7 miles) away from the border. Referring to the continuation of the war, he said that "the operational goal will be reached tomorrow morning – an operational control of the traditional security zone in the central region."

Israel at war - full coverage (http://www.ynetnews.com/home/0,7340,L-4289,00.html)The officer said the operation in Baalbek was planned last week to meet two objectives:

1. To deal a blow to the Dar el-Hikma hospital, which was used to cover up Hizbullah and Iranian Revolutionary Guards activities.

2. The second aim was in the Sheikh Habib neighborhood where weapons were seized and five Hizbullah terrorists were nabbed from a building situated about five kilometers from the hospital.

The hospital served as an outpatient clinic for Hizbullah (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3284023,00.html) .

"The minute the soldiers arrived they came under fire. There were very few people. Soldiers found disks, computers and encountered armed men. A number of cars arrived at the scene but the forces neutralized them," the officer said.

Multi-operational value

A search of the building led soldiers to weapons.

"The operations have a multi-operational value. They give us a good intelligence picture. Tonight five Hizbullah members whose ages range from 20 to 54 were kidnapped and their names are known to us," the officer said.

The officer added that the operation was not carried out to nab specific Hizbullah members.

The officer said other secret operations are taking place in Lebanon but refused to give details. He said the Iranian Revolutionary Guards are smuggling weapons to Hizbullah and in some cases they operate some of these weapons on behalf of the Shiite group.

The officer said despite a decrease in attempts to smuggle arms from Syria to Hizbullah, activities along the Syrian-Lebanese border are being monitored closely.

www.ynetnews.com (http://www.ynetnews.com)

NimDod

08-02-2006, 01:33 PM

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/1DCBA43C-C892-4F02-8964-83BDA9081FC8.htm

Israeli 'hackers' target Hezbollah TV

A series of pictures and statements, apparently from Israeli-backed hackers, have appeared on Lebanon's Hezbollah-run television station, some showing pictures of corpses and others labelling the group's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, as a liar.

One of the images shown on al-Manar television portrayed the body of a fighter lying face-down, wearing khaki trousers with a text in Arabic beneath: "This is the photograph of a body of a member of Hezbollah's special forces."

"Nasrallah lies: it is not us that is hiding our losses," continued the text, which appeared during the evening news and stayed on screen for several minutes.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/rdonlyres/1DCBA43C-C892-4F02-8964-83BDA9081FC8/134324/35C25E385A414E93A38D2B55E74D4061.jpg
A photograph of Nasrallah himself also appeared with the legend: "member of Hezbollah: watch out."

Another photograph of corpses was framed by the words: "there are a large number of corpses like this on the ground and Nasrallah is hiding this truth."

Psychological war

Israel also recently hacked into FM radio stations and instead of normal programmes a two-minute recording was repeatedly broadcast.

"Hassan sent men to fight the Israeli army, an army of steel, without preparing them. Stop listening to patriotic hymns for a moment, reflect and bring your feet back to the ground," said the Arabic message.

Israel has reportedly used a variety of technological weapons to add a psychological dimension to its war in Lebanon.

Lebanese mobile phone users have also received text and voice messages saying the Israeli offensive was aimed against Hezbollah and not the Lebanese people.

DeltaWhisky58

08-02-2006, 01:49 PM

In pictures: Conflict enters fourth week

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41957000/jpg/_41957502_israeltankafp416.jpg

Israel has launched a fourth week of operations in Lebanon, using air strikes, tanks and ground attacks to try to crush Hezbollah. WARNING: Subsequent images may cause distress.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41957000/jpg/_41957514_griefafp416.jpg

The attacks included Israel's deepest raid yet into Lebanese territory, killing at least 10 people and seizing others it says are Hezbollah militants in the town of Baalbek.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41957000/jpg/_41957836_bulldozerap416.jpg

Some of those killed were carried to the local cemetery by bulldozer.

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Several children were among the dead.

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Critics of Israel's policy say support for Hezbollah is only being strengthened by the ongoing raids.

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But Israel says halting its operations would allow Hezbollah to regroup.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41957000/jpg/_41957734_kibbutz416afp.jpg

Despite the assault, Hezbollah has continued to fire volleys of rockets into northern Israel, killing one cyclist at a kibbutz.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41957000/jpg/_41957814_planeap416.jpg

Some Hezbollah rockets have started forest fires in Israel.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41957000/jpg/_41957796_olmertap416.jpg

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert insists that there will be no imminent ceasefire.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41957000/jpg/_41957504_restap220.jpg

But with the human costs mounting on both sides, the pressure is growing for a formula to be found to end the violence.

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BBC News Online (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/5238936.stm)

DeltaWhisky58

08-02-2006, 01:51 PM

Safe passage for Lebanon fuel aid

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41957000/jpg/_41957470_afp_petrol203.jpg
There are long queues at many petrol stations that remain open

Israel has told the UN World Food Programme (WFP) that emergency fuel supplies will be given safe passage into Lebanon, agency officials say.

Two tankers, carrying a total of 87,000 metric tons of fuel, are to be allowed to dock in the ports of Beirut and Tripoli, according to the WFP.
The WFP says Israeli military strikes in Lebanon have closed petrol stations and affected commerce and farming.
A Lebanese official said there was no crisis, but fuel was being rationed.
Ali Berro, an adviser to Lebanon's energy minister, told the AFP news agency that he did not believe UN suggestions that the country had just two or three days of fuel supplies remaining.
Reports from functioning petrol stations in Lebanon indicate that customers are being limited to between 10 and 20 litres of fuel per visit.

Power boost

According to WFP spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume, fuel stocks across Lebanon are running dangerously low.
"Almost all the petrol stations are shut. Fuel supplies for power stations and water pumping stations are all but exhausted," she told the Associated Press news agency.
The organisation said it had used its channels of communication with the Israeli military to secure safe passage for the two tankers, which it said were chartered by the Lebanese government.
The ships are due to dock within the next 24 hours.
The petrol and diesel fuel carried by the two tankers is thought to be destined for Lebanese power stations. Some may be diverted to keep agricultural production running and ensure food can be distributed through the country.

BBC News Online (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5238622.stm)

DeltaWhisky58

08-02-2006, 02:27 PM

Israel hit by Hezbollah barrage

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41958000/jpg/_41958900_shock_afp_203b.jpg
Hezbollah's attacks on northern Israel came after a lull of two days

Hezbollah fighters have more than 220 rockets into Israel from Lebanon, the biggest single-day barrage since the conflict began three weeks ago.

One person was killed and dozens injured as some rockets landed up to 70km inside Israel, the deepest so far.
The upsurge came as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel had destroyed Hezbollah's infrastructure.
Mr Olmert insisted there would be no ceasefire until an international force is deployed in southern Lebanon.
"I said I'd be ready to enter a ceasefire when the international forces, not will be ready, but will be deployed," Mr Olmert said of the timetable for a halt to the violence.
The hail of Hezbollah rockets came after Israeli troops raided Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold in north-east Lebanon, seizing five people they said were Hezbollah fighters. Hezbollah said they were civilians.
In southern Lebanon, clashes have been continuing between Hezbollah and Israeli troops, now said to number around 12,000.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/shared/img/o.gifhttp://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41956000/gif/_41956284_leb_baal_map203.gif
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Latest Mid-East crisis map (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/629/629/5177932.stm)
Hezbollah's rocket force (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5187974.stm)
In pictures: Anguish grows (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/5238936.stm)

The Israeli campaign began three weeks ago after Hezbollah militants captured two Israeli soldiers.
About 750 people - mainly civilians - have been killed by Israeli action in Lebanon, according to the Lebanese health minister. This figure includes unrecovered bodies.
A total of 55 Israelis, including at least 19 civilians, are known to have been killed by Hezbollah.
In other developments:

Britain's UN ambassador says agreement on an initial Security Council resolution to end the violence is close
World Food Programme officials say Israel has assured them emergency fuel supplies will be given safe passage into Lebanon
Iran's supreme leader urges the Muslim world to stand up to Israel and the US over their role in the conflict in Lebanon'Unbroken'

One of the Hezbollah rockets landed near the town of Nahariya on the west coast, killing one person.
Another struck close to the town of Beit Shean on the edge of the West Bank, 70km from the Lebanese border, while another landed in the West Bank - the deepest hit so far.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41958000/jpg/_41958886_jammaliyeh_ap_203b.jpg
Israeli planes also struck a village near Baalbek, killing several people

The BBC's Richard Miron in the northern Israeli town of Tiberius said some residents had begun returning home, believing that the Israeli army had dealt with the rocket threat.
Hezbollah militants have claimed they used a new type of rocket for the attack - a Khaibar-1, thought by the Israelis to be a modified Iranian Fajr-5, which has a longer range than the Katyusha rockets they usually fire into Israel.
A Hezbollah spokesman, Ghalib Abu Zeinab, said in an interview with the BBC Arabic Service that the latest attacks showed that Hezbollah was unbroken.
"The rockets that have been raining down since this morning... and the firing of a missile over a distance of 70km, all this proves that the Lebanese resistance still has a high capability, including a missile capability."

Israeli Interior Minister Avi Dichter told the BBC that although Hezbollah remained active, he was confident Israel would achieve its aims in Lebanon.
"Hezbollah is still alive, but the mission of this operation is not to crack down Hezbollah totally." he said. "We're trying to minimise the number of rockets launched towards Israel, and we know that all other targets that we have put right at the beginning of this special operation are going to be fulfilled."

BBC News Online (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5239568.stm)

Snoshi

08-02-2006, 02:30 PM

9 soldiers hurt, 1 seriously as IDF pushes deeper into south Lebanon
By Ze'ev Schiff, Amos Harel and Aluf Benn, Haaretz Correspondents, Haaretz Service and Agencies

Israel Defense Forces soldiers engaged in fierce gunbattles in south Lebanon on Wednesday evening killed at least seven Hezbollah gunmen, the IDF said. One soldier was seriouly wounded in the fighting and eight other were lightly hurt.

The fighting began before dawn in Wednesday.

Most of the fighting, by Golani Brigade infantry troops, took place near the village of Mahabib, north of the Israeli community of Manara.

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Two Armored Corps soldiers were lightly hurt as the IDF made slow progress and took positions in the village of Ataybeh.

Paratroopers exchanged fire with Hezbollah guerillas in the village of Ayta a-Shab. The IDF reports killing seven Hezbollah men, and wounding 10 others. Four IDF troops were lightly hurt in the fighting at Ayta a-Shab.

Earlier Wednesday, IDF reserve troops killed four Hezbollah fighters in clashes as they advanced in southern Lebanon.

The brigade of reservists has been advancing since Wednesday morning, and has taken up positions within the local villages. As they advanced, the soldiers seized ammunition and other Hezbollah materiel.

IDF sources said several Lebanese civilians suspected of aiding Israel were executed on Wednesday by the Hezbollah near the southern Lebanese village of Bint Jbail.

The Israel Air Force dropped leaflets Wednesday morning in 10 villages in south Lebanon, up to 20km north of the border, urging residents to leave their homes immediately if they did not wish to endanger their lives.

In an attack on the Lebanese army, Israeli jets fired at least one missile on a base in the village of Sarba, in the Iqlim al Tuffah province, a highland region where Hezbollah is also believed to have offices and bases. One soldier was killed, bringing to 26 the number of Lebanese soldiers killed since July 12. It was not clear what prompted the air strike on the army base.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Wednesday that Israel's offensive in Lebanon had "entirely destroyed" the infrastructure of Hizbollah, citing the reduced number of rockets hitting Israel.

"I think Hizbollah has been disarmed by the military operation of Israel to a large degree," he said.

Meanwhile, IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz said Wednesday that Israel is considering the resumption of its air strikes deep inside Lebanon, including in Beirut.

Halutz said that such a move would require approval from the government.

"We will need to evaluate the air strikes in the depth of Lebanon, especially in Beirut," he said. "I assume, the matter will come up for authorization in the next day or two."

Two IDF soldiers were wounded Wednesday when a Hezbollah rocket landed on the Lebanese side of the border.

A sixth ground forces brigade entered Lebanon early Wednesday, joining the other five operating along the border between the town of Metula and the community of Zarit.

IAF warplanes raided a Lebanon army base in the south Lebanon village of Sarba on Wednesday morning. The jets fired at least one missile on the base in a hilly region where Hezbollah is also believed to have offices and bases. Three soldiers were killed instantly, said a Lebanese official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give official statements.

Air strikes also targeted a bridge, an overpass and a road in the northern province of Akkar, officials said.

Near the southern market town of Nabatiyeh, warplanes staged several air raids early Wednesday, Lebanese security officials said. No casualties were reported.

Three IDF soldiers killed Tuesday
Three IDF soldiers were killed in battles with Hezbollah fighters in Ayta a-Shab on Tuesday. Twenty-five soldiers were also lightly wounded.

Lieutenant Ilan Gabay, 21, from Kiryat Tivon, Staff Sergeant Yehonatan Einhorn, 22, from Moshav Gizmo, and Michael Levine, 21, from Jerusalem were named as the three soldiers killed in the battle.

IDF paratroopers have been operating in Ayta a-Shab since Monday. The IDF said Tuesday that at least 10 Hezbollah guerillas were killed in the clashes.

During the morning hours, paratroopers took positions in a number of houses and prepared to search the village. Around 11 A.M., Hezbollah men opened fire on with anti-tank weapons on two houses in which the paratroopers were situated. One soldier was killed in the first house and an officer and soldier were killed in a second house.

The other soldiers were lightly wounded by the anti-tank fire and in a series of incidents that occurred afterward.

An IDF soldier was also lightly hurt in Maroun Ras in southern Lebanon and was evacuated to hospital in Safed.

During the evening hours, five soldiers were lightly wounded by Hezbollah mortar fire on the northern border.

A total of five units - thousands of soldiers - are currently deployed in Lebanon. The forces are active from the Metula region to the area of Zarit, reaching some three to six kilometers inside Lebanese territory. As yet, no reserve soldiers have entered Lebanon, although their deployment is being considered.

The object of the operations was to complete the destruction of Hezbollah border strongpoints by Thursday. The IDF troops are also seeking Hezbollah weaponry dumps.

Soldiers will also move into villages used as Hezbollah bases, in operations similar to the one last week in Bint Jbail.

On Tuesday morning, troops took over a Hezbollah command center in the town of Taibeh and were operating in the area of the villages of al-Adaisa and Rab a-Talatin, west of Metula. The IDF said that a large number of Katyushas have been fired from these villages in the past few weeks. Near Taibeh, troops were operating not far from the Litani River.

Hezbollah said on its Al-Manar television station Tuesday that its fighters continued to "confront" IDF ground troops in Kfar Kila, Adaisse, and Taibeh, near the Christian town of Marjayoun. The guerrilla group released a statement saying four of its fighters died in the battles.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday that Israel is "winning the battle" in its 21-day offensive against Hezbollah guerillas in southern Lebanon.

The prime minister said, however, that the diplomatic process to create conditions for a cease-fire was underway.

Five IDF soldiers hurt by mortar attack on northern border
Hezbollah gunners fired five rockets and a number of mortar shells at the western Galilee between Rosh Hanikra and Ma'alot on Tuesday.

Five Israel Defense Forces soldiers, including reservists, were lightly to moderately wounded in a mortar attack on the border Tuesday evening. Other mortar shells landed in open areas and did not cause damage or casualties.

Defense Minister Amir Peretz on Tuesday advised Israelis not to travel to the north, despite the relative lull in rocket attacks over the past 24 hours, saying Israel is experiencing a false calm.

"The other side also knows that the sands of time are running out for military activity in Lebanon, and it's possible that it will use the ammunition it has left in order to hit the Israeli home front," he said.

"We have already paid a heavy price in blood and I don't want more people to be hurt."

The Israel Defense Forces has destroyed an estimated two-thirds of Hezbollah's long-range missile capabilities, a senior government official said Monday.

The Iranian-supplied Zelzal-2 missiles have a range of 200 km (125 miles) and are believed to be capable of carrying biological or chemical warheads.

"We know how many of them we destroyed and we know how many they shot," the official said.

"But one-third [left undestroyed] is a lot. That can cause a lot of damage if they are launched," the official added.

The official said that according to estimates, Hezbollah retains 9,000-10,000 122-mm diameter Katyusha rockets and hundreds of rocket launchers.

Most of the rockets launched at northern Israel in recent weeks were Katyushas.

Hezbollah still has the ability to launch 302-mm diameter rockets like those which landed in Afula, and which can reach even further into Israel.

Since Israel Air Force planes bombed the launch site used to fire rockets at Afula, no rockets of the larger type have been launched.

Still, Hezbollah retains rockets and launchers of a similar type, and the groups which fire them retains fighting capability. These rockets, which Hezbollah calls "Khaiber 1" have a range of 90-115 km.

Government sources say Hezbollah still has half of its original inventory of 220-km rockets. Still, they believe Syria to be actively supplying the group.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/745277.html

Snoshi

08-02-2006, 02:46 PM

IDF staff gave some info on the special op in Baalbek. I translated it from Russian.

Operation was executed by SF of AF and SF of army. Colonel Nizan Alon who was responsible for the operation said that troops shortly after they landed advanced towards the hospital that was used by Hizbullah as a HQ. Four guards were eliminated. Inside the hospital soldiers found ammo and weapons and computers and documents. IDF presented a video of that.

While the troops were inside the hospital Hizbullah tried to surround it but the reinforcements were destroyed from the ground and from the air.

Troops also spotted a house that acted as a storage for ammo and weapons, they called for an airstrike and the building was destroyed.

Hizbullah failed to make a strong resistance to the soldiers that left the battle area with help of choppers. At least 10 terrorists were killed. IDF sustained no casualties.

IDF thought that some of the leaders of Hizbullah would be there, but the info was false.

http://newsru.co.il/mideast/02aug2006/balbek.html

hist2004

08-02-2006, 04:25 PM

Deep Strike- IDF Air Assault Commando Raid on Baalbek

Israel Reaches Into Heart of Hizballistan Capital While 10,000 Troops Cross Into Southern Lebanon

By Steve Schippert

In the past 48 hours, messages from Israel have been delivered to both Damascus and Tehran through the public release of intelligence claims. On Tuesday, however, the message had Hizballah addresses, namely being intended for Hassan Nasrallah and Imad Mugniyeh. While the messages to Iran and Syria were clearly for them to stay home, the message to Hizballah was “We can go where we want and strike where we want.”

For on Tuesday, there was no other way to interpret the IDF air assault on Baalbek, referred to as the ‘capital’ of Hizballah, situated near the Syrian border in the northern reaches of the Bekaa Valley. From the outset, it appeared to be an operation that was planned around specific actionable intelligence as a hospital in northern Baalbek appeared to be the primary target, with IDF Special Forces commandos checking the ID’s of all in the hospital according to early reports. The primary target appears to have been Mohammed Yazbek, who heads Hizballah’s Shura Council (or ‘consultation council’).

While Yazbek was not there, who Israel believed was being treated in the target hospital, three lower level Hizballah operatives were reportedly among the captured in the operation: Hussein Nasrallah, Hussein al-Burji and Ahmed al-Ghotah. Early reports were dominated by information from Hizballah - as the IDF remained very tight-lipped during the ongoing operation – and included claims from fierce fighting and Israeli troops trapped inside the hospital to many helicopters but no troops on the ground. Hizballah also claimed that the hospital had been evacuated days before the raid.

The picture that is coming into focus after the operation appears to show that the hospital was at least not entirely evacuated and that whatever fierce fighting occurred resulted in no IDF casualties, according to the Israeli military. The significance of the operation is clear, both in tactical terms and the psychological impact on Hizballah. The IDF inserted force where they wanted, operated as they wanted and performed a successful massive air assault deep in the heart of Hizballistan.

For Hizballah, increasingly cut off from Syrian and Iranian re-supply and largely left to stores on hand, they must now actively consider defenses beyond their southern front. That none of the IDF helicopters at low altitude over the heart of Hizballistan were shot down should not go unnoticed.

While Hizballah was surprised in the north, the northern operation was followed today with Israel sending 10,000 troops across the border on Hizballah’s southern front on a day in which the terrorist organization has launched over 160 rockets into Israeli cities so far in the day. At least one of them reached near Jenin in the West Bank, the deepest strike thus far by Hizballah. The rocket activity into Israel from Tyre in the west to various points on the eastern stretch of the border has been higher today than at any point in the conflict thus far.

For Hizballah, there is no rest as operations begin to accelerate in Hizballah-controlled southern Lebanon in what looks to be the beginning stages of the broad IDF clearing operations in their push northward to the Litani River.

While the talk is of inserting a multi-national force - headed by France under a UN flag - Israel’s Defense Minister Amir Peretz makes a clear distinction between a ‘Peacekeeper Force’ and a ‘Peacemaker Force.’ Israel’s forces are ensuring that the multinational forces will serve as more than an expanded UNIFIL, doubting that any UN-flagged troops will actually engage Hizballah militarily. Said Peretz, “We are preparing the conditions for the multinational force, so whenever it is deployed, it would be able to enforce the new situation.”

As Peretz no doubt understands, there must first be a peace to keep.

BPEL

08-02-2006, 06:15 PM

516 Reported Killed in Lebanon, Israel

Sunday July 30, 2006 4:01 AM

By The Associated Press

At least 516 people have been reported killed in Lebanon and Israel since fighting broke out July 12 between Israeli forces and Hezbollah guerrillas.

IN LEBANON:

At least 458 have been killed - including 403 civilians confirmed dead by the Health Ministry, 20 Lebanese soldiers and at least 35 Hezbollah guerrillas. The health minister says 58 others are known to be buried under the rubble of buildings and 150 more are missing and believed dead.

Among the civilian deaths are 8 Canadians, 2 Kuwaiti nationals, 1 Iraqi, 1 Sri Lankan, 1 Jordanian.

Among the latest deaths:

- A woman and her five children in a strike on their house outside Nabatiyeh.

- A man in another house damaged in the same strike.

- Six bodies pulled out of a house hit by a strike the day before in Ain Arab.

IN ISRAEL:

Fifty-two Israelis have been killed, including 33 members of the military and 19 civilians, according to authorities. More than 55 soldiers have been wounded, and more than 335 civilians, according to rescue officials.

OTHERS:

- Four U.N. military observers killed when Israeli bomb hit their post.

- A Nigerian civilian employee working with U.N. observers and his wife, also Nigerian, killed in border fighting.

Jaguar

08-02-2006, 06:38 PM

U.S. envoy: Israeli statement ‘outrageous’

JAT Daily Briefing

Claims that Israel has a green light to fight in Lebanon until it ousts Hezbollah are “outrageous,” a top aide to President Bush said.
In interviews over the weekend with Malaysian media, Karen Hughes, Bush’s envoy for public diplomacy in the Middle East, rejected Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon’s claim of U.S. authorization to wipe out Hezbollah.

“That is an outrageous statement,” Hughes said.

“It is false, and my understanding is the government of Israel has disavowed it.”

She compared Ramon to Hezbollah ministers in the Lebanese government who launched the initial July 12 attack on Israel “without the permission of the government of Lebanon.”

Beaufort

08-02-2006, 07:36 PM

IDF carving out south Lebanon buffer zone to extend 6-8 kilometers north of borderhttp://www.haaretz.com/hasen/images/0.gif

By Ze'ev Schiff (contact@haaretz.co.il), Amos Harel (contact@haaretz.co.il) and Aluf Benn (aluf@haaretz.co.il), Haaretz Correspondents, Haaretz Service and Agencies

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/images/0.gifThe Israel Defense Forces is planning a new defensive line in southern Lebanon that will be six to eight kilometers north of the Israeli border.

The area that the IDF has brought under its control is comparable to the security zone it held until the pullout from Lebanon in May 2000.

IDF soldiers engaged in fierce gunbattles in south Lebanon on Wednesday evening, and killed at least seven Hezbollah gunmen, the IDF said. Two soldiers were seriouly wounded in the fighting, which began before dawn Wednesday, and 12 others were lightly hurt.

Most of the fighting, conducted by Golani Brigade infantry troops, took place near the village of Mahabib, north of the Israeli community of Manara, and in the village of Ayta a-Shab.

Two Armored Corps soldiers were lightly hurt as the IDF made slow progress and took positions in the village of Ataybeh.

Paratroopers exchanged fire with Hezbollah guerillas in the village of Ayta a-Shab. The IDF reports killing seven Hezbollah men, and wounding 10 others.

Earlier Wednesday, IDF reserve troops killed four Hezbollah fighters in clashes as they advanced in southern Lebanon.

The brigade of reservists has been advancing since Wednesday morning, and has taken up positions within the local villages. As they advanced, the soldiers seized ammunition and other Hezbollah materiel.

IDF sources said several Lebanese civilians suspected of aiding Israel were executed on Wednesday by the Hezbollah near the southern Lebanese village of Bint Jbail.

The Israel Air Force dropped leaflets Wednesday morning in 10 villages in south Lebanon, up to 20km north of the border, urging residents to leave their homes immediately if they did not wish to endanger their lives.

In an attack on the Lebanese army, Israeli jets fired at least one missile on a base in the village of Sarba, in the Iqlim al Tuffah province, a highland region where Hezbollah is also believed to have offices and bases. One soldier was killed, bringing to 26 the number of Lebanese soldiers killed since July 12. It was not clear what prompted the air strike on the army base.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Wednesday that Israel's offensive in Lebanon had "entirely destroyed" the infrastructure of Hizbollah, citing the reduced number of rockets hitting Israel.

"I think Hizbollah has been disarmed by the military operation of Israel to a large degree," he said.

Meanwhile, IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz said Wednesday that Israel is considering the resumption of its air strikes deep inside Lebanon, including in Beirut.

Halutz said that such a move would require approval from the government.

"We will need to evaluate the air strikes in the depth of Lebanon, especially in Beirut," he said. "I assume, the matter will come up for authorization in the next day or two."

Two IDF soldiers were wounded Wednesday when a Hezbollah rocket landed on the Lebanese side of the border.

A sixth ground forces brigade entered Lebanon early Wednesday, joining the other five operating along the border between the town of Metula and the community of Zarit.

IAF warplanes raided a Lebanon army base in the south Lebanon village of Sarba on Wednesday morning. The jets fired at least one missile on the base in a hilly region where Hezbollah is also believed to have offices and bases. Three soldiers were killed instantly, said a Lebanese official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give official statements.

Air strikes also targeted a bridge, an overpass and a road in the northern province of Akkar, officials said.

Near the southern market town of Nabatiyeh, warplanes staged several air raids early Wednesday, Lebanese security officials said. No casualties were reported.

Three IDF soldiers killed Tuesday
Three IDF soldiers were killed in battles with Hezbollah fighters in Ayta a-Shab on Tuesday. Twenty-five soldiers were also lightly wounded.

Lieutenant Ilan Gabay, 21, from Kiryat Tivon, Staff Sergeant Yehonatan Einhorn, 22, from Moshav Gizmo, and Michael Levine, 21, from Jerusalem were named as the three soldiers killed in the battle.

IDF paratroopers have been operating in Ayta a-Shab since Monday. The IDF said Tuesday that at least 10 Hezbollah guerillas were killed in the clashes.

During the morning hours, paratroopers took positions in a number of houses and prepared to search the village. Around 11 A.M., Hezbollah men opened fire on with anti-tank weapons on two houses in which the paratroopers were situated. One soldier was killed in the first house and an officer and soldier were killed in a second house.

The other soldiers were lightly wounded by the anti-tank fire and in a series of incidents that occurred afterward.

An IDF soldier was also lightly hurt in Maroun Ras in southern Lebanon and was evacuated to hospital in Safed.

During the evening hours, five soldiers were lightly wounded by Hezbollah mortar fire on the northern border.

A total of five units - thousands of soldiers - are currently deployed in Lebanon. The forces are active from the Metula region to the area of Zarit, reaching some three to six kilometers inside Lebanese territory. As yet, no reserve soldiers have entered Lebanon, although their deployment is being considered.

The object of the operations was to complete the destruction of Hezbollah border strongpoints by Thursday. The IDF troops are also seeking Hezbollah weaponry dumps.

Soldiers will also move into villages used as Hezbollah bases, in operations similar to the one last week in Bint Jbail.

On Tuesday morning, troops took over a Hezbollah command center in the town of Taibeh and were operating in the area of the villages of al-Adaisa and Rab a-Talatin, west of Metula. The IDF said that a large number of Katyushas have been fired from these villages in the past few weeks. Near Taibeh, troops were operating not far from the Litani River.

Hezbollah said on its Al-Manar television station Tuesday that its fighters continued to "confront" IDF ground troops in Kfar Kila, Adaisse, and Taibeh, near the Christian town of Marjayoun. The guerrilla group released a statement saying four of its fighters died in the battles.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday that Israel is "winning the battle (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/745273.html)" in its 21-day offensive against Hezbollah guerillas in southern Lebanon.

The prime minister said, however, that the diplomatic process to create conditions for a cease-fire was underway.

Five IDF soldiers hurt by mortar attack on northern border
Hezbollah gunners fired five rockets and a number of mortar shells at the western Galilee between Rosh Hanikra and Ma'alot on Tuesday.

Five Israel Defense Forces soldiers, including reservists, were lightly to moderately wounded in a mortar attack on the border Tuesday evening. Other mortar shells landed in open areas and did not cause damage or casualties.

Defense Minister Amir Peretz on Tuesday advised Israelis not to travel to the north, despite the relative lull in rocket attacks over the past 24 hours, saying Israel is experiencing a false calm.

"The other side also knows that the sands of time are running out for military activity in Lebanon, and it's possible that it will use the ammunition it has left in order to hit the Israeli home front," he said.

"We have already paid a heavy price in blood and I don't want more people to be hurt."

The Israel Defense Forces has destroyed an estimated two-thirds of Hezbollah's long-range missile capabilities, a senior government official said Monday.

The Iranian-supplied Zelzal-2 missiles have a range of 200 km (125 miles) and are believed to be capable of carrying biological or chemical warheads.

"We know how many of them we destroyed and we know how many they shot," the official said.

"But one-third [left undestroyed] is a lot. That can cause a lot of damage if they are launched," the official added.

The official said that according to estimates, Hezbollah retains 9,000-10,000 122-mm diameter Katyusha rockets and hundreds of rocket launchers.

Most of the rockets launched at northern Israel in recent weeks were Katyushas.

Hezbollah still has the ability to launch 302-mm diameter rockets like those which landed in Afula, and which can reach even further into Israel.

Since Israel Air Force planes bombed the launch site used to fire rockets at Afula, no rockets of the larger type have been launched.

Still, Hezbollah retains rockets and launchers of a similar type, and the groups which fire them retains fighting capability. These rockets, which Hezbollah calls "Khaiber 1" have a range of 90-115 km.

Government sources say Hezbollah still has half of its original inventory of 220-km rockets. Still, they believe Syria to be actively supplying the group.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/745277.html

Beaufort

08-02-2006, 08:15 PM

Soldier killed, soldier severely hurt in Lebanon

Harsh battles take place all day Wednesday in southern Lebanese village of Aita al-Shaab; soldier killed, seven troops injured, one sustaining serious wounds. IAF strikes 120 targets Wednesday. On Thursday, IDF set to complete its deployment of 'security zone,' 5-6 kilometers inside Lebanese territory between Metula, Rosh Hanikra
Efrat Weiss

Day 23 of war in Lebanon: Cleared for publication: An Israel Defense Forces soldier was killed Wednesday in a harsh battle in the village of Aita al-Shaab in the western region of southern Lebanon.
Another soldier was seriously injured and six troops were lightly wounded in two incidents. The rescue operation lasted for hours.
After three weeks of fighting, the Israel Defense Forces is expected to complete its deployment a "security zone", 5-6 kilometers (3.1-3.7 miles) inside the Lebanese territory. A Lebanese or multinational force is expected to later enter this zone.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3285587,00.html

Beaufort

08-02-2006, 08:43 PM

Human Rights Watch puts Qana death toll at 28

NEW YORK, Aug 2 (Reuters) - The U.S.-based rights watchdog Human Rights Watch on Wednesday put the death toll from an Israeli air strike at the Lebanese village of Qana at 28 and 13 missing, below the official Lebanese figure of 54 dead.

The incident on July 30 was one of the deadliest strikes in the 22-day-old war between Israel and the Lebanese-based Hizbollah guerrillas and jolted international efforts to resolve the conflict.

"The initial estimate of 54 persons killed was based on a register of 63 persons who had sought shelter in the basement of the building that was struck, and rescue teams having located nine survivors," Human Rights Watch said in a statement on Wednesday.

"It now appears that at least 22 people escaped the basement, and 28 are confirmed dead, according to records from the Lebanese Red Cross and the government hospital in Tyre," Human Right Watch said in a statement. It gave the names and ages of those killed.

The other 13 people were missing and presumed by some Qana residents to be buried in the rubble.

Of the 28 dead, 16 were children, Human Rights Watch said.

The group said it based its report in part on interviews with two witnesses to the Qana attack, one who was in the building during the strike and a second person who lived in the neighborhood and assisted in the recovery.

The U.N. Security Council on Sunday unanimously adopted a statement deploring the attack and asked U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to report within a week "on the circumstances of this tragic incident."

Israel has called Qana a hub of Hizbollah activity, which some Lebanese sources have disputed.

Human Rights Watch said Israel had said the military targeted the house because Hizbollah fighters had fired rockets from the area. The group said its own researchers who visited Qana on July 31 did not find any destroyed military equipment in or near the home.

"Rescue workers recovered no bodies of apparent Hizbollah fighters from inside or near the building," Human Rights Watch said.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N02345278.htm

Canadian Sig

08-02-2006, 08:53 PM

Tory support slipping over Mideast stance: poll

Updated Wed. Aug. 2 2006 7:00 PM ET

Canadian Press

OTTAWA -- A new poll suggests Tory support is sliding over voter concern that Canada has become too cozy with the United States on Middle East policy.

The latest results by Decima Research, released to The Canadian Press, put the Conservatives and Liberals in a virtual tie nationally.

The Tories had 32 per cent support compared with 31 per cent for the Liberals and 16 per cent for the New Democrats.

But the Liberals widened their Ontario lead to 42 per cent of voter support compared with 33 per cent for the Conservatives, and have pulled in front of the Tories in Quebec for the first time since last winter's campaign.

The two parties had been neck-neck in Ontario as recently as mid-June.

"When we look at the combination of the alignment of the government with the current U.S. administration policy on the Middle East -- and in particular with respect to the Lebanon-Israel conflict -- it's reasonable to assume it's one of the factors that's driving Conservative support down in the near term," said Decima CEO Bruce Anderson.

"They clearly are encountering some pushback from voters in Ontario and Quebec in particular."

Liberals have also taken the lead in crucial urban ridings by a margin of 35 per cent versus 29 per cent, and are increasingly preferred by women and by voters aged 25 to 34, the poll suggests.

Middle East policy and hefty new defence spending announced by the Tories in June have apparently left some Quebec voters cold, Anderson says.

The province tends to be the most pacifist in Canada. It's also where Harper has invested most of his political capital in a drive for a majority government.

Harper has been vilified by critics for his pro-Israel stance on the latest crisis in Lebanon. But Anderson notes that the Conservative slide started in June before fighting between Israel and Hezbollah began killing hundreds of civilians, many of them Lebanese children.

Anderson cautioned against reading too much into the latest telephone poll of 1,000 Canadians, taken July 27 to 31.

"I wouldn't say the Conservatives have fallen into some sort of abyss.

"We're talking about shifts that are significant in terms of whether they portend a Conservative minority or majority -- or even the outcome of an election.

"But people know the election isn't going to be held right now."

Indeed, the popularity plunge is expected to be a hot topic as the Conservative caucus gathers this week for a retreat in Cornwall, Ont.

Talk of the Conservatives engineering their own defeat for a snap election this fall has dissipated as polls continue to suggest momentum is not with the minority government.

The continuing Liberal leadership race is another factor, Anderson says.

"People are seeing evidence of a next generation of leadership hopefuls for the Liberal party. It's making it maybe a little bit easier for people to say: 'I might vote Liberal rather than Conservative in the next election.'"

The poll is considered accurate to within three percentage points plus or minus, 19 times out of 20. The margin of error is higher for regional breakdowns.

www.ctv.ca

Canadian Sig

08-02-2006, 08:59 PM

Lebanon facing an environmental disaster
Updated Wed. Aug. 2 2006 10:04 AM ET

Associated Press

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Endangered turtles die shortly after hatching from their eggs. Fish float dead off the coast. Flaming oil sends waves of black smoke toward the city.

In this country of Mediterranean beaches and snowcapped mountains, Israeli bombing that caused an oil spill has created an environmental disaster. And cleanup cannot start until the fighting stops, the U.N. says.

World attention has focused on the hundreds of people who have died in the 3-week-old conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. The environmental damage has attracted little attention but experts warn the long-term effects could be devastating.

Some 110,000 barrels of oil poured into the Mediterranean two weeks ago after Israeli warplanes hit a coastal power plant. One tank is still burning, sending thick black smoke across the country.

Compounding the problem is an Israeli naval blockade and continuing military operations that have made any cleanup impossible. And environmental officials say the longer the problem is allowed to go unchecked, the greater the lasting damage.

"The immediate impact can be severe but we have not been able to do an immediate assessment," said U.N. Environment Program executive director Achim Steiner in Geneva. "But the longer the spill is left untreated, the harder it will be to clean up."

The oil so far has slicked about one-third of Lebanon's coast, a 50-mile stretch centered on the Jiyeh plant 12 miles south of Beirut, said the country's environment minister, Yaacoub Sarraf. It has also drifted out into the Mediterranean, already hitting neighboring Syria.

Experts warn Cyprus, Turkey and even Greece could be affected.

Sarraf said Israeli planes "purposely hit the tanks which are the closest to the sea," and knocked out the berms designed to prevent any ruptured tanks from sending oil flowing into the waters.

"Chances are, our whole marine ecosystem facing the Lebanese shoreline is already dead," Sarraf said. "What is at stake today is all marine life in the eastern Mediterranean."

Israel's Environmental Affairs ministry declined comment, referring questions to the Foreign Ministry, which did not immediately return phone calls.

Lebanon, whose flag features a cedar tree and which is known by many as Green Lebanon for its forested mountains, is one of the few countries in the Arab world that pays attention to pollution. Minibuses that run on diesel have been banned, while factories are forced to abide by strict rules.

Now, large parts of the country's sandy and rocky beaches, visited in the past by hundreds of thousands of tourists each year, are covered with thick black oil. Many fishermen have been forced out of business, and people are getting scared to eat fish. Baby turtles, usually born in late summer, die after they swim into the polluted water shortly after hatching from eggs.

Syria was already experiencing similar problems, said Hassan Murjan, who heads the environment department in the Syrian city of Tartous.

"The oil pollution has caused serious environmental damage because our coast is rocky and this is very dangerous for marine life," Murjan told the official news agency SANA.

The first country to rush help to Lebanon was Kuwait, which suffered a similar disaster during the 1991 Gulf War. But three truckloads of cleanup supplies the country sent in are stuck in Beirut, with crews waiting for the fighting to wane before beginning work, said the capital's mayor, Abdel Monem Ariss.

"We have no access to Lebanon territorial waters," Sarraf said. "This means that we are already 10 days delayed and in terms of oil pollution, 10 days is a century."

Three local environmental organizations demanded a cease-fire to no avail.

"Cleanup operations should start as soon as possible; otherwise, most of the damage will be irreversible," warned Wael Hmaidan, head of the assessment group on the ground. "The more time we allow the oil to settle into the sand, rocks and seabed, the harder it will be to clean it up."

Sarraf estimated it will cost $30 million to $50 million to clean up the shorelines, and possibly ten times that much for the entire effort. Optimistic assessments suggest it will take at least six months for the shore cleanup and up to 10 years for "the reestablishment of the ecosystem of the eastern Mediterranean as it was two weeks ago," he said.

In Geneva, the UNEP's Steiner said the agency has teams on standby to move to Lebanon as soon as the conditions permit.

"Oil and marine diversity do not mix well," Steiner said. "We are immediately concerned for marine life in the area."

Sarraf likened the disaster to a spill off France in 1999, when an oil tanker split in two and dumped 70,000 barrels of oil into the Atlantic. But he said this case is complicated by the burning tank and the inability of cleanup crews to begin work.

"We are facing a much more critical problem, he said. "I say imagine you having your kid sick, knowing that he is sick, and not being able to bring a physician to examine him and to know what is the disease before you start treating him. This is what we are facing."

www.ctv.ca

Ayura

08-02-2006, 11:04 PM

CNN Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSPZ_WwPa-U&search=israeli

Ayura

08-02-2006, 11:07 PM

CNN video (U.N. building destroyed)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCBBegavmjQ&search=israeli

ZARDOZ

08-02-2006, 11:12 PM

Should there be an incident, this could inflame matters greatly....

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/745740.html

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/images/0.gifhttp://www.haaretz.com/hasite/images/iht_daily/D020806/Aqsa.jpghttp://www.haaretz.com/hasen/images/0.gifhttp://www.haaretz.com/hasen/images/TalkBackToPicArt.jpg Bookmark to del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us/post)http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/images/specials/delicious.gifdocument.write('Digg It! (http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url='+window.location+') new');Digg It! (http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/745740.html) newhttp://www.haaretz.com/hasen/images/specials/digg.gifhttp://www.haaretz.com/hasen/images/0.gifLast update - 00:09 03/08/2006http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/images/0.gifhttp://www.haaretz.com/hasen/images/0.gifhttp://www.haaretz.com/hasen/images/0.gifhttp://www.haaretz.com/hasen/images/0.gifIslamic Movement: Prevent Jewish groups from visiting Temple Mount on Thursdayhttp://www.haaretz.com/hasen/images/0.gifBy Yoav Stern (stern@haaretz.co.il), Haaretz Correspondenthttp://www.haaretz.com/hasen/images/0.gifThe Islamic Movement warned Wednesday against the possibility that Jewish groups would try to reach the Temple Mount on Thursday (The Ninth of Av) and damage the Al Aqsa Mosque.

The group's warning follows a Supreme Court decision made earlier this week, ordering police to allow whoever wants to visit the Temple Mount during regular visiting hours on the Ninth of Av.

Two MKs from the Islamic Movement, Sheikh Ibrahim Sarsur (Ra'am-Ta'al) and Sheikh Abbas Zkoor (Ra'am-Ta'al) sent an urgent letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, requesting that the government prevent members of the Temple Mount Faithful from reaching the area outside the Al Aqsa Mosque.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/images/0.gifhttp://www.haaretz.com/hasen/images/0.gifAdvertisement"Extremist Jewish groups may damage the Al Aqsa Mosque. If this were to happen, heaven forbid, it would inflame the region," the MKs wrote.

The Islamic Movement's Northern Branch also warned of what could take place Thursday in the vicinity of the Temple Mount. The head of the movement, Sheikh Raed Selah, said in a radio interview that the Supreme Court does not have the authority to rule on the matter.

According to Selah, "The Supreme Court isn't worthy of deciding on matters pertaining to the Al Aqsa Mosque, because Israel does not have sovereignty over it. Selah called on Islamic Movement supporters to reach the Al Aqsa Mosque on Thursday.

Resurrection

08-03-2006, 12:51 AM

Israeli PM wants 15,000 foreign troops to help end Lebanon conflict.

Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says he wants some 15,000 foreign troops to be deployed in southern Lebanon to help end the fight with Hezbollah.

Mr Olmert said the conflict, which has entered its 23rd day, could be over as soon as the United Nations Security Council authorises such a force.

The Israeli leader also defended his country's bloody campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, which has left hundreds of civilians dead.

http://www.abc.net.au/ra/news/stories/s1704802.htm (full story)

DeltaWhisky58

08-03-2006, 05:32 AM

Israel resumes Beirut air strikes

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41959000/jpg/_41959802_isarel_tank_203afp.jpg
Israeli troops are fighting Hezbollah in several parts of south Lebanon

Israeli aircraft have resumed attacks on the Lebanese capital, Beirut, after a lull of several days, with early morning strikes on a Shia suburb.

Meanwhile, Israeli troops battled with Hezbollah guerrillas for control of several villages near the border.
Hezbollah launched more than 230 rockets from Lebanon on Wednesday, the biggest single-day barrage since the conflict began, Israeli officials said.
One person was killed as some rockets landed up to 70km inside Israel.
The attacks, which also injured dozens of Israelis, were the deepest into the country so far.
A Hezbollah spokesman, Ghalib Abu Zeinab, said in an interview with the BBC Arabic Service that the latest attacks showed that Hezbollah was unbroken.
"The rockets that have been raining down... and the firing of a missile over a distance of 70km, all this proves that the Lebanese resistance still has a high capability, including a missile capability," he said.

Back to Beirut

Four explosions were reported in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahieh, a Hezbollah stronghold, early on Thursday.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/shared/img/o.gifhttp://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41956000/gif/_41956284_leb_baal_map203.gif
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/inline_dashed_line.gif

Latest Mid-East crisis map (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/629/629/5177932.stm)
Hezbollah's rocket force (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5187974.stm)
In pictures: Anguish grows (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/5238936.stm)

The area had been heavily bombed earlier in the Israeli campaign.
There were also air strikes on roads in the north of Lebanon, near the border with Syria, and in the Bekaa Valley.
On Wednesday Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel had destroyed Hezbollah's infrastructure.
The Israeli prime minister has insisted there would be no ceasefire until an international force was deployed in southern Lebanon.
"I said I'd be ready to enter a ceasefire when the international forces, not will be ready, but will be deployed," Mr Olmert said of the timetable for a halt to the violence.
Diplomats at the United Nations say the UK, France and the United States are close to agreeing on a UN resolution calling for an immediate end to the fighting in Lebanon.
The three countries are hoping to present the first part of a two-stage peace plan to other members of the UN Security Council on Thursday.

Heavy fighting

Wednesday's Hezbollah rockets came after Israeli troops raided Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold in north-east Lebanon, seizing five people they said were Hezbollah fighters. Hezbollah said they were civilians.
An Israeli soldier was killed in heavy fighting with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41958000/jpg/_41958900_shock_afp_203b.jpg
Hezbollah's attacks on northern Israel came after a lull of two days

Four other Israeli soldiers were injured, when an anti-tank missile struck the house in which they were sheltering in the village of Aita al-Shaab.
One Hezbollah rocket killed a man near the Israeli town of Nahariya on the west coast, bringing the number of Israeli civilians killed since the conflict started to 19.
About three dozen more Israeli soldiers have also died.
In Lebanon, about 750 people - mainly civilians - have been killed by Israeli action, according to the Lebanese health minister. This figure includes unrecovered bodies.

Clashes have been continuing in southern Lebanon between Hezbollah and a force of Israeli troops now said to number around 12,000.
The Israeli campaign began three weeks ago after Hezbollah militants captured two Israeli soldiers.
The BBC's Richard Miron says that, before Wednesday's upsurge in Hezbollah rocket attacks, some northern Israeli residents had begun returning home, believing that the Israeli army had dealt with the threat.
Hezbollah militants have claimed they used a new type of rocket for the attack - a Khaibar-1, thought by the Israelis to be a modified Iranian Fajr-5, which has a longer range than the Katyusha rockets they usually fire into Israel. One rocket fired on Wednesday landed near Jenin in the West Bank - believed to be the furthest any of the militants' rockets had reached since the conflict began.

BBC News Online (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5240872.stm)

DeltaWhisky58

08-03-2006, 05:34 AM

Islamic leaders warn on Lebanon

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41959000/jpg/_41959778_mal_iran_203ap.jpg
Two presidents and several prime ministers are attending the summit

The UN Security Council lacks the courage to condemn Israeli attacks on Lebanon, Malaysia's PM has said, as Islamic states hold crisis talks.

He and other leaders from the world's Muslim nations warned of the effects of the violence in the Middle East as they met to discuss the crisis.
The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) is expected to call for an immediate ceasefire. The leaders are also likely to back an international force for Lebanon.
The presidents of Iran and Indonesia and the prime ministers of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey and Azerbaijan are among the representatives of 18 Islamic countries at the emergency one-day summit, which was called last week.

'Outrage'

"Until now, unfortunately, the international community is in paralysis," said Malaysian premier Abdullah Badawi, the current OIC chairman, in a speech opening the talks.
"The Security Council could not even muster the moral courage to condemn Israel for the attack on Qana or the killing of UN observers at Khiam," he said.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41959000/jpg/_41959780_unprotest2_203afp.jpg
Several leaders talked of popular Muslim outrage

He also urged Muslim nations to offer troops for a multinational stabilisation force for Lebanon.
Pakistan's Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said the failure to halt the violence was "adding to popular anger" and could have "incalculable consequences for long-term peace" in the Middle East.
He also called for all prisoners in the conflict - Lebanese, Palestinian and Israeli - to be returned.
The OIC's Secretary General, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, said the Islamic world is "outraged" over international "double standards" on the Israeli offensive in Lebanon.
"I am afraid that the anger of the Muslim masses is being transformed into permanent hatred against the aggressors and their implicit and explicit protectors," he said. Malaysia is also seeking support for an international commission to investigate what it describes as Israeli "war crimes".

BBC News Online (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/5240844.stm)

Snoshi

08-03-2006, 05:56 AM

IDF confirms that 2 days ago 3 Iranian made C-802 missiles were launched against an IDF naval ship, but the launch was a failure.

http://newsru.co.il/mideast/03aug2006/obstr_kat.html

Snoshi

08-03-2006, 06:00 AM

Living the Zionist dream, dying in defense of Israel
By Amiram Barkat and Daphna Berman

Three soldiers with no family in Israel (termed 'lone soldier') have been killed since the fighting started in the North and two others have been wounded. Last Tuesday Staff Sergeant Yonatan Vlasyuk from the Ukraine, who served in an elite unit and lived with an adopted family in Kibbutz Lahav, was killed. A day later, Sergeant Assaf Namer of Australia, of Golani was killed, followed Tuesday by the death of an American, Staff Sergeant Michael Levin, a paratrooper. In the same incident another lone soldier in Levin's unit, Yonatan Marcus, was wounded. Another lone soldier, Ilan Grapel, of Queens, New York, was among 20 soldiers wounded Tuesday night in the battle of Taibe.

Major Avital Knacht, who deals with lone soldiers in the IDF human resources branch, said the IDF does not give out information about the number of its lone soldiers or those serving in combat units. However, she noted that the rate of volunteering for combat units among lone soldiers is higher than in the general population. Knacht said the lone soldiers "come to Israel ready to give their all, and the best way to do that is through combat duty."
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Aharon Horwitz, a former lone soldier from Cleveland, said that as a teenager, he felt that "Israel is a Jewish state and so I thought that I also had a responsibility to serve." He said his parents were supportive, but "it was hard for my mother to be so far away and not know where I was. Some of my [lone soldier] friends had parents who were less supportive and so that was difficult." According to Horwitz, the American soldiers he came across were some of the most idealistic ones in his IDF service. "They would always volunteer for things like kitchen duty. They were very motivated because they are volunteers, which is a self-selecting group." Speaking from his bed at Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, in American-accented Hebrew military slang, Grapel told Haaretz that after he decided to serve in the army during a year of study at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, he thought it should be in a combat unit. Grapel, whose father is Israeli, has a grandfather in Tel Aviv and distant relatives in Hod Hasharon; however, Ruthie, a childhood friend of his father Danny, opened her home to him and became his adopted family. When Grapel told his parents of his desire to serve in a combat unit he said his father took it naturally but his mother Irene was afraid. "But she was afraid before I joined up because I rode the buses," Grapel said.

Josh Sekenofsky, a lone soldier from England, and a roommate of Michael Levin, admitted that serving so far from family can sometimes be difficult. "It can be lonely when you are on leave and you are by yourself. But for Mikey and me, this was something we always wanted to do. We used to listen to the news outside of Israel, and it got to the point where we couldn't listen to the news anymore, that we need to do something about it."

An estimated 2,300 lone soldiers are currently serving in the IDF, most of them coming from the Former Soviet Union. But soldiers from Western countries are serving as well, including an estimated 120 who are North American-born. Some are the sons of Israelis living abroad but most have no prior connection to Israel.

Many come to Israel with the intention to settle here, but some come only to serve in the army.

"On one hand, I feel total pride, since I spent my whole life raising our kids to be Zionists," Marla Comet-Stark, who lives in Ohio and whose son is now in basic training in Givati, told Haaretz. "But, on the other hand, I feel like saying 'just kidding, I didn't really mean the whole Zionism thing - there are other ways to help Israel.'" Tziki Aud, who serves as an adopted father for many lone soldiers and is also head of the Jewish Agency's information center for new immigrants, knew Michael and his friends well. "These are people who came only out of ideology and Zionism," he said. "They had no economic interests and could have made more money if they stayed in America. Their friends went off to college, but they decided to make aliyah [emigrate to Israel] instead. Sometimes, these soldiers come without the support of their families. Their parents are in the U.S. and once they come here, their friends become their family."

Yaakov Seligman, 20, joined the army in March of this year, leaving his family and friends behind in South Florida. Raised in an observant family, he attended Jewish and Zionist schools and says he always dreamed about moving to Israel. Most of his former classmates are in the U.S., enjoying the relaxed life of an American college student. But Seligman says that he is doing something "more meaningful." His parents, he says, are "proud, but worried."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/745797.html

Snoshi

08-03-2006, 07:19 AM

Ynet:Iranian president: Israel's destruction is only solution to Mideast crisis

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday that the only solution to the Middle East problem is the destruction of Israel.

"The primary medicine for the problems of the region and the world is the annihilation of the Zionist regime," Ahmadinejad said. (Dudi Cohen)

Snoshi

08-03-2006, 08:04 AM

Iranian president: Israel's destruction solution to Mideast crisis

Ahmadinejad says that while main solution for conflict in region is 'elimination of Zionist regime,' at this stage immediate ceasefire was needed to end fighting between Israel, Lebanon
Associated Press

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday the solution to the Middle East crisis was to destroy Israel, state-media reported.

In a speech during an emergency meeting of Muslim leaders in Malaysia, Ahmadinejad also called for an immediate ceasefire to end the fighting between Israel and the Iranian-back group Hizbullah.

"Although the main solution is for the elimination of the Zionist regime, at this stage an immediate ceasefire must be implemented," Ahmadinejad said, according to state-run television in a report posted on its Web site.

'UN lacks courage'

The UN Security Council lacks courage to condemn Israel's attacks on the Lebanese and Palestinians, the head of the world's main Islamic bloc said Thursday, adding that Muslim nations must work to prevent Israeli impunity.

"The United Nations has not been able to do much except to try organizing the distribution of humanitarian aid," Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said in a speech opening an emergency summit of the 56-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference.

PM Abdullah Ahmad Badawi with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Photo: AP)

The comments by Abdullah, the current chairman of the group, reflected growing frustration among Muslim governments after the UN on Wednesday canceled, for the second time, a meeting that could possibly have committed peacekeeping forces to Lebanon.

"No end seems to be in sight. The Security Council could not even muster the moral courage to condemn Israel " for the attack on the Lebanese village of Qana on Sunday that killed 56 people, mostly women and children, Abdullah said.

Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri said Israel's three-week offensive against Hizbullah had infuriated Muslims across the world.

"We do not want a clash of civilizations but all over the Muslim world a very negative feeling is arising on the street," he told reporters at the meeting.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran extends moral support to Hizbullah and denied accusations that Tehran financed and armed its Shiite proxy in Lebanon .

Lebanon's Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh said he wanted to see a strong condemnation of Israel's actions.

"We need a strong resolution condemning Israel to support Lebanon at this critical time," he told AFP late Wednesday.

"The main request, the sole request of Lebanon, is a comprehensive and immediate ceasefire, then the withdrawal of Israeli troops to the Israeli's territory," he said.

The minister also called for "an international judiciary committee to judge Israel for its criminal actions, and the return of the Lebanese displaced to their homes, villages and towns."

At least 548 Lebanese, mostly civilians, have been killed since fighting began three weeks ago between Hizbullah guerrillas and Israel's military. In all, 56 Israelis have died.

International peacekeeping force

Israel has also launched offensives against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas gunmen captured an Israeli soldier on June 25.

Abdullah said Malaysia, which chairs the OIC, was prepared to commit troops to any UN-led peacekeeping missions in Lebanon and Palestinian territories, and urged other Muslim nations to do the same.

Abdullah arranged a day-long summit of leaders and top officials from 17 Muslim-majority countries to discuss measures to end fighting in the Middle East.

"As leaders of the Islamic world, we have a moral and political obligation to do something," Abdullah said. "Israel cannot be allowed to continue with impunity its aggression" against the Lebanese and Palestinians.

The leaders were likely to demand an immediate, unconditional cease-fire between Israel and the Lebanese Shiite group Hizbullah, as well as a multinational force to stabilize the Israeli-Lebanon border under the United Nations, and properly coordinated humanitarian aid to Lebanon and Palestinian sites, Malaysian officials have said.

They are also likely to push for member nations to be included among a UN peacekeeping force.

"We must play a proactive role in the present conflict," Abdullah said. "Our own people are watching us, and waiting for us to make the right decisions."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3285678,00.html
rofl

DeltaWhisky58

08-03-2006, 09:05 AM

Ceasefire plan 'in next few days'

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41960000/jpg/_41960182_blair_*****203.jpg
Mr Blair: Has warned of an "arc of extremism"

Tony Blair has said there will be a United Nations resolution paving the way for a ceasefire in the Lebanon "in the next few days".

The prime minister said the remaining differences to a resolution being put down were now "very slight".
But he said it was a "very critical time" in the negotiation process between the US, France, UK and Lebanon.
Mr Blair is defending his Middle East policy at his monthly news conference in Downing Street.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/shared/img/o.gifhttp://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/start_quote_rb.gif It is no surprise to me there are people who profoundly disagree with the policy http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/end_quote_rb.gif
Tony Blair

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/inline_dashed_line.gif

Key points: News briefing (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5242008.stm)

"The US, the UK, France and others have been working very hard to get agreement on a United Nations resolution and I am now hopeful that we will have such a resolution down very shortly and agreed within the next few days.
"The purpose of that will be to bring about an immediate ceasefire and then put in place the conditions of the international force to come in, in support of the Lebanese government, so we get the underlying issues and problems dealt with," said Mr Blair.

Rift denied

Mr Blair has come under increasing pressure over his refusal to criticise Israel's military action and back calls for an immediate ceasefire.
But he said reports of a rift between himself and foreign secretary Margaret Beckett over the issue were "just complete rubbish".
On accusations there was a mutiny in the Cabinet over his stance, Mr Blair said: "It is no surprise to me there are people who profoundly disagree with the policy."
But he said he was working on a "practical solution" to the crisis that would provide a lasting peace.
Mr Blair said that it was "vital" to have a genuine ceasefire on both sides, as well as addressing issues raised by Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora and Israel's requirement for security on its northern border.
Mr Blair repeatedly refused to condemn Israel's actions as disproportionate.
"The solution will not come by condemning one side simply by statements we make. It will only come with a ceasefire on both sides," he told reporters.

Downbeat assessment

Asked about a leaked memo from the UK's outgoing Baghdad ambassador, William Patey, warning civil war is more likely than democracy in Iraq, Mr Blair said Mr Patey had already made the point in broadcast interviews.
Mr Blair stressed the importance of defeating extremism in Iraq and elsewhere, adding "however tough it is, we will see it through".
In his memo, Mr Patey predicted the break-up of Iraq along ethnic lines.
He said that although "the position is not hopeless" Iraq would remain "messy and difficult" for the next five to 10 years.
Mr Patey's downbeat assessment of the country's future was contained in his final e-cable, or diplomatic telegram, from Baghdad.
The news conference comes after Mr Blair returned from a four day visit to the US.
He faced criticism from senior figures in his own party, with Ann Clwyd saying the "vast majority" of backbench Labour MPs wanted a ceasefire and former minister Joan Ruddock saying there was "despair" among MPs at his stance.

Back seat

Meanwhile, the British deputy secretary general of the United Nations, Mark Malloch Brown, has urged Mr Blair and Mr Bush to take a back seat in negotiations to resolve the crisis.
"It's not helpful for it again to appear to be the team that led on Iraq. This cannot be perceived as a US-UK deal with Israel," he told The Financial Times.
Mr Blair spent his first day back in Britain in a series of meetings with officials to discuss the crisis.
He is expected to hold more talks with foreign leaders later on Thursday. The Downing Street media conference is expected to be Mr Blair's final official engagement before he leaves for his summer break.

BBC News Online (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5241134.stm)

DeltaWhisky58

08-03-2006, 09:08 AM

Israeli regret over Qana bombing

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41961000/jpg/_41961470_qana*****203story.jpg
The Qana attack caused shock and outrage around the world

Israel would not have bombed a building in the Lebanese village of Qana on Sunday had it known civilians were inside, a military statement says.

Following an inquiry into the attack, the army said it believed the building housed militants, and accused Hezbollah of using civilians as human shields.
The initial death toll was put at 54, with many of the victims children.
But Human Rights Watch has revised that figure downwards, saying 28 people are known to have died and 13 are missing.
The air strike, in the early hours of Sunday on a building where civilians were sheltering, drew international condemnation and renewed calls for a ceasefire.
The Israeli army said it targeted the building with two missiles, one of which exploded, because it was believed to be a "hiding place for terrorists".
"Had the information indicated that civilians were present in the building the attack would not have been carried out," the army said in a statement following its inquiry.

Escape

Lt Gen Dan Halutz, the chief of staff, apologised for the deaths, and has ordered the military to update its intelligence regarding bombing targets in Lebanon.
But he accused Hezbollah of placing "Lebanese civilians as a defensive shield between itself and us".

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More than half of the known dead in the Qana strike were children

Meanwhile, the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), citing local Red Cross and hospital records, said the 28 people confirmed to have died included 16 children.
"It now appears that at least 22 people escaped the basement," the group added in a statement.
According to its investigation, most of the victims belonged to the Shalhub and Hashim families. Thirteen people remain unaccounted for, and some Qana residents fear they are buried in the rubble, although recovery efforts have stopped, HRW says.

BBC News Online (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5241636.stm)

Abu_Elvis

08-03-2006, 10:01 AM

Iran frees bin Laden son: newspaper Wed Aug 2, 12:56 PM ET

Iran has freed a son of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden from house arrest, a German newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Die Welt said the Iranian Revolutionary Guard released Saad bin Laden on July 28 with the aim of sending him to the Syria-Lebanon border. It linked the reported move to the outbreak of war between Israel and Lebanese-based Hizbollah.

"From the Lebanese border, he has the task of building Islamist terror cells and preparing them to fight together with Hizbollah," Die Welt said, quoting intelligence information.

"Apparently Tehran is counting on recruiting Lebanese refugees in Syria for the fight against Israel, using bin Laden's help," it added in a preview of a report to appear in its Thursday edition.

Western intelligence sources have long suspected that Iran is holding a number of al Qaeda figures, possibly including Saad bin Laden and Saif al-Adel, the network's security chief.

Kamal Kharrazi, then Iran's foreign minister, said in January 2004 that Tehran had jailed about a dozen al Qaeda suspects and would put them on trial.

"Our general view is Iran certainly does have a few al Qaeda-related figures ... The general perception is Iran keeps these people as a bargaining chip," said a European counter-terrorism official when asked about the Die Welt report.

He said Shia Muslim Iran was not sympathetic to members of Sunni-dominated al Qaeda but "they protect them as long as they think they can make use of them."

Al Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri issued a video message last week in which, while not mentioning Hizbollah by name, he urged Muslims everywhere to "fight and become martyrs" in response to the conflict in Lebanon.

Israel accuses Iran of providing Hizbollah with missiles to use against civilian and military targets. Tehran, which armed and funded Hizbollah in the 1980s, insists it now provides only moral support to the group.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060802/wl_nm/iran_qaeda_germany_dc_1