ul. 18, 2006 11:34 | Updated Jul. 20, 2006 0:29
Nazareth brothers aged 9 and 3 buried
By AARON WENNER, TORIE PARTRIDGE AND MARK WEISS
[JPost]

Talkbacks for this article: 97

Two brothers, aged nine and three, were killed Wednesday in the northern city of Nazareth as Katyusha rockets fell in the downtown and suburban areas of the city.

The deaths mark the first time since the recent violence has begun that that the victims have been Israeli Arabs. It was the third Israeli-Arab population center to be hit by Katyusha rockets during this conflict, though, after Madjal-Krum and Tubas Zangarit.

For a Jerusalem Online video of the day's events click here.

Nazareth residents reported hearing blasts at around 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday evening as two rockets fell, one immediately after the other. The brothers, Muhammad and Rabiya Taluzi, were playing in the Bilaal neighborhood - located in the middle of a narrow steep road, with three-story buildings on either side - when a Katyusha fell, exploding next to them. They were killed immediately.

Eyewitnesses descried horrific scenes saying it was impossible to identify the bodies of the two children. Holes caused by metal pellets packed into the Katyusha dotted the wall of the adjacent buildings and the rocket left a crater in the road.

David Edwards
Published: Wednesday July 19, 2006

Print This | Email This
A video of broadcasts from inside the war-torn Middle East of the conflict in Lebanon compiled by RAW STORY from Link TV shows grotesque images of the rising civilian toll of the ongoing strife. As a warning to readers, the video is graphic and shows images of dead children.

American media traditionally avoids showing the human toll of violent attacks.

During the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina, the media did show some images of the death and suffering created by government inaction, giving viewers an appreciation of the dire conditions. In contrast, viewers have no such understanding of the depth of suffering in the current Mideast crisis.

LinkTV's Mosaic provides daily rebroadcasts of selected news from Mideast television news. The following video is a compilation of scenes from Arab TV that leave the viewer with an idea of the human toll taken by the raging conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

Link (WARNING - GRAPHIC VIDEO)

Guardian July 19

The US is giving Israel a window of a week to inflict maximum damage on Hizbullah before weighing in behind international calls for a ceasefire in Lebanon, according to British, European and Israeli sources.

The Bush administration, backed by Britain, has blocked efforts for an immediate halt to the fighting initiated at the UN security council, the G8 summit in St Petersburg and the European foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels.

"It's clear the Americans have given the Israelis the green light. They [the Israeli attacks] will be allowed to go on longer, perhaps for another week," a senior European official said yesterday. Diplomatic sources said there was a clear time limit, partly dictated by fears that a prolonged conflict could spin out of control.

US strategy in allowing Israel this freedom for a limited period has several objectives, one of which is delivering a slap to Iran and Syria, who Washington claims are directing Hizbullah and Hamas militants from behind the scenes.

George Bush last night said that he suspected Syria was trying to reassert its influence in Lebanon. Speaking in Washington, he said: "It's in our interest for Syria to stay out of Lebanon and for this government in Lebanon to succeed and survive. The root cause of the problem is Hizbullah and that problem needs to be addressed."

Tony Blair yesterday swung behind the US position that Israel need not end the bombing until Hizbullah hands over captured prisoners and ends its rocket attacks. During a Commons statement, he resisted backbench demands that he call for a ceasefire.

Echoing the US position, he told MPs: "Of course we all want violence to stop and stop immediately, but we recognise the only realistic way to achieve such a ceasefire is to address the underlying reasons why this violence has broken out."

He also indicated it might take many months to agree the terms of a UN stabilisation force on the Lebanese border.

After Mr Blair spoke, British officials privately acknowledged the US had given Israel a green light to continue bombing Lebanon until it believes Hizbullah's infrastructure has been destroyed.

Washington's hands-off approach was underlined yesterday when it was confirmed that Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, is delaying a visit to the region until she has met a special UN team. She is expected in the region on Friday, according to Dan Gillerman, Israel's ambassador to the UN.

The US is publicly denying any role in setting a timeframe for Israeli strikes. When asked whether the US was holding back diplomatically, Tony Snow, the White House's press spokesman, said yesterday: "No, no; the insinuation there is that there is active military planning, collaboration or collusion, between the United States and Israel - and there isn't ... the US has been in the lead of the diplomatic efforts, issuing repeated calls for restrain,t but at the same time putting together an international consensus. You've got to remember who was responsible for this: Hizbullah ... It would be misleading to say the United States hasn't been engaged. We've been deeply engaged."

Steven Cook, a specialist in US-Middle East policy at the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations, said: "It's abundantly clear [that US policy is] to give the Israelis the opportunity to strike a blow at Hizbullah ...

"They have global reach, and prior to 9/11 they killed more Americans than any other group. But the Israelis are overplaying their hand."

Israel is already laying the ground for negotiations. "We are beginning a diplomatic process alongside the military operation that will continue," said Tzipi Livni, Israel's foreign minister, yesterday. "The diplomatic process is not meant to shorten the window of time of the army's operation, but rather is meant to be an extension of it and to prevent a need for future military operations," she added.

Moshe Kaplinsky, Israel's deputy army chief, said the offensive could end within a few weeks, adding that Israel needed time to complete "clear goals". Israeli officials said fighting could begin to wind down after the weekend, if Hizbullah stops firing rockets.

A peace formula is also beginning to emerge: it includes an understanding on a future prisoner exchange, a deployment of the Lebanese army up to the Israeli border, a Hizbullah pullback, and the beefing up of an international monitoring force. For the first time, Ms Livni suggested Israel might accept such a force on a temporary basis.

There were signs of differences of emphasis between the Foreign Office and Downing Street over the conflict.

Kim Howells, a Foreign Office minister, explicitly called for the US to rein in Israel. "I very much hope the Americans will be putting pressure on the Israelis to stop as quickly as possible." he told the BBC. "We understand the pressure the Israeli government is under, but we call on them to look very carefully at the pressure ordinary people are under in southern Lebanon and other parts of Lebanon too ... We want to stop this as quickly as possible".

Israeli airstrikes killed 31 yesterday, including a family of nine in Aitaroun. More than 230 civilians in Lebanon have been killed in the past week.

An Israeli man was killed by a Hizbullah rocket in Nahariya in northern Israel, bringing the total of Israeli civilian deaths to 13. The army said 50 missiles were fired yesterday at northern Israel, injuring at least 14 people.

Mark Lavie | July 19

Hezbollah says no leaders killed in bunker

AP - Israeli warplanes dropped bombs late Wednesday on a bunker in south Beirut where senior Hezbollah leaders were thought to be, the military said. The guerrilla group said none of its top officials were killed.

Israeli military officials said a wave of aircraft dropped 23 tons of explosives on the bunker. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters, said top Hezbollah figures were thought to be there, possibly including Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The officials said the bunker was in the Bourj al-Barajneh section of southern Beirut.

Hezbollah later denied that a leadership bunker was hit, saying the strike targeted a mosque that was under construction and no one was killed.

The group issued a statement saying "no Hezbollah leaders or elements were killed in the strike."

"The strike hit a building that was under construction for a mosque," said the statement, issued on the group's Al-Manar TV and faxed to The Associated Press.

I really don't know what to say. Yes I do.
The Palestinians have been occupied for 40 years.
Hezbollah are exiled Palestinians that want their land back.
Most of their land is now Israeli settlements.
The Israelis are destroying olive trees to remove the Palestinians from their land.
This war is about reclaiming land from the Palestinians and expanding Israeli terrortory. (misspelling intended).
If Israel would honour treaties accepted they would lose many settlements.
Israel took the best lands and pushed the Palestinians out.
When will Bush realise that the Israelis are occupying and stealing Palestinian lands?

_{repressive governments mix administrative clumsiness & inefficiency with authoritarian tendencies.}

Saudi says cannot let Israel keep bombing Lebanon
20 Jul 2006 13:12:27 GMT

PARIS, July 20 (Reuters) - Israel cannot be allowed to continue its bombardment of Lebanon, Saudi Arabia's defence minister said on Thursday.

"We cannot let Israel pursue its actions. We cannot tolerate that Israel plays with the lives of citizens, civilians, women old people and children," Prince Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz told reporters after a meeting with French President Jacques Chirac.

Israel's nine-day-old bombardment of its northern neighbour has killed more than 300 people but has failed to stop Hizbollah rocket strikes on Israeli soil.

Israel Won't Rule Out Full-Scale Invasion
By HUSSEIN DAKROUB , 07.20.2006, 07:58 AM

Israeli troops met fierce resistance from Hezbollah guerrillas Thursday as they crossed into Lebanon to seek tunnels and weapons for a second consecutive day. Israel, meanwhile, refused to rule out a full-scale invasion.

Israeli warplanes also launched new airstrikes on Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, shortly after daybreak Thursday, followed by strikes in the guerrilla's heartland in the south and eastern Bekaa Valley.

The strikes came a wave of bombings Wednesday killed as many as 70 people, according to Lebanese television, making it the deadliest day since the fighting began on July 12.

Russia sharply criticized Israel over its onslaught against Lebanon, now in its ninth day, sparked when Hezbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers. The Russian Foreign Ministry said Israel's actions have gone "far beyond the boundaries of an anti-terrorist operation" and repeating calls for an immediate cease-fire.

At least 306 people have been killed in Lebanon since the Israeli campaign began, according to the security forces control room that collates casualties. In Israel, 29 people have been killed, including 14 soldiers. The U.N. has said at least a half million people have been displaced in Lebanon.

In developments on the evacuation of Lebanon, U.S. Marines landed in Beirut Thursday to help Americans onto a Navy ship bound for Cyprus in the second mass U.S exodus from the battle-torn country.

About 40 U.S. Marines arrived at a beach just north of Beirut in a landing craft and picked up 300 Americans who they ferried to the amphibious assault ship USS Nashville just off the coast. The Nashville is supposed to sail for Cyprus with about 1,000 Americans.

Hundreds of people, some with shirts draped over their heads to protect themselves from the sun, gathered on the beach. A U.S. Embassy official, speaking through a megaphone, pleaded for patience, reassuring the crowd that all those who registered to be evacuated would be assisted

more

by Habib Battah
Friday 14 July 2006 12:30 PM GMT

US TV gives the impression that Israel attacks only Hezbollah

War in Lebanon has once again become breaking news on television screens across the world, but a growing body of distorted reporting is being disseminated just as rapidly as the country is being destroyed.

In recent days, many American news programmes have demonstrated an exceptionally weak knowledge of Lebanese politics, skewed further by a lack of access to areas that have been attacked in the country and their victims.

Take Monday's coverage of the conflict on NBC's popular Today Show with anchorwoman Nathalie Morales, who in introducing a report on Hezbollah, rhetorically asks: "So just who is Israel at war with in this latest chapter of an ancient conflict?"

Not only does the reporter assume that Israel's war targets only Hezbollah (and not the Lebanese civilians, government, private businesses and the military, which have all been attacked) but even contradicts earlier reports on her own network indicating Hezbollah's founding to be in the early 1980s; hardly considered "ancient" times.

Equally misleading were reports on the Today Show defining Hezbollah solely as the mastermind of the 1982 attacks on US marines and possessor of long-range missiles.

Absent in the reporting was any reference to Hezbollah's role in defeating the 22-year Israeli occupation of the country and its support among up to a million Lebanese, with many benefiting from an intricate network of social services and political representation.

Of course, failing to report such details contributes to the view that Hezbollah acts as merely a renegade organisation rather than a movement that encompasses roughly a quarter of the country's population.

Thousands of Lebanese civilians
have been displaced

On the other hand, when it comes to reporting the situation in Israel, anchors on sister network MSNBC seem to boast an intimate knowledge of the population, even a bit of psychoanalytical skill.

During his show Hardball with Chris Mathews, the host describes the Israeli town of Haifa as being similar to a city in California, "very modern, very debonair".

Anchorwoman Rita Cosby, who freely dubs Hezbollah as "rag-tag" terrorists, would later describe an attack on "Holy Nazareth" as an assault on "the home town of Jesus", and erroneously as his birthplace - of course no reference to the multitude of biblical cities in Lebanon.

Many pundits are blatantly supportive of Israel's fight against "terror acts"

On Hardball, Mathews asks a reporter on the scene how Israelis are coping with "vacation plans" considering the war situation. Mathews concludes that a resilient character among the Israeli people, will "keep that country around for a very long time".

Later in the show there is analysis with field reporters and political pundits, many blatantly supportive of Israel's fight against "terror acts" and the "worldwide Islamic threat" - still no mention of the widespread devastation and human loss in Lebanon.

Mathew’s questions include: "How do you get Hezbollah to stop? Will Israel get the job done? How broad a goal is Israel setting?" And finally: "What’s a bigger threat to the United States? Al-Qaeda or Hezbollah?"

Lebanese have no warning of or
proper shelter from air raids

Mathews makes reference to the plight of the Lebanese only once during his show, when a reporter raises the possibility of a "bloody mess" for Israel.

Hours later, early on Tuesday, the casualty count in Lebanon stands at around 200 as cities and towns across the country are systematically pulverised, leaving hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians trapped and unable to escape the fighting.

A massive refugee crisis looms large while the country lies in complete disarray with its arterial roadways and bridges completely destroyed. Meanwhile, around a dozen are dead in Israel, with the last large attack occurring at a train depot on Sunday.

On Tuesday, 11 Lebanese soldiers are killed and a handful of rockets are launched at northern Israel with no casualties reported.

There is no indication of which side is doing the lion's share of the killing, perpetuating a false sense of balance on the battlefield

MSNBC decides to begin its newscast from Israel with a graphic that reads "breaking news: more than 250 killed in 7 days of fighting in Israel and Lebanon". There is no indication of which side is doing the lion's share of the killing, perpetuating a false sense of balance on the battlefield.

Over a live video feed, MSNBC anchorwoman Chris Jansen asks a reporter in North Israel about how average citizens there are coping with the short time lag between rocket attacks and air-raid sirens. The reporter describes a "quite frightening" situation for locals.

Jansen then speaks to a reporter in Lebanon over the phone, with a focus on the latest developments in the evacuation of foreign nationals. We are never told that average Lebanese citizens across the border have absolutely no warning of attacks and little access to well-fortified bomb shelters.

Before a commercial break there is footage of destruction across Lebanon, with swaths of the capital reduced to rubble. However, the graphics indicate that these are images of "Mideast Crisis" and not the result of round-the-clock Israeli air strikes.

Unlike the static clip of masked gunmen stomping on Israeli flags - images repeatedly attributed to Hezbollah and the Lebanese side - we see no equivalent attribution of burning cities and residences to Israel and its people.

The media myths continue unabated on Wednesday when an NBC reporter stationed on Cyprus tells a studio anchor that the American evacuation from Beirut will begin shortly and that the US embassy is providing a "safe haven" or "bomb shelters" for the thousands of US citizens as they wait.

But in truth, hundreds of Americans amass on an open-air seafront promenade near the embassy compound, where hundreds more crowd the streets and parking areas.

One US citizen, who gave her name only as Liliane, decided to return to her apartment after waiting out in the heat for several hours, disgusted she said by the disorganisation and curt attitude of US military personnel.

She described the plight of a woman with a newborn child sitting on the pavement with other children, pleading for help.

"They just didn't care," she said, drawing a contrast with television pictures of a smiling US ambassador escorting evacuees on to helicopters and while others were ferried away on chartered ships.

"They didn’t show what was happening outside the boats. On TV it looks like the situation is under control."

Aljazeera
By Habib Battah

You can find this article at:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/AEEFA95C-1ED7-4BD0-9CE5-7FEEC2613B68.htm

Heavy Fighting Reported on Israel-Lebanon Border Print

Thursday , 20 July 2006

At least two Israeli troops were wounded, Thursday, in heavy fighting with Hezbollah militants, as Israeli air strikes continued in Lebanon and Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel. More than 300 people, nearly all civilians, have died in Lebanon and at least 15 civilians have been killed in Israel by Hezbollah rockets, since fighting began nine days ago. Hezbollah militants continued rocket attacks in Israel, Thursday, striking the cities of Haifa and Tiberias.

For the second day in a row, there was ground fighting between Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops in Lebanese territory. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor says Israeli troops are reluctant to enter Lebanon where they could face a disadvantage against Hezbollah forces.

"We know exactly what this can bring about. We know what mayhem this can cause. And, this is precisely what we want to avoid," he said. "We do not want to be dragged into this. This is precisely what Hezbollah is trying to do, to drag us into a ground battle, because they know they have an advantage as a guerrilla organization."

Lebanese man inspects inside of mosque, in Bourj al-Barajneh neighborhood of Beirut targeted by Israeli warplanes, Wednesday
Thursday's Israeli air strikes targeted Beirut's southern suburbs, where Israeli warplanes Wednesday dropped 23 tons of explosives on what Israeli officials say was a bunker used by senior Hezbollah leaders. Hezbollah says the target was a mosque - a charge denied by Israeli officials.

morefrom Journal of Turkish Weekly

With US support, Israel is hoping to isolate and topple Syria by holding sway over Lebanon

The Guardian | July 20
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1824538,00.html

In his last interview - after the 1967 six-day war - the historian Isaac Deutscher, whose next-of-kin had died in the Nazi camps and whose surviving relations lived in Israel, said: "To justify or condone Israel's wars against the Arabs is to render Israel a very bad service indeed and harm its own long-term interest." Comparing Israel to Prussia, he issued a sombre warning: "The Germans have summed up their own experience in the bitter phrase 'Man kann sich totseigen!' 'You can triumph yourself to death'."

In Israel's actions today we can detect many of the elements of hubris: an imperial arrogance, a distortion of reality, an awareness of its military superiority, the self-righteousness with which it wrecks the social infrastructure of weaker states, and a belief in its racial superiority. The loss of many civilian lives in Gaza and Lebanon matters less than the capture or death of a single Israeli soldier. In this, Israeli actions are validated by the US.

The offensive against Gaza is designed to destroy Hamas for daring to win an election. The "international community" stood by as Gaza suffered collective punishment. Dozens of innocents continue to die. This meant nothing to the G8 leaders. Nothing was done.

Israeli recklessness is always green-lighted by Washington. In this case, their interests coincide. They want to isolate and topple the Syrian regime by securing Lebanon as an Israeli-American protectorate on the Jordanian model. They argue this was the original design of the country. Contemporary Lebanon, it is true, still remains in large measure the artificial creation of French colonialism it was at the outset - a coastal band of Greater Syria sliced off from its hinterland by Paris to form a regional client dominated by a Maronite minority.

The country's confessional chequerboard has never allowed an accurate census, for fear of revealing that a substantial Muslim - today perhaps even a Shia - majority is denied due representation in the political system. Sectarian tensions, over-determined by the plight of refugees from Palestine, exploded into civil war in the 1970s, providing for the entry of Syrian troops, with tacit US approval, and their establishment there - ostensibly as a buffer between the warring factions, and deterrent to an Israeli takeover, on the cards with the invasions of 1978 and 1982 (when Hizbullah did not exist).

The killing of Rafik Hariri provoked vast demonstrations by the middle class, demanding the expulsion of the Syrians, while western organisations arrived to assist the progress of a Cedar Revolution. Backed by threats from Washington and Paris, the momentum was sufficient to force a Syrian withdrawal and produce a weak government in Beirut.

But Lebanon's factions remained spread-eagled. Hizbullah had not disarmed, and Syria has not fallen. Washington had taken a pawn, but the castle had still to be captured. I was in Beirut in May, when the Israeli army entered and killed two "terrorists" from a Palestinian splinter group. The latter responded with rockets. Israeli warplanes punished Hizbullah by dropping over 50 bombs on its villages and headquarters near the border. The latest Israeli offensive is designed to take the castle. Will it succeed? A protracted colonial war lies ahead, since Hizbullah, like Hamas, has mass support. It cannot be written off as a "terrorist" organisation. The Arab world sees its forces as freedom fighters resisting colonial occupation.

There are 9,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli gulags. That is why Israeli soldiers are captured. Prisoner exchanges have occurred as a result. To blame Syria and Iran for Israel's latest offensive is frivolous. Until the question of Palestine is resolved and Iraq's occupation ended, there will be no peace in the region. A "UN" force to deter Hizbullah, but not Israel, is a nonsensical notion.

Comments

AlexCleaver
July 20, 2006 01:15 AM
A truly brilliant piece. Masterly demolition of the silly myths being touted on the hand by Bush and Blair, and on the other by Robert Fisk and David Hirst. As Tariq Ali insists, the bigger, wider picture is the one that must be considered. We would be foolish not to pay heed to his words.

Offensive? Unsuitable? Email us
Bigmal
July 20, 2006 01:40 AM
Is the problem that Hizbollah may have miscalculated? Olmert is still too weak to be seen to give any kind of concession. Will the Lebanese take increasing bombardment while still supporting Hizbollah.
There's many gambles and judgement calls from both sides. At what point will Syria and Iran actually involved in the conflict. Will the US ever actually reign in Israel. We might vainly point to the anger of the muslim world, but they are effectively powerless.
Stopping oil is a suicide attack. It hurts the west, but hurts the country that engages in it far more. What do they have if they don't have oil?
It makes me recall an article I read a long time ago saying that while we bicker over the middle east, China can rise. China is completely absent from any discussions over the region's future even though it is trying to become a world player.
Apologies for the rambling thought dump

Offensive? Unsuitable? Email us
Calgacus
July 20, 2006 04:05 AM
The Lebanese took over 20 years of Israeli occupation and civil war (1978-99) and Hizbollah is stronger now than it was then (it was the occupation and Israeli attacks that gave it mass support). In 20 years Israel couldn't defeat it. That hardly seems powerless to me.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Hizbollah's rocket attacks on Israeli towns and cities are killing civilians and I condemn them just as much as the Israeli attacks which are killing much larger numbers of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians but the idea that this entire war was caused by Hezbollah or that the Syrian President telling Hezbollah to stop is nonsense.
-----------------------------------------------------------
The first Hezbollah attack of this war was a response to the all out Israeli attack on the West Bank and Gaza. Hezbollah came in to support the Palestinians - and (before its current terrorism against civilians - similar to Israeli military terrorism) attacked Israeli soldiers.
----------------------------------------------------------
Bush and Blair may claim that if Hezbollah stopped its
rocket attacks and handed over the kidnapped soldiers the war would be over. That's patently untrue. Israel holds over 9,000 Palestinian prisoners as Tariq Ali points out (see the Mandela Institute's Human Rights Databank on Palestine also). Many haven't been tried, some are tortured. 500 are women or children. They are the reason Corporal Gilad Shalit was kidnapped and the reason Hezbollah kidnapped Israeli soldiers - to exchange them for the freedom of those prisoners.
---------------------------
Without those prisoners being freed by Israel;without Israeli recognition of the Palestinian authority's right to exist and its sovereignty; without direct negotiations that include Hamas and Hezbollah (as Hamas has so much support in Lebanon civil war would result otherwise); without negotiation over the Shebaa farms area and an Israeli ceasefire there will be no lasting peace.
.
---------------
Hezbollah will have to recognise Israel's right to exist and the Palestinian Authority will have to repeat its recognition of Israel's right to exist which it gave before this war began - but it is pointless nonsense to pretend this war is all about Hezbollah's actions and nothing to do with the Israeli government's.

many more comments at link

_{"at some point I'm hopeful I'll figure out something to put here"}

Thu Jul 20, 2006 3:39 PM GMT

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Arab leaders must divert windfall revenues from record high oil prices to help Lebanese and Palestinian people weathering Israeli attacks, the son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said on Thursday.

Saif al-Islam, his father's most influential envoy abroad, said any future Arab summit on the latest wave of Middle East violence would be a big embarrassment if it failed to shift extra oil profits to Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.

"The oil windfall is a result of the rise of oil prices stemming from the shedding of Lebanese and Palestinian blood," he said in a statement faxed to Reuters, referring to the latest increase in world crude oil prices, which has been attributed partly to the latest Middle East conflict.

Islam, who heads the Gaddafi Foundation, said his charity would fly planes carrying humanitarian relief to Lebanon in defiance of Israel's air, sea and road blockade of the country.

The nine-day-old war in Lebanon was triggered by Israel's retaliation against Hizbollah's July 12 capture of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border operation.

Eight Arab governments had so far backed a call for an Arab summit on the violence pitting Israel against Hizbollah and the Palestinians.

That backing however remains short of the necessary two-thirds majority of the 22 Arab League members for the meeting to take place.

LINK

Lebanese premier calls for truce, disarmament of Hezbollah
(DPA)

20 July 2006

ROME - Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Seniora on Thursday urged the international community to help his government disarm the militant Hezbollah movement, but insisted this could only be done after Israel agreed to a truce.

In an interview published by Corriere della Sera, Italy’s leading daily, Seniora also acknowledged that Syria and Iran were behind the guerilla movement.

“The world must help us disarm Hezbollah. But first of all a truce must be reached. Nothing can be done while the (Israeli) bombings continue, they can only worsen the situation,” Siniora told Corriere.

The prime minister said seven days of bombing had led to 300 deaths among the Lebanese, as well as more than 1,000 injured and half a million refugees, and argued that Israel would gain nothing in trying to destroy Hezbollah’s infrastructure.

“The country is on its knees,” he said.

Israel has been bombarding Lebanon since Wednesday last week following the capture of two of its soldiers by Hezbollah.

Seniora conceded he was not optimistic about obtaining an immediate truce, saying diplomatic initiatives had so far not been backed by concrete facts.

Asked to comment on plans to send an international peacekeeping force to the region, Seniora said: “I have explained to (Italian Prime Minister Romano) Prodi and (French President Jacques) Chirac and other foreign leaders with whom I am in contact that the move is not sufficient. Six thousand, 8,000 or even 20,000 foreign soldiers won’t be enough to disarm Hezbollah unless a global solution to the crisis is found.

“And everybody knows that Hezbollah answers to the political agendas of Tehran and Damascus,” he added.

Meanwhile in Rome, Prodi held talks with Lebanon’s parliamentary majority leader, Saad Hariri.

The Lebanese government has asked Italy to act as a mediator in the crisis.

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Politics

Beirut, 20 July (AKI) - Lebanon is interested in an Italian mediation to end the conflict between Israel and the Lebanon-based Shiite militias Hezbollah, prime minister Fuad Siniora told Italy's largest circulation newspaper Corriere della Sera in an interview published on Thursday. Siniora also said he was thinking of inviting Italian foreign minister Massimo D'Alema to Beirut.

"Italy is a privileged partner and has major interests in Lebanon," said Siniora. "Its exports in our country are worth over one billion dollars and rank first ahead of France and China."

"I want to tell your country how interested I am in your mediation," the premier told Corriere. "I am also thinking of inviting Massimo D'Alema to Beirut."

Siniora stressed in the interview that the week-long offensive has cost 300 lives, injured 1,000 people and generated half a million refugees, calling for international help to end "the barbaric Israeli aggression."

"The entire world must help us disarm Hezbollah though the priority is a ceasefire," Siniora said.

Answering a question on a proposal by his Italian counterpart Romano Prodi and the EU to send a multinational peacekeeping force, Siniora said the "move would not be sufficient."

In order to disarm Hezbollah - "which obeys the political agendas of Tehran and Damascus" - "6,000 or 8,000 or even 20,000 foreign soldiers are not enough .. if a comprehensive solution on the problem which also concerns Sheba is not solved first."

Siniora said Israel's withdrawal from Sheba - an area made up of some 40 square km of territory at the foot of the Golan Heights which is claimed by Lebanon and fought over by Hezbollah - could contribute to turn Hezbollah from a militant group into a political party.

"Israel should leave the area of Sheba, which has no military or economic value, release prisoners and our government will be able to say that Hezbollah has no legitimate motive to maintain a militia," said Siniora, claiming that that that point the militant group "will be inevitably forced to become a purely political force in our democratic system."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13975.htm
,
Beirut waits as Syrian masters send Hezbollah allies into battle

--- - It's about Syria. That was the frightening message delivered by Damascus yesterday when it allowed its Hizbollah allies to cross the UN Blue Line in southern Lebanon, kill three Israeli soldiers, capture two others and demand the release of Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails.

Within hours, a country that had begun to believe in peace - without a single Syrian soldier left on its soil - found itself once more at war.

Israel held the powerless Lebanese government responsible - as if the sectarian and divided cabinet in Beirut can control Hizbollah. That is Syria's message. Fouad Siniora, Lebanon's affable Prime Minister, may have thought he was running the country but it is President Bashar Assad in Damascus who can still bring life or death to a land that lost 150,000 lives in 15 years of civil conflict.

And there is one certain bet that Syria will rely on; that despite all Israel's threats of inflicting "pain" on Lebanon, this war will run out of control until - as has so often happened in the past - Israel itself calls for a ceasefire and releases prisoners. Then the international big-hitters will arrive and make their way to the real Lebanese capital - Damascus, not Beirut - and appeal for help.

That is probably the plan. But will it work? Israel has threatened Lebanon's newly installed infrastructure and Hizbollah has threatened Israel with further conflict. And therein lies the problem; to get at Hizbollah, Israel must send its soldiers into Lebanon - and then it will lose more soldiers.

Indeed when a single Merkava tank crossed the border into Lebanon yesterday morning, it struck a Hizbollah mine, which killed three more Israelis.

Certainly Hizbollah's attack broke the United Nations rules in southern Lebanon - a "violent breach" of the Blue Line, it was called by Geir Pedersen, the senior UN official in the country - and was bound to unleash the air force, tanks and gunboats of Israel on to this frail, dangerous country. Many Lebanese in Beirut were outraged when gangs of Hizbollah supporters drove through the streets of the capital with party flags to "celebrate" the attack on the border.

Christian members of the Lebanese government were voicing increasing frustration at the Shia Muslim militia's actions - which only proved how powerless the Beirut administration is.

By nightfall, Israel's air raids had begun to spread across the country - the first civilians to die were killed when an aircraft bombed a small road bridge at Qasmiyeh - but would they go even further and include a target in Syria? This would be the gravest escalation so far and would have US as well as UN diplomats appealing for that familiar, tired quality - "restraint".

And prisoner swaps is probably all that will come of this. In January 2004, for example, Israel freed 436 Arab prisoners and released the bodies of 59 Lebanese for burial, in return for an Israeli spy and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers.

As long ago as 1985, three Israeli soldiers captured in 1982 were traded for 1,150 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners. So Hizbollah knows - and the Israelis know - how this cruel game is played. How many have to die before the swaps begin is a more important question.

What is also clear is that for the first time Israel is facing two Islamist enemies - in southern Lebanon and in Gaza - rather than nationalist guerrillas. The Palestinian Hamas movement's spokesmen in Lebanon yesterday denied that there was any co-ordination with Hizbollah. This may be literally true but Hizbollah timed its attack when Arab feelings are embittered by the international sanctions placed on the democratically elected Hamas government and then the war in Gaza. Hizbollah will ride the anger over Gaza in the hope of escaping condemnation for its capture and killing of Israelis yesterday.

And there is one more little, sinister question. In past violence of this kind, Syria's power was controlled by the Hafez Assad, one of the shrewdest Arabs in modern history. But there are those - including Lebanese politicians - who believe that Bashar, the son, lacks his late father's wisdom and understanding of power. This is a country, remember, whose own Minister of Interior allegedly committed suicide last year and whose soldiers had to leave Lebanon amid suspicion that Syria had set up the murder of Rafik Hariri, Lebanon's former prime minister, last year. All this may now seem academic. But Damascus remains, as always, the key.

It's about Syria. That was the frightening message delivered by Damascus yesterday when it allowed its Hizbollah allies to cross the UN Blue Line in southern Lebanon, kill three Israeli soldiers, capture two others and demand the release of Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails.

Within hours, a country that had begun to believe in peace - without a single Syrian soldier left on its soil - found itself once more at war.

Israel held the powerless Lebanese government responsible - as if the sectarian and divided cabinet in Beirut can control Hizbollah. That is Syria's message. Fouad Siniora, Lebanon's affable Prime Minister, may have thought he was running the country but it is President Bashar Assad in Damascus who can still bring life or death to a land that lost 150,000 lives in 15 years of civil conflict.

And there is one certain bet that Syria will rely on; that despite all Israel's threats of inflicting "pain" on Lebanon, this war will run out of control until - as has so often happened in the past - Israel itself calls for a ceasefire and releases prisoners. Then the international big-hitters will arrive and make their way to the real Lebanese capital - Damascus, not Beirut - and appeal for help.

That is probably the plan. But will it work? Israel has threatened Lebanon's newly installed infrastructure and Hizbollah has threatened Israel with further conflict. And therein lies the problem; to get at Hizbollah, Israel must send its soldiers into Lebanon - and then it will lose more soldiers.

Indeed when a single Merkava tank crossed the border into Lebanon yesterday morning, it struck a Hizbollah mine, which killed three more Israelis.

Certainly Hizbollah's attack broke the United Nations rules in southern Lebanon - a "violent breach" of the Blue Line, it was called by Geir Pedersen, the senior UN official in the country - and was bound to unleash the air force, tanks and gunboats of Israel on to this frail, dangerous country. Many Lebanese in Beirut were outraged when gangs of Hizbollah supporters drove through the streets of the capital with party flags to "celebrate" the attack on the border.

Christian members of the Lebanese government were voicing increasing frustration at the Shia Muslim militia's actions - which only proved how powerless the Beirut administration is.

By nightfall, Israel's air raids had begun to spread across the country - the first civilians to die were killed when an aircraft bombed a small road bridge at Qasmiyeh - but would they go even further and include a target in Syria? This would be the gravest escalation so far and would have US as well as UN diplomats appealing for that familiar, tired quality - "restraint".

And prisoner swaps is probably all that will come of this. In January 2004, for example, Israel freed 436 Arab prisoners and released the bodies of 59 Lebanese for burial, in return for an Israeli spy and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers.

As long ago as 1985, three Israeli soldiers captured in 1982 were traded for 1,150 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners. So Hizbollah knows - and the Israelis know - how this cruel game is played. How many have to die before the swaps begin is a more important question.

What is also clear is that for the first time Israel is facing two Islamist enemies - in southern Lebanon and in Gaza - rather than nationalist guerrillas. The Palestinian Hamas movement's spokesmen in Lebanon yesterday denied that there was any co-ordination with Hizbollah. This may be literally true but Hizbollah timed its attack when Arab feelings are embittered by the international sanctions placed on the democratically elected Hamas government and then the war in Gaza. Hizbollah will ride the anger over Gaza in the hope of escaping condemnation for its capture and killing of Israelis yesterday.

And there is one more little, sinister question. In past violence of this kind, Syria's power was controlled by the Hafez Assad, one of the shrewdest Arabs in modern history. But there are those - including Lebanese politicians - who believe that Bashar, the son, lacks his late father's wisdom and understanding of power. This is a country, remember, whose own Minister of Interior allegedly committed suicide last year and whose soldiers had to leave Lebanon amid suspicion that Syria had set up the murder of Rafik Hariri, Lebanon's former prime minister, last year. All this may now seem academic. But Damascus remains, as always, the key.

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Information Clearing House has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Information ClearingHouse endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

_{"at some point I'm hopeful I'll figure out something to put here"}

Thursday, July 20, 2006

VIEW: Putting Lebanon together —Shlomo Avineri

Lebanon itself cannot establish its sovereignty in the country’s south, and Israeli military force is incapable of doing it. Empty words from St Petersburg, Brussels, or UN headquarters will not suffice, nor will a mere ceasefire, as that would simply return the area to square one. Instead, fundamental change is needed. Only an effective military force, with international legitimacy, can supply it

Today’s crisis in Lebanon is a crisis of the Lebanese state. It is this structural crisis that must be addressed if the violence is to stop.

When Israel withdrew its forces from southern Lebanon in 2000, the international understanding was that the Lebanese government would re-assert its authority in the evacuated area. Hezbollah, which led the armed struggle against Israeli occupation, was to disarm and re-invent itself as a political force, representing the Shiite community that was historically marginalised by Lebanon’s ruling Maronite, Sunni, and Druze elites.

None of this happened. Instead of deploying its forces in southern Lebanon, the weak government in Beirut acquiesced in Hezbollah’s determination to turn the area into a staging ground for attacks against Israel. Over the last six years, Hezbollah established a virtual state-within-a-state: its militia became the only military force in southern Lebanon, setting up outposts along the frontier with Israel, sometimes only a few metres away from the border. Occasionally, Hezbollah shelled Israel, and its leader, Hassan Nassrallah, continued his blood-curdling invective not only against Israel and Zionism but against all Jews.

UN Security Council resolution 1559, which explicitly called for the disarming of all militias and the reassertion of Lebanese government authority in the south, went unheeded. After the much-heralded “Cedar Revolution” of 2005, Hezbollah even joined the Lebanese government, while at the same time maintaining its armed militia and control of the south.

Israel, for its part, still reeling from the trauma of its ill-begotten war in Lebanon in 1982, chose not to respond to Hezbollah’s attacks and hoped that the attacks would not escalate. Yet such absurd situations tend to explode, as occurred with Hezbollah’s abduction of two Israeli soldiers within Israeli territory.

The continued existence of Hezbollah’s illegitimate state-within-a-state can no longer be tolerated. Yet Lebanon itself is too weak to assert its sovereignty. On the other hand, Israel will not allow Hezbollah to re-establish itself along its border, or to maintain its missile capability.

To achieve any reassertion of effective Lebanese sovereignty in southern Lebanon, a robust international effort is needed, beyond the current hand wringing and rhetoric. The main elements of such an international solution are the following:

Hezbollah is to free immediately, and without conditions, the two Israeli soldiers;

Israel is to stop its military activities in Lebanon;

Lebanon’s government is to ask for international assistance in implementing resolution 1559;

For this purpose, a robust and adequately armed international implementation force is to be established.

To succeed, this force must act very differently from the UN’s previous failed efforts in Lebanon. The existing UN force in southern Lebanon, UNIFIL, is a sad joke. Like the UN presence in Srebrenica during the Bosnian war, UNIFIL has given the UN a bad name: it never stopped terrorists from attacking Israel, nor did it stop the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

What is needed is a military delegation that has a clear mandate to use force. It should be international, with the UN’s blessing, but it should not be a UN force. It could be based on NATO capabilities, with a strong European ingredient. To add legitimacy for its delicate mission within an Arab country, soldiers from Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and perhaps Pakistan, should be added.

The mission of such a force should be to help deploy — by force, if necessary — the Lebanese Army in southern Lebanon, to participate in disarming Hezbollah, and to patrol the Israeli-Lebanese border, ensuring that no incursions take place from either side.

Last but not least: it is not widely known that one anomaly of Lebanon’s status until this very day is that Syria has not fully recognised its existence as a sovereign nation (in Syrian school textbooks, Lebanon figures as part of Greater Syria). Consequently, there are no normal diplomatic relations between the two countries — no Syrian embassy in Beirut and no Lebanese embassy in Damascus.

This is absurd and dangerous, and the hapless Arab League has never truly addressed it. To bolster Lebanese independence and security, and in line with UN resolution 1559, which brought about the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon, Syria should be pushed to recognise Lebanon’s sovereignty and independence.

Hezbollah’s existence as a mini-state in southern Lebanon is a flagrant violation of Lebanese sovereignty. That vacuum of legitimate authority created the present crisis, and it must be extirpated. Lebanon itself cannot establish its sovereignty in the country’s south, and Israeli military force is incapable of doing it. Empty words from St Petersburg, Brussels, or UN headquarters will not suffice, nor will a mere ceasefire, as that would simply return the area to square one.

Instead, fundamental change is needed. Only an effective military force, with international legitimacy, can supply it. Otherwise, we are all condemned to the continuation of the present cycles of violence. — DT-PS

Shlomo Avineri, a former director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, is professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The Daily Times

The Israeli-arab father of 2 boys killed yesterday by a Hezbollah rocket attack on Nazareth BLAMES EHUD OLMERT FOR THE DEATH OF HIS BOYS: "IF ISRAEL IS DEFENDING ITSELF THROUGH THE USE OF WAR SHIPS, BOMBERS, TANKS...THEN WHY ARE HEZBOLLAH'S ROCKETS SEEN AS A MEANS TO ATTACK RATHER THAN DEFEND ITSELF? IT IS HEZBOLLAH THAT IS DEFENDING AND ISRAEL BOMBING EVERYTHING, I HOLD PM OLMERT AND THE ISRAELI GVT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DEATH OF MY BOYS"

source: euronews

Jonathan Wright | July 20 | Cairo

Reuters - Arab governments disagree on who to blame for starting the Middle East violence of the past week but, unlike Israel and the United States, they agree at least that the bombings should end immediately and talks should begin.

Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah and its backers Syria and non-Arab Iran believe a truce at this stage would mark a significant political victory for Hezbollah, analysts say.

Israel attacked Lebanon last week after Hezbollah grabbed two Israeli soldiers in a raid into Israeli territory.

A truce would allow Hezbollah to retain its military position along the Israeli border in south Lebanon and would be able to negotiate indirectly with Israel, seeking Arab prisoners in exchange for the captured Israeli soldiers.

For other Arab governments, especially conservative Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, a truce would spare them further domestic embarrassment for their failure to stop Israel from killing hundreds of Lebanese, most of them civilians.

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

Palestinian Citizens of Israel Unprotected and Unwarned: 2 Children killed in Nazareth

IMEMC & Agencies - Thursday, 20 July 2006, 14:57

Residents of Nazareth complained of the lack of shelters and warning systems in the city after a Katyusha rocket killed two brothers aged nine and three on Wednesday.

The mayor of Nazareth, Ramez Jeraisi, has been asking for the funds to build public shelters in the city for some time. "I have discussed the issue with the Ministry of Interior and the Home Front, and they have said there is no money for them."

For the Jewish citizens of Upper Nazareth, the neighbouring Jewish city, there are a number of shelters. As opposed to the Jewish sector, the Arab and Druze home front can't take refuge in bomb shelters or reinforced rooms, and they don't have the benefit of warning sirens.

Moreover, the Home Front Command does not publish its announcements in Arabic, and the Palestinian towns themselves don’t qualify for government aid for being in the "line of fire.". At times of war the state deals only with the Jewish home front

Barhoum Jaraisi, who lives in the northern neighbourhood of Sufafra where the children were killed said, “When dealing with Arabs, the establishment doesn’t care if we get hit. We’re used to this. It’s nothing new,” he said. “When there were rocket strikes on Monday in Nazareth Illit (Upper) nearby, their siren went off. But here no one was told to enter shelters. I called the police and asked why, and they said they’d get back to me. No one has gotten back to me yet".

This was not the first Hezbollah strike on one of the 100 or so Arab communities inside – several have been hit in the past few days – but the two children, Rabia and Mohammed Abu Taluzi, were the first deaths among ’s 1.2 million Arab citizens.

Several residents pointed out that there are military installations near Nazareth that Hezbollah has been trying to target. Northern Israel is under martial law, which means that divulging details about the nature of the installations and their locations is forbidden. :"We are like human shields. They build these military sites close to Arab communities because they hope it will make Hezbollah more frightened to strike at them", said one resident..

Until the deaths of the children, the media had demonstrably ignored the bombs and missiles that have landed on Druze and Arab communities and the despair of those citizens has not been heard.

Home Front Command Chief Maj.-Gen. Yitzhak Garshon met Nazareth Mayor Ramez Jaraisi on Thursday to discuss measures to protect residents of the Arab Israeli city.

Maj.-Gen. Garshon told Jaraisi that citizens should be told to seek shelter in enclosed space upon hearing a siren, despite the fact that there are no sirens in Nazareth, repeating claims that no shelters are needed. He said he will return to the city as a citizen in more peaceful times.

*this article was also sourced from PNN, YNET, and Al Jazeer Net

http://www.imemc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20200&Itemid=1

Beirut | July 20

The Daily Star (Egypt) - At least 55 civilians were killed Wednesday as Israeli jets and gunboats pummeled towns and villages across Lebanon and tens of thousands of people fled a conflict that both sides defiantly warned would have no limit.

In the bloodiest day since the fighting erupted eight days ago, two Israeli soldiers were also reported killed in clashes with militants from the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah movement as another volley of rockets fell on northern Israel.

Streams of Lebanese were fleeing their homes to find safe havens and thousands of foreigners, mainly Westerners, were being evacuated by sea from Beirut to the neighboring Mediterranean island of Cyprus.

The United Nations has warned of a humanitarian catastrophe, with 500,000 people displaced by the Israeli onslaught and the air and sea blockade and at least 310 people killed in Lebanon alone since last Wednesday.

With the international community unable to agree even on a ceasefire call, Israel vowed its "intensive war" against militants would go on as long it deemed necessary.

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

July 20

The Daily Star (Beirut) - A UN Middle East crisis team on Wednesday said the international community had to quickly deploy troops to Lebanon to stop an escalation that could destabilize the region. Speaking in Madrid, the UN envoys said it was too early to express optimism after their talks with Israeli and Arab leaders and urged a rapid increase in international military forces in Lebanon.

"We are in a hurry and this has to happen fast," UN special envoy Terje Roed-Larsen said during a news briefing at the Spanish Foreign Ministry.

On Wednesday the team wrapped up three days of talks in Cairo, Beirut, Jerusalem and Gaza. It is set to brief UN Secretary General Kofi Annan ahead of a UN Security Council meeting on Thursday to discuss the crisis.

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

Leila Hatoum | July 20

The Daily Star (Beirut) - Prime Minister Fouad Siniora brought together foreign diplomats, members of the Lebanese Cabinet, representatives of the United Nations in Lebanon and other organizations Wednesday to deliver a speech in which he called upon the international community to work for an immediate cease-fire.

The premier asked friends and countries to extend "urgent humanitarian international assistance" to Lebanon, adding that the country would "spare no avenue to make Israel compensate for the barbaric destruction it has inflicted and continues to inflict" upon Lebanon.

US Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman told The Daily Star after the speech that he "will convey the premier's wishes directly to Washington."

Feltman, who said that Siniora's speech was "articulate and touching," added that "everyone is concerned for the humanitarian situation in Lebanon."

Despite the fact that Washington has not backed an immediate cease-fire in Lebanon, Feltman said: "All of us want to see an implementation of an immediate cease-fire."

[Comment: I wonder what the message traffic from Foggy Bottom in response to this said? ~ JPD]

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

Hussein Saad | Tyre | July 20

Reuters - Ghassan Bourji says he has run out of insulin for his two diabetic children and heart medication for his mother because Israeli bombardment has cut supplies to his village of Rmadiyeh in south Lebanon.

"I'm scared I might lose them," the 55-year-old father of four told Reuters by telephone from Rmadiyeh, south of Tyre.

"The situation here is miserable. We need help." Many villagers say food, water and medical supplies are dwindling after Israeli air and artillery strikes destroyed roads and bridges in the south, restricting humanitarian aid movement to areas hardest hit in the eight-day-old conflict. The UN Children's Fund said the fighting between Israel and Lebanese Hizbollah fighters has displaced some 400,000 people, who mostly fled their homes to stay with other families.

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

IDF: Hezbollah leaders' bunker hit
New blasts as conflict shows no signs of ebbing
Thursday, July 20, 2006

Lebanon Tyre Hospital clip That appears to be a clip of Hassan being admitted into the emergency department? If that's the case have no idea why the majors wouldn't have picked it up or why CNN wouldn't be playing the clip more often? He died of his injuries.

-----

Nope couldn't have been Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Lebanon's Hizbollah. Al-Jazeera interviewed him today ... see further down this topic. Might have been another Hassan--looked similar and by coincidence was 45-years-old.

Anshel Pfeffer | July 20

The Jerusalem Post - A week into the Lebanon crisis, the two sides in this showdown are very clearly defined. The entire accumulated experience and strategy of Israel's political and military leadership - not only the incumbents but also a number of past administrations - is being pitted against the cunning of one man, Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah.

The Lebanese government is a non-player, as it has been for decades in every aspect regarding its southern border, while both the international community and the vast majority of the Arab states seem resigned to sit this one out.

Nasrallah is of course acting with the full moral and material backing of Syria and Iran and is in many ways their proxy against Israel, but he's obviously giving the orders on the ground and he's the one operating with the constant threat of airborne death hovering over his head.

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

July 20

Ha'aretz - Three Israel Defense Forces soldiers were wounded Thursday morning in two separate clashes with Hezbollah guerillas in south Lebanon.

Two soldiers were wounded, one moderately and the other lightly, when a rocket hit a tank north of the Israeli border.

In the second incident, a soldier from a paratroop unit was seriously wounded in fighting with a Hezbollah cell next to the Ayta a-Shaa, north of the border, in the Zarit area.

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

W.African Lebanese voice anger, some back Hizbollah
Thu Jul 20, 2006 6:04 PM GMT

MORE

By Diadie Ba

DAKAR (Reuters) - West Africa's large Lebanese community expressed anger on Thursday at Israel's bombardment of its homeland, some taking to the streets to express support for guerrilla group Hizbollah.

In Senegal's capital Dakar more than 1,500 people gathered before the offices of state television, chanting slogans hostile to Israel and the United States.

"Israel, assassin" and "Bush, assassin," shouted members of the crowd, many wearing T-shirts bearing the slogan "Lebanon is dying while diplomacy is sleeping". Senegal is home to some 25,000 Lebanese, many with dual nationality.

"We all support Hizbollah," said Sheikh Abdoul Monein El Zein, spiritual leader of the Lebanese Muslim community, as members of the crowd cheered and waved Hizbollah flags.

More than 300 people, mainly civilians, have died in Lebanon during nine days of Israeli bombardment after Hizbollah fighters seized two Israeli soldiers and killed eight on July 12.

Hizbollah has rained barrages of rockets into northern Israel, killing 15 civilians.

From tiny Gambia to war-ravaged Liberia and Sierra Leone, well-established Lebanese communities called for an immediate end to the bloodshed.

"With acts of violence being committed against our people in Lebanon, we say to the world, especially world leaders, that our community endorses a ceasefire by both sides to save lives and properties," Samir Hassaniyeh, head of the Lebanese community in Sierra Leone, told a news conference.

"This matter can be solved amicably through negotiation and not by violence."

U.S. officials have said Hizbollah finances some of its operations through Lebanese interests in Sierra Leone's diamond trade, which went unchecked during a 1991-2002 civil war. But Hassaniyeh said the community as a whole was not behind them.

"We do not support Hizbollah. There might be some of us with them but you must understand that, we have Christians and Muslims who have nothing to do with Hizbollah," he said.

Up to 1 million Lebanese are estimated to have fled the country during the 1975-1990 civil war, adding to an already sizeable diaspora. Lebanese living overseas are believed to outnumber the country's 4 million inhabitants.

From Ivory Coast to Gambia, Lebanese expatriates complained they had lost relatives during the Israeli attacks.

"The peace and the stability of the Middle East is now at stake," read a statement from Gambia's Lebanese community. "The world must now take a stand before the situation spirals completely out of control."

link

I keep hearing that Hiz has shot 800+/- rockets towards Israel, how many has Israel fired?

The Israelis say they try to limit civillian deaths, than why are they killing more than the Hizs missiles?

Jul. 20, 2006 17:23
Lebanese Army may join forces with Hizbullah
By JPOST.COM STAFF

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

Jerusalem Post

Jul. 20, 2006 16:30 | Updated Jul. 20, 2006 16:38
Nazareth sheikh attacks Zionism
By MATTHEW WAGNER
Jerusalem Post

Talkbacks for this article: 56

One day after the tragic killing of two baby brothers in Nazareth, a leading Suffi Sheikh from the same town, who has been heavily involved in interfaith dialogue for two decades, equated the dispossession of Palestinians from their land in 1948 with the Holocaust.

Sheikh Abdel Salam Manasra, Secretary General of the High Suffi Council in the Holy Land, also equated Zionism with idolatry.

"Just as it says in the Bible that there were Jews who worshipped Ba'al [a type of ancient idolatry] so too there are Jews today who are Zionists," said Manasra.

"You are not a Jew as you should be if you [support] Zionism," he added. "Zionism is a bad thing."

Manasra rejected the idea that Israel was a Jewish state or a homeland for the Jews.

"After the Europeans brought a Holocaust on the Jews, you Jews came here and brought a Holocaust on us," said Manasra. "None of the Europeans responsible for the Holocaust paid the price. Instead, I paid the price because I lost my land."

Rabbi Dr. Ron Kronish, Director of the Inter Religious Coordinating Council in Israel, who has participated in numerous interfaith dialogues with Manasra over the years, said the comments were very surprising.

"If this is indeed that is what he said about the Holocaust and Zionism, I think those are very poor, unhelpful comparison. I have known Sheikh Manasra as a man of peace and dialogue. I urge him to rethink his comments if indeed he said them.

"I am sensitive to the pain caused by the Naqba [Israeli victory against the Arabs] but it is not to be compared to the Holocaust."

When Manasra discovered that The Jerusalem Post reporter interviewing him lived in a settlement beyond the Green Line he said, "You live on conquered land. Come live in Haifa, Ashdod or Tel Aviv.

"Besides, most of you are there because you love money," said Manasra. "A lot of you settlers are not even Jewish. They are Russians who oppose Judaism. I see them come to the Church in Nazareth."

Manasra was quick to condemn Israeli violence in Lebanon, but only after repeated questioning by The Post was Manasra willing to criticize the Hizbullah's bombing.

"But I do not want that statement against the Hizbullah to be placed prominently in your article," said Manasra to The Post.

He said that the relationship Sunni Arabs like himself had with the Shi'ite Hizbullah was "similar to the relation Jews had to the Black Hebrews in Dimona".

Manasra said he has been involved in interfaith dialogue since 1987. He said that as a Suffi Sunni with more moderate views than other Sunni orders, he has suffered financially.

"The Saudis are opposed to the Suffis," said Manasra. "It's not easy to be a promoter of peace."

Nasrallah has been interviewed by Al-Jazeera and promises more surprises on the battle place with israel in the next days
http://lfpm.org/forum/showthread.php?t=17358&page=11

Dozens missing in South Lebanon

by Christian Henderson in Beirut
Thursday 20 July 2006 9:17 PM GMT

Many bodies have not been recovered

Doctors and NGOs are reporting heavy civilian casualties in south Lebanon following Israel's offensive in the area.

Although as many as 500,000 people have left the border area, thousands remain in an area which has seen the worst of the Israeli bombing.

In the village of Sreefa near Naqoura at least 21 people have been confirmed killed and 60 missing after Israeli rockets hit 13 homes yesterday.

Nayla Mouawad, the Lebanese social affairs minister, said: "Sreefa has suffered a real massacre but we don't have enough details."

Although the current death toll in Lebanon is above 300, it is likely to be higher, especially in the southern areas where bodies have not been recovered, doctors say.

Doctors and emergency services working in south Lebanon say it is extremely difficult to access the wounded as Israel has targeted Red Cross vehicles and civilian traffic.

Maha Mrouweh, a financial administrator at the Jabal Amal hospital in Tyre, told Aljazeera.net: "They are targeting the civilian cars. They are preventing the food from arriving in the south. They are preventing the Red Cross from arriving to the destroyed buildings. They are shooting the Red Cross."

Civilians

Mrouweh said that none of the casualties being treated in the hospital were Hezbollah fighters.

"No one is in Hezbollah. I assure you. All of them are civilians. Hezbollah soldiers are not being sent to the hospital. We don't see them. These are very secret people. The Israelis are just killing civilian people."

Ahmad Mrouweh, a doctor at the Jabal Amal hospital, said that he had received 20 bodies since the conflict had begun but many bodies remained in the rubble of bombed houses or in burnt-out cars.

"There are bodies still lying in cars. It's a disaster. Nobody can reach the hospital because all the roads are cut."

Food supplies

Villages in the south are also running low on food supplies and medicines as supply trucks cannot find a way through.

Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch, said: "Movement in southern Lebanon is extremely restricted even for international humanitarian organisations. The Israelis have refused to give guarantees that vehicles carrying supplies and wounded will not be targeted.

"I have worked in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo and I have never seen a situation where humanitarian organisations have faced such access risks."

Mouawad said the southern areas had been worst hit, but central and northern areas of Lebanon were also struggling to cope with at least 100,000 refugees who have fled the south.

"We are living a humanitarian disaster … They are in a desperate situation. There is no milk, bread and medicine."

According to the Lebanese government 21 key infrastructure sites, 55 road bridges, two milk factories and two hospitals have been attacked in Israel's military offensive on Lebanon.

Israel denies

Mouawad said the Lebanese government was desperate for aid and asked for international assurances that relief supplies would get through to the affected areas.

"We are asking for a humanitarian corridor to the south and east of Lebanon.

"If the international community do not react to help Lebanon then the Lebanese people will lose faith in them. The people of Lebanon deserve to live in peace and dignity."

Israel denies it has been hitting civilians and says the official death toll is exaggerated.

Shimon Peres, the Israeli vice premier, said in an interview on CNN: "The numbers of the victims [in Lebanon] are not acceptable. We think that information coming from Lebanon is totally unreliable."

Aljazeera
By Christian Henderson in Beirut

You can find this article at:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/80A6775F-5AF3-425B-B86F-9497378249E5.htm

Link

devastation - ES

ICRC calls on Israeli army to immediately leave Palestine Red Crescent premises in Nablus

GENEVA, Switzerland / TEL AVIV, Israel - July 20 - During a military operation in Nablus that began on the night of 18 July, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) occupied the premises of the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), blocking the entrance and hindering the movement of ambulances, patients and staff.

This action shows grave disregard by the IDF for its obligation to respect and protect medical units. Since 19 July, the ICRC has repeatedly raised this issue with the Israeli authorities and called on the IDF to immediately leave the premises of the PRCS.

The PRCS runs emergency medical services and a rehabilitation centre for disabled children on its premises in Nablus, which are used for strictly humanitarian and medical purposes and which must therefore be kept safe from any form of military action or presence.

The PRCS is a member of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. Its medical units, which are clearly identified by the red crescent emblem, are entitled to full protection under international humanitarian law.

link

Invaders test ground defenses in South

By Leila Hatoum and Mohammed Zaatari
Daily Star staff
Friday, July 21, 2006

BEIRUT: Israel has opened a 60-kilometer front along the southern Lebanese border, from Naqoura to Majidiyeh, a Lebanese security source said on Thursday. "This front is to estimate Hizbullah's retaliation strength on the ground," the source said. "The fighting zone is inside Lebanese territory, which the UN itself has marked and which Israel agrees is Lebanese."

As The Daily Star went to press, three Israeli bombs fell on the southern suburbs of the capital and additional ordnance hit the northern city of Baalbek, leaving both areas ablaze. No casualty count was available.

Although up to now Israel has only hinted that it might undertake a full-scale invasion of Lebanon, on Thursday its tanks in fact attempted to cross the UN-demarcated Blue Line.

According to a Hizbullah statement, Israeli troops met "fierce resistance from Hizbullah fighters as the Israelis crossed into Lebanon."

An Israeli Army spokesperson said his troops were looking for "tunnels and weapons for the second day."

The Hizbullah statement said Israeli tanks and soldiers were "relentlessly trying to advance into Lebanese territory to achieve any military victory, but they were defeated by Hizbullah fighters. The latest Israeli attempt to advance toward the Southern Lebanon town of Maroun Al-Rass failed as the Israelis lost two Merkava tanks and a helicopter."

According to a statement from Amal, one Hizbullah fighter - identified as Hani Alawiya, 50 - died in the clashes at Maroun Al-Rass.

A separate Hizbullah statement said nine Israeli soldiers died in a Hizbullah ambush Thursday afternoon.

The resistance group's Al-Manar TV aired footage of Israeli Army equipment seized by Hizbullah fighters in the clashes.

Hizbullah guerrillas continued on Thursday their missile bombardment of Haifa, the party said, and fighters advanced as far inside Israel as the northern settlement of Avirvim.

Meanwhile, a source close to the resistance denied reports that rocket posts in Baalbek had been hit, or that the party had such posts in the area.

Media reports said Thursday that Israeli warplanes had struck Hizbullah's rocket operations headquarters in Baalbek and claimed the unit controlled the party's storage and distribution of rockets.

Also Thursday, Israeli warplanes and warships continued their bombardment of Lebanon, from the North to the South and the Bekaa Valley.

In the latest reported civilian casualties, four Lebanese were killed when an Israeli missile struck their car in Tyre as they were fleeing the city.

Beirut's southern suburbs were hit in the early morning. The strike targeted a construction site that Hizbullah said was a mosque.

"No Hizbullah leaders or members died in Thursday's bombing of Bourj al-Barajneh part of Beirut's southern suburbs," said a statement. Hizbullah dismissed as false claims made by the Israeli Army that the strike targeted a bunker.

"The building which Israel used 23 tons of explosives on was a mosque," it said.

The bombardment of the suburbs resumed Thursday afternoon as Israeli attack helicopters targeted the area's empty streets and buildings.

The flow of displaced Lebanese also continued Thursday, as residents of Southern towns and villages, under constant attack by Israel, continued to pour into Sidon.

Eyewitnesses said that convoys of hundreds of families "crammed in cars and buses, starting to arrive in Sidon and its suburbs during the early hours Thursday."

Malek Abdul-Khaliq, the governor of the South, and representatives from the Higher Relief Committee distributed 4,000 food portions and aid to the displaced Thursday, in collaboration with the army.

The Hariri Foundation has also provided the displaced with 7,000 food portions, 2,000 mattresses and 3,000 blankets over the past week.

The UN and several humanitarian organizations have estimated that some 500,000 Lebanese have been displaced by the Israeli assault.

The head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinian refugees said Thursday that the situation for civilians in the South "is increasingly critical due to Israeli raids."

Sven Berthelsen told the Danish news agency Ritzau from Beirut that "the situation is serious and is deteriorating every day.

"They are starting to lose electricity, and water pumps are working less and less," he added. "Very few basic foodstuffs are getting to this zone."

In the absence of safe passage guarantees from Israel, UNRWA is unable to send aid to the region. UNICEF, the WHO and the UNHCR are facing the same dilemma.

Other NGOs are working on the ground to help the displaced but their numbers are increasing and the offerings the NGOs have are insufficient, a Daily Star reporter observed.

Separately, the Lebanese Higher Relief Commission said that at least 30 houses had been completely destroyed since Israel launched its attacks, 1,000 residences damaged, 20 bridges demolished and five gas stations burned in the Bekaa district. - With agencies

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=74137

Adam Shatz | July 20

The Nation - In January 2004 Sheik Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, presided over a major prisoner exchange with Israel, in which the Lebanese guerrilla movement and political party secured the release of more than 400 Arab prisoners in return for the bodies of three Israeli soldiers and an Israeli businessman and alleged spy, Elhanan Tannenbaum, whom Hezbollah had kidnapped. Moments before the exchange was sealed, Ariel Sharon withheld three Lebanese detainees, one of whom, Samir Kuntar, had killed a family of three in the Israeli town of Nahariya in 1979. Nasrallah, having failed to release Kuntar and the two other men, declared that Hezbollah would "reserve the right" to capture Israeli soldiers until they were freed.

On July 12 Nasrallah launched the most daring assault of his tenure as Hezbollah's leader: the capture of two Israeli soldiers in a raid that left eight other Israeli soldiers dead. He called the attack "Operation Truthful Promise."

Nasrallah is not a man who minces words. Still, questions linger as to the timing and location of Operation Truthful Promise, which detonated Israel's most ruthless assault on Lebanon since the 1982 invasion. Although Hezbollah's operation was apparently planned five months in advance, it occurred amid the Israeli siege in Gaza, which followed the capture of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian guerrillas and was inevitably interpreted as a gesture of solidarity with the Gazans, particularly the Hamas leadership, dozens of whose members were recently abducted by Israel. What is more, Hezbollah did not strike in the occupied Shebaa farms, a sliver of land in the Golan Heights, as it usually does, but inside Israel, a violation of international law that Israel--despite its own numerous violations of Lebanese territorial sovereignty--could invoke as a casus belli. In other words, Hezbollah undertook an audacious act of brinksmanship that was bound, if not designed, to escalate tensions with Israel.
complete story at link

_{"at some point I'm hopeful I'll figure out something to put here"}

Friday, July 21, 2006
Dahiyeh sports terrible scars from merciless bombardment

By Rym Ghazal
Daily Star staff

Eyewitness

DAHIYEH, Lebanon: Rubble, smoke and tangled webs of dangling electrical cables now reside in an area that formerly housed over 500,000 Lebanese, the aftermath of Israeli air strikes that have ravaged Beirut's southern suburbs and show no sign of ending.

"Only civilians lived here," said a Hizbullah spokesperson as he led journalists through what he called a "tour of the terror by Israel" in the once densely populated neighborhood.

The scene included the usual debris of twisted metal, shattered glass and chunks of cement that follows bomb and rocket blasts, along with personal items, including abandoned toys, scorched mattresses and dusty books and photos.

Before the tour, the spokesperson warned journalists that if he ordered them to evacuate, they "must obey" and do it immediately as Israeli fighter-bombers and warships have been sporadically bombarding the area. Within an hour of the tour, Israeli helicopters attacked again.

"Israel always invents pretexts and excuses for its attacks," said the guide. "Instead of cowardly bombs on civilian areas, come and face the actual Hizbullah fighters in combat along the borders."

He denied persistent statements by journalists that Israel is only targeting Hizbullah headquarters and the residences of its fighters and officials.

"People live here and some may be supporters of Hizbullah but that doesn't make them fighters," he added as he pointed to a demolished "Hizbullah media center" building and a convenience store nearby where a cash register and some merchandise survived.

"Israel keeps releasing statements that it destroyed 50 percent of Hizbullah's force, which is all false as [the force] is growing stronger by the day and will fight until the end," said the spokesperson, adding that on Thursday over 30 rockets were launched at the Israeli Army.

Dozens of buildings were demolished in Haret Hreik and Bir al-Abed in the southern suburbs, where 200,000 people formerly resided.

In the midst of the rubble, a few residents dared to come back to their former homes and search for possessions to salvage.

"I can't even reach my house as the way to it is covered with piles of cement and dangling electrical cables that may still be live," said Ibrahim Al-Aaleeli, who along with his wife was mainly concerned about retrieving photo albums that were left behind in the rush to evacuate.

His wife, who preferred that her name not be published, said she had found "a photo" which she took as a "sign" that the resistance "will live on despite all of Israel's terrorist acts."

Other residents decided to ride out the heavy bombardment and stayed in their homes, some within meters of the mounds of rubble.

"We don't have an alternative home, we don't have a home in the mountains where most are escaping to, and we will not be turned into refugees in our own country," said Mahmoud Beydoun, who is staying with his wife and six children in an apartment building near a demolished building.

"Of course we are afraid each time we hear the Israeli planes, but if they kill us, then it will be another sacrifice to the resistance and to Lebanon as resisting the enemy is in the hearts of all the Lebanese."

Almost as a testament to the history of the area and of Lebanon in general, a half-burned postcard dated 1991 lay open in the rubble with handwritten words that read: "Inshallah we will have a peaceful year soon."

Copyright (c) 2006 The Daily Star

Israel Hints at Full-Scale Lebanon Attack

Jul 20, 8:11 PM (ET)

By LEE KEATH

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Pitched battles raged between Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters on the border Thursday, and Israel warned hundreds of thousands of people to flee southern Lebanon "immediately," preparing for a likely ground offensive to set up a buffer zone.

U.N. chief Kofi Annan warned of a humanitarian crisis in Lebanon and called for an immediate cease-fire, even as he admitted "serious obstacles" stand in the way of even easing the violence. Annan denounced Israel for "excessive use of force" and Hezbollah for holding "an entire nation hostage" with its rocket attacks and snatching of two Israeli soldiers last week.

As the death toll rose to 330 in Lebanon as well as at least 31 Israelis, Lebanese streamed north into the capital and other regions, crowding into schools, relatives' homes or hotels. Taxi drivers in the south were charging up to $400 per person for rides to Beirut - more than 40 times the usual price. In remote villages of the south, cut off by strikes, residents made their way out over the mountains by foot.

The price of food, medical supplies and gasoline rose by as much as 500 percent in parts of Lebanon on Thursday as Israel's relentless bombardment destroyed roads, bridges and other supply routes. The World Food Program said estimates of basic food supplies ranged from one to three months.

On a day that saw U.S. Marines return to Lebanon for the first time in 22 years, the war looked ready to expand dramatically. Neither side showed any sign of backing down. Hezbollah refused to release its two Israeli soldiers without a prisoner exchange, Israel was aiming to create a new buffer zone in a region that saw 18 years of Israeli presence ending in 2000.

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah shrugged off concerns of a stepped-up Israeli onslaught, vowing never to release two Israeli soldiers captured by his guerrillas even "if the whole universe comes (against us)." He said they would be freed only as part of a prisoner exchange brokered through indirect negotiations.
[More]

Friday, July 21, 2006
With focus on Lebanon, Israelis keep hitting Gaza
Army threatens to hit homes used to store arms

Compiled by Daily Star staff

Israel Thursday pursued its air and ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, where it has killed nearly 100 people in three weeks, and warned civilians that every home storing weaponry was now a target. "The life of all those who are holding military equipment and ammunition in their homes is in danger and they should leave the premises for their safety and that of their families," warned Israeli leaflets dropped on the Gaza Strip. The Israeli Army "will strike and destroy all sites and buildings housing ammunition and military materiel."

Though similar leaflets have been dropped on Gaza before, it was the most explicit warning that civilians' homes could be directly targeted.

A spokeswoman said the army had "specific information some houses are storing weapons" in Gaza. "Palestinian terrorist organizations have been using the civilian population as human shields," she claimed.

"We're warning the civilian population because we don't want them to get hurt ... to stay away from such houses and stay away from terrorists," she said.

stunster, you're providing excellent news items here. Please provide a link to the source and post the story lede - not the entire article - in compliance with "fair use" practice. Thank you!
- editors

By Reuters

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday called for an immediate end to hostilities between Israel and Lebanon to "prevent further loss of innocent life and the infliction of further suffering."

A quick end to the fighting also would allow aid workers to reach those in need and would "give diplomacy the chance to work out a practical package of actions that would provide a lasting solution to the current crisis," Annan told the UN Security Council.

A UN team he sent to the region in search of ways to ease the crisis has concluded that a sustainable cease-fire agreement would be "difficult to achieve at this time," requiring instead a temporary cessation of hostilities, the UN leader said.

It was clear the Lebanese government had no advance knowledge of the July 12 Hezbollah attack in which guerrillas entered Israel to capture two Israel Defense Forces soldiers, he said.

While Hezbollah says its actions aim to defend Palestinian and Lebanese interests, they "in fact do neither," Annan added.

"On the contrary they hold an entire nation hostage, set back prospects for negotiation of a comprehensive Middle East peace," he said.

While acknowledging Israel's right to self-defense, he accused it of "excessive use of force."

"Whatever damage Israel's operations may be doing to Hezbollah's military capabilities, they are doing little or nothing to decrease popular support for Hezbollah in Lebanon or the region, but are doing a great deal to weaken the government of Lebanon," Annan said.

He called for the following proposals to be carried out in parallel:

The captured Israeli soldiers to be transferred to Lebanese government authorities, under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross with a view to their repatriation.

An expanded peacekeeping force to be established on the Lebanese side of its border with Israel, working with the Beirut government to strengthen its army.

A "mechanism" to be established of key regional and international figures to monitor and guarantee implementation of whatever agreement is reached.

An international conference to delineate Lebanon's international borders with Syria and with Israel, including the disputed Shebaa Farms area. The conference would also focus on ways to help carry out Security Council resolutions calling for the disarming of militias operating on Lebanese soil and for the Lebanese government to extend its authority across all its territory.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice planned to discuss diplomatic efforts to end the violence, and the possibility of international troops to maintain peace, over dinner Thursday in New York with Annan.

Israel's ambassador to the UN Dan Gillerman spoke to reporters after the Security Council meeting and said that he has reservations regarding Annan's insinuations of Israel's guilt.

"Without the mention of terror there is no solution for the situation," Gillerman said.

He also expressed his astonishment at the fact that "neither Iran nor Syria were mentioned in [Annan's speech], two countries that make up the central axis of terror. He who wants to end terror should turn to Syria and Iran."

Haaretz

HASSAN M. FATTAH | July 21, 2006 | Tyre

In Scramble to Evade Israeli Bombs, the Living Leave the Dead Behind

NYT — Carpenters are running out of wood for coffins. Bodies are stacked three or four high in a truck at the local hospital morgue. The stench is spreading in the rubble.

The morbid reality of Israel’s bombing campaign of the south is reaching almost every corner of this city. Just a few miles from the Rest House hotel, where the United Nations was evacuating civilians on Thursday, wild dogs gnawed at the charred remains of a family bombed as they were trying to escape the village of Hosh, officials said.

Officials at the Tyre Government Hospital inside a local Palestinian refugee camp said they counted the bodies of 50 children among the 115 in the refrigerated truck in the morgue, though their count could not be independently confirmed.

Casualties mount in Israel war in Lebanon

By Lin Noueihed

18 minutes ago

Israeli jets struck Lebanon overnight in a 10-day-old war that is claiming more lives and forcing thousands to flee but Hizbollah insisted it would only free two Israeli soldiers as part of a prisoner swap.

Four Israeli soldiers were killed in fierce battles with Hizbollah guerrillas inside Lebanon on Thursday, according to Al Jazeera TV. Israel said two of its troops were killed in the clashes and two of its helicopters collided near the Lebanese border causing four casualties.

Hizbollah said it lost two of its fighters in the clashes, which occurred just inside Lebanon near an area where Hizbollah killed two Israeli soldiers on Wednesday.

Elite Israeli troops have been launching small raids inside Lebanon to try to stop Hizbollah firing rockets into Israel.

Israel, which is also waging a three-week-old military campaign in Gaza, launched its assault after Hizbollah captured two troops and killed eight in a cross-border raid on July 12.

Its campaign has killed at least 312 people in Lebanon, the vast majority civilians, and displaced hundreds of thousands. At least 29 Israeli troops and civilians have been killed.

The United States, which has exerted no public pressure on Israel for a ceasefire, said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice may travel to the Middle East next week to press for a political solution. It has demanded the release of the troops.

Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said no amount of international pressure would deflect the guerrilla group from its demand that the Jewish state agree to a prisoner swap.

"If the entire universe came (to pressure Hizbollah) it will not bring back the Israeli soldiers unless through indirect negotiations and a prisoner swap," Nasrallah told Al Jazeera television in an interview.

HIZBOLLAH DEFIANT

Nasrallah, whose whereabouts are unknown, said Israel's attacks had not damaged the group's leadership structure.

"All this Israeli talk that they hit 50 percent of our rocket capabilities and warehouses ... is wrong and nonsense," he said.

Hizbollah said it had destroyed two Israeli tanks in house-to-house fighting in the village of Maroun al-Ras. The group's al-Manar TV showed captured Israeli equipment, including a rifle, night-vision binoculars, grenades and a video camera.

The border clashes have shown the guerrilla group is still operating relatively freely near the hilly frontier despite a week of heavy Israeli artillery barrages.

Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz raised the possibility of a bigger ground offensive into Lebanon. So far the campaign has been mainly in the form of air strikes and limited, temporary incursions.

Nasrallah warned against such an escalation and said Hizbollah's rockets could still reach Israel even if its fighters were pushed back 10 or 20 km (6 or 12 miles) from the border.

"A land invasion will be a disaster for the Israeli army, a disaster for their tanks, officers and soldiers," he said, also suggesting that a U.N. initiative to end the fighting had failed and that the confrontation could be prolonged.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for an immediate end to hostilities.

A 40-strong U.S. Marine force landed in Lebanon to evacuate to Cyprus about 1,200 Americans stranded with thousands of other foreigners, many of Lebanese origin.

The Marine landing was the U.S. military's first return to Lebanon since it withdrew in 1984, months after a Shi'ite Muslim suicide bomber destroyed a Marine barracks killing 241 U.S. service personnel.

"We are thankful to leave but our hearts and prayers are with Lebanon and its people," said evacuee Mireille Ayoub, 47, from Los Angeles. "It's very bad there, unsafe and uncertain."

France arranged for 550 French and other European nationals to embark from the battered southern port of Tire.

Israel's offensive in Lebanon has coincided with a major push into the Gaza Strip to retrieve another soldier, seized by Palestinian gunmen on June 25 and stop cross-border rocket fire.

Israeli troops killed four Palestinians and wounded 12 in clashes in central Gaza on Thursday, witnesses said. An air strike in the same area also killed a Palestinian militant.

Israel's Gaza offensive, launched on June 28, has killed about 110 Palestinians, half of them militants.

(Reporting by Alaa Shahine, Lin Noueihed, Nadim Ladki and Dominic Evans in Beirut and Jerusalem and Dubai bureaus)

Anne Gearan | July 20

AP - The United States held the line Thursday against a quick cease-fire deal in the Middle East, increasingly isolated as world powers and the United Nations demanded an immediate end to fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militants.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was meeting Thursday night with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who earlier in the day denounced both Israel and Hezbollah and called for both sides to stop fighting immediately.

"He was talking about a cessation of violence in the context of a lasting, durable solution, which is exactly what we have been talking about," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

The Bush administration is playing down expectations for Rice's upcoming trip to the Mideast, saying she will not shuttle among capitals to broker a deal.

"You're not going to see a return to the kind of diplomacy, I think, that we've seen before where you try to negotiate an end to the violence that leaves the parties in place and where you have status quo ante," McCormack said.

Administration officials also questioned whether a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah is even feasible.

"We'd love to have a cease-fire," White House spokesman Tony Snow said. "But Hezbollah has to be part of it. And at this point, there's no indication that Hezbollah intends to lay down arms."

John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said it was time for the Security Council to start considering a response, but he, too, ruled out a cease-fire.

Ministers accused of giving Israel green light to bomb

By Ben Russell and Colin Brown

Published: 21 July 2006
The Independent
Ministers faced strong criticism from across the House of Commons yesterday as MPs accused the Government of helping to fuel the crisis in the Middle East.

Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, faced angry claims from Labour and Opposition benches that the Government had given diplomatic cover to continued Israeli bombing by failing to call for an immediate ceasefire.

In the Commons, Labour MPs led by Clare Short, the former international development secretary, attacked the Government for its stance on Israeli attacks.

Ms Short warned that "massive killing of innocent Lebanese civilians and destruction of infrastructure" amounted to a war crime. She said: "We are heading for further violence and catastrophe. And I'm sad to say that our Government is following President Bush's errors and pouring petrol on the flames."

Privately some senior ministers said they were "appalled" that Mrs Beckett had failed to visit the region to demonstrate British concern at the scale of the Israeli bombardment. Mrs Beckett told the Cabinet that those calling for a halt to hostilities, including the French government, were in effect demanding a one-sided ceasefire.

She told MPs Britain was committed to ending the conflict and maintained that Britain had urged restraint on all sides, and said she "regretted" loss of life.

But MPs queued up to criticise the Government. Joan Ruddock, Labour MP for Lewisham Deptford and a former minister, asked Mrs Beckett: "There can be no doubt that Hizbollah started this conflict. But would she not agree that the response by Israel with 300 Lebanese civilians dead, 1,000 injured, and half a million people dispossessed, is utterly disproportionate?"

Michael Ancram, the former shadow foreign secretary, asked: "Does she believe that the action taken by the Israeli government, understandable initially as a response against terrorism, is proportionate or disproportionate?"

Chris Mullin, a former Foreign Office minister, said: "Is it not just a tiny bit shameful that although we rightly condemn Hizbollah for what they have done, we can find nothing stronger than the word regret to describe the slaughter and misery and mayhem that Israel has unleashed on a fragile country like Lebanon?"

Mrs Beckett insisted that Syria and Iran were "giving support" to Hizbollah. She said: "Syria finances Hizbollah and facilitates the transfer of weapons including thousands of weapons which appear to be supplied by Iran."

Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader, said: "Both myself and others have repeatedly asked for the Prime Minister to support an even-handed response. We all accept the Hizbollah should be condemned.

"Tony Blair must now accept that Israel's actions are disproportionate and amount to collective punishment. There should be an immediate ceasefire as Kofi Annan has now confirmed."

July 21

Ha'aretz - Two IDF soldiers were killed and six others were wounded in heavy clashes with Hezbollah just inside south Lebanon, close to Moshav Avivim, on Thursday afternoon.

Hezbollah fired mortar shells in the area in effort to disrupt the rescue of the wounded. The IDF believes that several Hezbollah guerillas were killed in the close-quarter confrontation.

A pilot was killed and three others were injured late Thursday night when two IDF Apache helicopters collided in northern Israel, near Kiryat Shmona.

[snip]

Thousands of Israeli troops are operating in south Lebanon where they are targetting Hezbollah positions. Among their activities, they are searching for tunnels dug by Hezbollah militants. According to the army, Hezbollah fighters have taken refuge inside these tunnels - often dug under homes in villages - along with their rockets, and that they occasionally emerge to fire one into Israel.

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff | Avivim | July 21

Ha'aretz - Right under our noses, the Israel Defense Forces ground operation in Lebanon began Thursday. What was described as a minor commando operation was in fact a fairly large assault, involving several specialized units that are entering villages, carrying out searches and engaging in hard, close-range fighting with Hezbollah units.

The air force's limited success and the continued rocket attacks against northern Israel have drawn the IDF into Lebanon, where it is confronted by a well-organized, well trained and highly motivated Hezbollah force. In two days of fighting, eight soldiers belonging to the IDF's best units have died. The losses on the other side are grater, even if they are not being released.

On the other hand, there was a decline in the number of rockets fired at , with some 35 to 40 rockets striking fields in the upper Galilee.

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

Thousands remain stranded in Tyre
Israelis say leave, but that’s not possible for many

By Anthony Shadid
The Washington Post
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13961119/
Updated: 11:04 p.m. CT July 20, 2006

TYRE, Lebanon, July 20 - The warning came in the morning Thursday, a recorded message dialed to phone numbers in southern Lebanon. In flawless Arabic, it instructed: Leave now, beyond the Litani River that bisects the rock-studded wadis of the south. Don't flee on motorcycles or in vans or trucks. Otherwise, you will be a target. The message signed off simply: the state of Israel.

But leaving this southern Lebanese city Thursday was more complicated than a choice. Aid officials say that tens of thousands have already fled Tyre and its environs along the Mediterranean Sea but that perhaps 12,000 Lebanese remain stranded. The wartime circumstances of a besieged city keep them here: no gasoline for their cars, no money for taxi fares that have surged 75-fold, no faith in assurances from Israeli forces that have repeatedly attacked civilian vehicles and, most desperately, no hope of finding safety.

"We're just left here to die," said Maher Yassin, standing across from Tyre's harbor and wearing a shirt that read, "Mortal."

The plight of Tyre's people is the story of the latest Arab-Israeli conflict writ small: In nine days of attacks that Israel says have targeted the infrastructure of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, Lebanon's civilians have suffered inordinately, with more than 300 dead, many times that number wounded and 500,000 displaced. As this city awaits the brunt of an Israeli attack that most think is imminent, resignation, hopelessness, occasional defiance and a sense of abandonment course through the beleaguered population.

"They evacuate the foreigners, bring them to safety, and they leave us like dogs in the street," said Therese Khairallah, sitting with friends in an alley near the seashore. "A small mistake turned into this mountain of a disaster, and we're the victims."

She shook her head, on a day when attacks had waned, more breather than respite. "God knows what's ahead."

God comes up often in conversations these days in Tyre, where residents trade rumors about when Israel will unleash an even worse attack, whether its troops will invade, whether the conflict will last one week, two weeks or perhaps far longer.

‘We have to keep working’
"We'll not go," insisted Ahmed Mroueh, the director of Jabal Amel Hospital. He repeated the words, perhaps to reassure himself. "What else can you do? There's just no alternative. Can we leave the wounded and run away? We have to keep working."

Mroueh flipped through the handwritten ledger on his desk listing the 228 wounded his hospital has treated since fighting began.

"Look at this," he said, running down the list.

"One 11 years old, one 5 years old, one 4 years old." He stopped, just briefly. "This is a 3-month-old." Each was highlighted in yellow to denote a death. "We have not received one injured, not one dead, who's not a civilian."

Jabal Amel Hospital sits next to a bomb site where missiles destroyed three villas four days ago. Doctors at the hospital said eight children, their mother and her sister were buried in the attack. One building was flattened, rubble strewn about as in an archaeological dig; the others were in various stages of destruction. Part of a red-tiled roof was intact; the rest suggested the aftermath of a tornado.

On the other side of the hospital, 13 Red Cross ambulances pulled up in the late afternoon to evacuate 20 wounded people to Beirut. Volunteers in orange overalls and white helmets emblazoned with a cross moved quickly in and out, carrying the injured. As the ambulances departed, blue lights flashed on top, their sirens sounding a tinny wail. They drove in batches of three, four, sometimes more; the roads were too dangerous for all to go at once. Each sped out of the parking lot. These days in Lebanon, fast is the only speed on the roads.

As the Red Cross volunteers worked, a Civil Defense station wagon careered into the parking lot, carrying 32-year-old Ibrahim Saksouk, whose lower right leg was a pulp of bloodied and burned flesh. An Israeli rocket struck his car Thursday outside Qana, to the east of Tyre.

"Move! Move!" his 32-year-old brother, Haitham, yelled, helping carry him in. "Make way!"

Haitham wiped his bloody hands on his pants. "When you enter any road, you don't know if you'll ever leave it," he said.

Physician Bassam Mtarik said that with just eight ventilators, the 125-bed hospital wanted the Red Cross to free up as much space as possible for an anticipated surge in patients. He predicted supplies would last a week, no more.

"We're worried about what's ahead," he said matter-of-factly.

Mtarik had arrived in Tyre from Sidon on Monday morning, bringing with him 52 units of blood. He has been here since.

"And I'm not leaving until this is over," he said.

Mtarik walked into the hospital's basement, tinged with the smell of too many people sharing too small a space.

"These are civilians," he said, waving his hand.

Along the hallway were family after family, perhaps 90 people in all, on mattresses and blankets or milling about. Plastic sacks bulged with clothes. Bread was stacked nearby, and bottles of water lined the wall. Trash cans overflowed. The families had all come to the hospital over the past week, seeking shelter. Stranded by circumstance, none had the means to leave.

MORE
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13961119/

July 21

The Daily Star (Lebanon) - Israel's war on Lebanon "will take as long as it will take," the Jewish state's envoy to the United Nations said Thursday. Speaking to the reporters at UN headquarters in New York, Dan Gillerman said the Israelis "will take as much time," as they need to destroy Hizbullah's military capability.

Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert agreed to open a "humanitarian corridor" between Lebanon and Cyprus, Israeli public radio said Thursday. The corridor, to be enforced by the Israeli Navy, is aimed at allowing the evacuation of refugees and foreigners, the radio said.

Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Amir Peretz agreed "in principle" to open a corridor that would allow aid groups to ferry supplies to civilians in South Lebanon, an Israeli official said.

Specialized UN bodies and other agencies have been trying to bring in aid - with no success as Israeli warplanes continue to threaten the safety of convoys.

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

Israel, on war footing, calls up thousands of reserves

21 Jul 2006 13:17:50 GMT
Source: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L2161118.htmReuters

By Ari Rabinovitch

ZARIT, Israel, July 21 (Reuters) - Israel on Friday ordered several thousand reserve soldiers to report for duty as signs grew that the army might be preparing for a major ground invasion of southern Lebanon.

A military source said more than 3,000 reservists were called up. Army Radio said it could be six battalions, which might mean up to 6,000 soldiers.

Israel has been massing troops, tanks and artillery pieces near the border with Lebanon since the crisis with Hizbollah guerrillas erupted on July 12.

It could take days before new reserves are mobilised. One possibility is they would be sent to the occupied West Bank to relieve combat troops, who would be sent north to Lebanon.

Artillery gunners fired periodic volleys at Hizbollah positions. But tanks, armoured bulldozers and jeeps were largely idle, parked along roadsides.

Soldiers, many not wearing full battle gear, sat by their vehicles smoking.

Israel, which has a conscript army, has been steadily calling up reserves since it launched a major offensive against Hizbollah in Lebanon after the group abducted two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others in a cross-border raid.

Israel's Maariv newspaper earlier quoted a top military commander as saying the army may expand ground operations against Hizbollah guerrillas in Lebanon and call up "massive" numbers of reserves.

Defence Minister Amir Peretz raised the possibility on Thursday of a ground offensive into Lebanon.

Elite units have been carrying out limited operations inside Lebanon to try to destroy Hizbollah bunkers, but have come under fierce attack on several occasions in the past few days, including one ambush on Thursday when four soldiers were killed.

Hizbollah has fired more than 900 missiles into northern Israel, killing 15 Israeli civilians. A total of 19 Israeli soldiers have been killed during the Jewish state's offensive.

Israel has killed at least 343 people in Lebanon, most of them civilians, and displaced half a million.

(Additional reporting by Corinne Heller in Jerusalem

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L21773787.htm
21 Jul 2006 13:00:20 GMT
Source: Reuters

More CAIRO, July 21 (Reuters) - Fights broke out at the gate of al-Azhar mosque in Cairo on Friday when plainclothes security men stopped demonstrators taking to the streets with their protest against Israeli attacks on Lebanese and Palestinians.

Many thousands of people rallied inside the courtyard of the 10th century mosque after prayers, waving Lebanese and Palestinian flags and chanting in support of the guerrilla group Hizbollah, Israel's main target in south Lebanon.

But when some tried to break through a cordon onto the street, plainclothes men blocked their way. Demonstrators tried to whip them with their belts and the security men attacked them with their fists, driving them back into the courtyard.

As demonstrators left the mosque later, police officers confiscated all their flags and banners.

Outside the building in the heart of the old Islamic quarter of Cairo, the government deployed thousands of riot police in solid lines, armed with shields and sticks.

At the rally, organised by the opposition Muslim Brotherhood and the Labour Party, a small Islamist group, speakers from a range of opposition groups denounced Israel, the United States and the Arab governments which have criticised Hizbollah.

Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Mahdi Akef told Reuters: "Today we are supporting the Palestinian, Lebanese and Iraqi resistance and every resistance against Zionist, American and European arrogance.

"Right and justice are with us and we will continue to resist until we expel these people from our land and drive American hegemony from our country," he added.

"Al-Azhar's message to the world is Death to the Zionist entity" read one of the large banners strung across an archway in the marble courtyard of the mosque.

"Nasrallah, our friend, hit and destroy Tel Aviv," the protesters chanted - a reference to Hizbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah.

The demonstration was the largest in Cairo in the past 10 days of violence between Israel and Lebanon.

Christian Henderson | Beirut | July 21

al-Jazeera - Although as many as 500,000 people have left the border area, which has received the worst of the Israeli bombing, thousands remain.

In the village of Sreefa near Naqoura at least 21 people were confirmed killed and 60 missing after Israeli rockets hit 13 homes yesterday.

Nayla Mouawad, the Lebanese social affairs minister, said: "Sreefa has suffered a real massacre but we don't have enough details."

Although the current toll in Lebanon is above 300, it is likely to be higher, especially in the southern areas where bodies have not been recovered, doctors say.

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

James Brandon | July 21

al-Jazeera - Ari Shavit, a columnist for Haaretz, a liberal Israeli newspaper, wrote on Friday: "Despite the media euphoria and the patriotic spin, the aerial war ... is not heading for victory.

"The IAF [Israeli Air Force] alone obviously cannot solve all the problems, including the presence of thousands of rockets in Lebanon.

"There will be no resolution from the air, even if the pilots ultimately manage to locate Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah and kill him."

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

Amos Harel | July 21

Ha'aretz - GOC Northern Command Major General Udi Adam said Friday that Israel is at war and that human life is important, but now is not the time to count the dead.

The Northern Command believes that the fighting in the north will continue for several more weeks, with additional casualties and fatalities.

"We must change our way of thinking. Human life is important, but we are at war, and it costs human lives. We won't count the dead at present, only at the end. We'll cry for the dead and will encourage the fighters. There are more places like Meron A-Ras, and unfortunately we'll have to reach them."

Adam refused to disclose details on the number of ground forces operating in southern Lebanon. According to Adam, the operation includes "many" soldiers, but is not a "massive" incursion.

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

July 21

Ha'aretz - The United Nations estimated this week that 500,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon due to the fighting with Israel - nearly 20 percent of the Lebanese population.

Between 130,000 and 150,000 are estimated to have fled to Syria, and about 45,000 are believed to be in need of assistance.

Israel renewed its bombing of targets in Lebanon on Friday, warning hundreds of thousands of southern Lebanon residents to flee northward.

A World Food Program official in Lebanon Amer Daoudi expressed concern about getting food to the displaced, saying "damage to roads and bridges has almost completely disrupted the food supply chain, hurting large numbers of the displaced."

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

Lebanon appeals for protection for world heritage sites
(AFP)

21 July 2006

BEIRUT - Lebanon called on the United Nations on Friday to protect the country’s archaeological treasures -- the World Heritage sites of Baalbek and the port city of Tyre -- from Israel’s aerial onslaught.

“In the name of the Lebanese government, I urge you to intervene to bring an end to the bombardments that threaten the World Heritage sites of Baalbek and Tyre, by applying UNESCO conventions for the protection of such sites in time of war,” Culture Minister Tareq Mitri appealed in a letter to UNESCO director general Koichiro Matsuura.

“The intensive bombardments are targeting areas immediately adjacent to these sites,” he wrote. “Already fragile ancient structures are being threatened by repeated explosions and they risk being hit directly.”

“Your immediate intervention is necessary to prevent this situation from becoming catastrophic,” Mitri said

The centre of Baalbek, a Hezbollah bastion 90 kilometres (55 miles) east of Beirut, has been systematically targeted by Israel air raids seeking to destroy the militant Shia group that captured two soldiers and killed eight others in July 12 attacks on the Lebanon-Israel border.

Just 300 metres (yards) away from bombed buildings in Baalbek are the impressive remains of Roman temples.

The town’s inhabitants say the temples of Bacchus and Jupiter -- whose six huge Roman columns are the highest in the world -- are very close to targets that have been hit in air raids.

Tyre boasts a Roman hippodrome and a Phoenician port and has been a site of human habitation for 5,000 years.

AFP