According to the Washington Post (page 2 of 4)

"They targeted Hezbollah institutions, such as the television station in Beirut's predominantly Shiite southern suburbs, and key infrastructure sites -- roads, bridges and power stations -- in hopes of cutting off supplies to those holding the soldiers, and making it difficult for them to move around undetected."

I really want a geochronographical list of strikes in the conflict so far.

Y'know after 30 years, you'd think Israel would have learned that bombing doesn't break opposition. It hardens it.

AP STRALSUND, Germany (AP) - President Bush said Thursday that Israel has the right to defend itself, as it launched fresh attacks on Lebanon after the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers.

Bush laid the blame for the escalation of violence along the border on Hezbollah, whose guerrillas mounted a cross-border raid earlier in the week and captured the two soldiers. He also said that Syria "needs to be held to account" for supporting and harboring Hezbollah.

"The soldiers need to be returned," the president said. "It's really sad where people are willing to take innocent life in order to stop that progress (for peace). As a matter of fact, it's pathetic."

Bush's comments came during a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as Israel intensified attacks in Lebanon. --continued at link--

"Lord! What fools these Mortals be!"

America mostly just bombed in Serbia, and that, well, basically "worked."

I wouldn't call it a great plan or result, but it doesn't seem to have hardened the opposition.

I wish I knew more about what was going on. I hear Israeli bombed 5 bridges "effectively" cutting off Southern Lebanon from the rest. Were these over the Lelani river? I can't even seem to find a highway map of Lebanon online.

Heh, I used Google Image Maps, and I can find three bridges across the Lelani(sp?) starting from the coast, but then, in SE Lebanon, the scale of the available maps is no longer good enough to see bridges.

A bridge near the mouth of the river

In quotes: Lebanon reaction

Israel has imposed a military blockade on Lebanon and launched a series of missile strikes and cross-border raids in response to the capture of two soldiers by militant group Hezbollah.
Key international and regional powers have been responding to the escalating conflict.

US PRESIDENT GEORGE W BUSH

My attitude is this. There are a group of terrorists who want to stop the advance of peace. And those of us who are peace-loving must work together to help the agents of peace - Israel, President Abbas, and others - to achieve their objective.

Israel has the right to defend herself. [But] whatever Israel does should not weaken the government in Lebanon. We have been working very hard through the UN and partners to strengthen democracy in Lebanon.

Syria must be held to account. President Assad needs to show some leadership towards peace.

ANGELA MERKEL, GERMAN CHANCELLOR

We call on the powers in the region to seek to bring about a de-escalation of the situation. We cannot confuse cause and effect. The starting point is the capture of the Israeli soldiers.

It is important that the government in Lebanon, which is on a peaceful path, should be strengthened, but it must be made clear that the capture [of the soldiers] cannot be tolerated. The attacks did not start from the Israeli side, but from Hezbollah's side.

RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT STATEMENT

One cannot justify the continued destruction by Israel of the civilian infrastructure in Lebanon and in Palestinian territory, involving the disproportionate use of force in which the civilian population suffers.

We firmly reaffirm support for Lebanon's sovereignty and territorial integrity. All forms of terrorism are completely unacceptable. All sides involved in the current events should take rapid measures to stop the region sliding into open conflict.

AMIR PERETZ, ISRAELI DEFENCE MINISTER

We will not allow Hezbollah to return to the positions it occupied along the border before the soldiers were abducted. Only the Lebanese army should operate in this area and deploy forces. If the Lebanese government does not deploy its armed forces as a sovereign government should, we will not allow Hezbollah forces to move again onto the other side of the border.

We will no longer put up with a terrorist organisation threatening residents in northern Israel with the support of a sovereign government.

PHILIPPE DOUSTE-BLAZY, FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTER

We obviously condemn this disproportionate act of war, which moreover has two consequences. The first is that it forces anyone who wants to enter Lebanon from now on to go either by sea or via Syria. The second consequence is that it risks plunging Lebanon back into the worst years of the war.

Today there is a risk of a very dangerous spiral of violence which could destabilise the entire region.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/5175886.stm

Published: 2006/07/13 11:48:28 GMT

Hezbollah guerillas threatened today to attack the major Israeli port city of Haifa and its surroundings with rockets if Israel strikes the Lebanese capital Beirut and its southern suburbs.

Such a strike would be the deepest ever into Israel by Hezbollah guerillas, who fired volleys of rockets against towns of northern Israel during the past day.

It was not clear if Hezbollah rockets have the range to hit Haifa, located about 30 kilometres south of the border.

The Israeli army said several Hezbollah rockets overnight had landed more than 20 kilometres south of the border, showing that Hezbollah has managed to extend its missiles' range.

"The Islamic resistance warns against targeting civilians and the infrastructure," a statement read on Hezbollah TV said.

"It [resistance] specifically announces that it will quickly shell the city of Haifa and nearby areas if the southern suburbs and the city of Beirut are subjected to any direct Israeli aggression," the statement said.

Earlier today, the Israeli army warned Lebanon to evacuate all residents from a southern Beirut neighbourhood where it believes Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah lives, Israeli media reported.

"We have we passed on a warning to Lebanon to evacuate all civilians from the [southern] neighbourhood of Beirut, which is a Hezbollah stronghold and where Nasrallah lives, and where the organisation's headquarters and weapons stockpiles are," the Ma'ariv NRG news website quoted a senior army official as saying.

Israel Radio carried a similar report.

The army said it had no comment on whether Nasrallah was a target for assassination.

An Israeli helicopter gunship killed Nasrallah's predecessor, Sheik Abbas al-Mousawi, in 1992.

Rockets fired at northern Israeli town of Safed

Lebanese guerillas fired three rockets at the northern Israeli town of Safed today and seven people were injured, one seriously, witnesses and medics said.

The rockets hit an immigrants' absorption centre and a college. Another rocket fell near a gas station.

Safed had not been targeted by rockets since the 1990s.

Israel bombs Beirut airport

Israel today bombed Beirut's international airport and enforced a naval blockade of Lebanon, a day after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight.

Israel's heaviest air campaign against Lebanon in 24 years smashed the airport's runways and also targeted Hezbollah television.

The newly refurbished Rafik al-Hariri International Airport is named after the slain former prime minister.

A police officer said there were no casualties when missiles fired from fighter jets hit the runways before dawn, leaving large craters in the tarmac.

Lebanese anti-aircraft batteries frantically fired at the invading planes and the airport was shut, forcing flights to be diverted to the nearby Mediterranean island of Cyprus.

Lebanon said today the airport would remain shut for at least 48 hours.

"The airport will be partly operational within 48 hours, but reopening the airport is a political decision that will be decided by the cabinet," Transport Minister Mohamad Safadi told reporters.

"The runways have all been hit, although some less than others," he said.

"The closure of the airport has inflicted losses of $5 million only for today. This does not include damages, which will be determined later," an airport official said.

Dawn strikes kill dozens

The airport attack followed dawn air strikes on Hezbollah targets in Beirut's southern suburbs and across southern Lebanon, which killed 34 civilians, including eight young children, and wounded 52 people, security sources said.

Ten members of one family were killed in Dweir village and seven family members died in Baflay.

With Lebanon's sea and air links cut, Hezbollah retaliated against Israeli "massacres" by firing 60 Katyusha rockets at Nahariya in northern Israel.
One civilian was killed and at least 21 were wounded.

"In response to the massacres of civilians in the south and assaults on [Lebanese] infrastructure, the Islamic resistance bombarded ... the settlement of Nahariya in northern occupied Palestine with 60 rockets," said a statement by Hezbollah.

Israel's Magen David Adom ambulance service said a 40-year-old woman was killed when a rocket hit her house.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said the two soldiers had been seized to force Israel to release Arab prisoners.

Israel insisted it would discuss no such swap and instead launched its military offensive.

In Canberra, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the Australian embassy in Beirut had been closed because of the worsening security situation.

In Jerusalem, Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz said Hezbollah would not be permitted to return to its previous positions along the Israeli border.

Israel has long demanded the Lebanese Government disarm Hezbollah, which is an avowed enemy of the Jewish state.

The violence was the worst between Israel and Lebanon since 1996 when Israeli troops still occupied part of the south.

It coincided with an major Israeli offensive into the Gaza Strip to retrieve a captured soldier and halt Palestinian rocket fire.

Despite the flare-up in Lebanon, Israel signalled no let-up in its Gaza assault, mounting an air strike that destroyed the office of Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar.

The Israeli shekel lost as much as 2 per cent against the dollar in early trade. Pressure on the Lebanese pound increased.

Attack on Hezbollah TV station

Two hours after the airport raid, an Israeli helicopter fired a missile at the headquarters of Hezbollah's al-Manar TV in the Beirut suburb of Haret Hreik, wounding six people.

Israeli aircraft later attacked an al-Manar transmission tower south of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon, witnesses said.

Israel had promised a "very painful" response to Hezbollah's action of seizing two soldiers and killing eight.

The Israeli assault will increase domestic pressure on Hezbollah, which has refused to disarm in line with a 2004 UN resolution, and add to international calls on the Lebanese Government, led by an anti-Syrian coalition, to act.

"Either Hezbollah are stupid, or they don't care," said Michael Karam, editor of a Lebanese business magazine. "Now we've got no airport, so no tourism and no prosperity."

Hezbollah's cross-border attack yesterday, for which Israel holds the Beirut Government responsible, tore up tacit understandings that had limited border violence for six years since Israeli troops withdrew from south Lebanon.

"The Lebanese Government has now become a buffer squeezed between Israel and Hezbollah," said Amal Saad Ghorayeb, a Lebanese academic and author of a book on Hezbollah.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora has said his Government did not endorse the Hezbollah attack.
July 13

Apart from the Israeli attack on the Foreign Ministry building in Gaza, a separate air strike near Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip killed an Islamic Jihad militant and wounded another gunman.

The White House condemned the Hezbollah attack and blamed Syria and Iran. Syria said Israeli actions were to blame for guerilla attacks.

bit more

"How many civilians, innocents have lost their lives because of what started as a kidnapping of one soldier?"

Soldiers are not kidnapped, they are captured.

Did this really start with a capture? This latest outburst of violence seems to have started with a shelling of a group of civilians having a beach party. A sixteen month truce with Hamas was ended by this atrocity, yet too many choose to pretend that provocation never occurred. The breadth and depth of Israeli operations give the appearance of having been planned for some time. Awaiting only the initiation of an incident to provide some unrealistic justification for ignition.

and it continues to act like one, no matter what the provocation. I think the bombings it is doing are way out of proportion to the offenses given.

Perhaps the entire Israel, Lebanon, Palestinian territory region should be cordoned off from everybody -- and I mean everybody. Iran, the US, Europe, etc. all keep their hands off and let these people work out their differences.

Israel couldn't win under such conditions because its position is the weakest. It always has been. And so they make up for it by being the most obtuse and bellicose. No wonder the Arabs get upset by them.

There are no saints in this mess -- all around are sinners.

Whitened Sepulchres

that people still consider Israel our ally. From what I've seen over the years, their actions tell me they see themselves as in this (game) for themselves alone, and the *instant* somebody's aims don't align perfectly with theirs, the're not an ally any more, but a mark, or an adversary.

I'd say the US falls in the realm of 'Mark'....we still send them money, munitions and assistance even though they've demonstrated they canot be trusted. Anybody remember Jonathan Pollack? There were others I cannot recall to mind off-hand, as well as the incident where Israeli aircraft attacked an American spy ship operating in the Med during the 6-day war (this one strains the case, as *we* were spying on *them* and Egypt, ostensibly to provide further assistance to Israel later).

At this point, if Bush is smart, he'd stay quiet, sit back, and see how things shake out. If the Israeli government doesn't destroy itself and all around it, then help out after the dust settles. Until then it's "you broke it, you bought it"
-5.75,-4.05 "The invisible hand of Adam Smith seems to offer an extended middle finger to an awful lot of people"---George Carlin

are we obligated to protect Israel?

interesting graphic

How much do we give to Israel?

Rep. Rothman Helps Secure $2.46 Billion in U.S. Aid for Israel

Ensures that Hamas-led Palestinian Authority Does Not Receive Any U.S. Funds

(Washington, DC)— As a member of the House Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Congressman Steve Rothman (D-NJ) helped secure $2.46 billion in U.S. military and economic foreign aid for Israel. These funds were allocated through the Foreign Operations spending bill for Fiscal Year 2007, which the House approved Friday, June 9 on a vote of 373-34.

“As the first-ever Congressman from Bergen County to hold a seat on this Subcommittee, I feel it is my duty to remind my colleagues how invaluable the State of Israel is to the United States – as an ally in the Global War on Terror, the strongest military power in the region, and the only democracy in the Middle East,” said Rothman. “I often ask my colleagues who are skeptical of this fact to explain what would happen if Israel did not exist. Imagine how many more troops we would need to deploy and how much money we would have to spend to create a security partner like Israel in such a critical region.”

As part of this spending bill, President Bush had requested $150 million for the Palestinian Authority before Hamas gained the majority in the Palestinian parliament. Rothman and his colleagues on the House Appropriations Committee voted to eliminate this funding given the new circumstances. The bill allows for humanitarian aid to be provided to the Palestinian people through the United Nations Relief Works Agency, although the final amount is still being determined by the State Department.
link

Jul 13, 1:17 PM EDT

Rockets Hit Israel Port City; No Injuries

NAHARIYA, Israel (AP) -- Two rockets fired by Lebanese guerrillas hit the northern port city of Haifa on Thursday, but no one was injured, authorities said.

The attack was the farthest south that rockets fired from Lebanon had hit, police said.

Another war makes my game not as fun while all this killing is going on. But when you guys need a break, I just finished my newest flash game: Slap Joe Lieberman for the Truth in Connecticut.
Check it out at http://zenwire.com/flashmedia-slaplieberman.php and we are also adding a blogroll and link exchange for any who are interested. Thanks, zenseeker. Next game will have to do with tomatoes! What symbol comprehensively represent what Israel is doing do you think?

empty your mind and see through the illusion