Long Live Lebanon

Israel's Lebanon pullout almost complete

2006-10-01T20:56:00.000+03:00

MARWAHEEN, Lebanon -

The Israeli army abandoned almost all of its positions in Lebanon early Sunday, a key step toward fulfilling a major condition of the truce that ended a monthlong war against Hezbollah

The pre-dawn pullout put a formal end to a nearly three-month troop incursion into Lebanon that began after Hezbollah guerrillas captured two soldiers and killed three others in a July 12 cross-border raid. Thirty-four days of fighting ensued, followed by an agreement providing for international peacekeepers to police the border with the Lebanese army.

The head of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in south Lebanon praised the withdrawal and said he expected the remaining Israeli soldiers — in a divided village that straddles the Israel-Lebanon border — would leave this week.

Following Sunday's withdrawal, Israeli spokeswoman Miri Eisin said Israel was "now waiting for Lebanon to do its part under the truce." Israel wants Lebanon to keep Hezbollah out of the south and disarm it.

But Israel will continue surveillance flights, which both Lebanon and the U.N. consider a violation of the border. Alexander Ivanko, a spokesman for the U.N. force known as UNIFIL, said the world body had repeatedly demanded that Israel stop the flights.

Sheik Hassan Ezzeddine, Hezbollah's senior political officer in south Lebanon, said Hezbollah would resume attacks if Israel breached the U.N. resolution.

"The (Israeli) enemy must bear the consequences of its continued air, sea and land violations in Lebanon," Ezzeddine said.

The disputed Chebaa Farms area near the borders of Israel, Lebanon and Syria, is also still held by Israeli forces. The U.N. resolution that outlined the truce had directed the U.N. secretary-general to come up with a proposal to delineate the borders in the area within a now-elapsed 30 days.

After midnight on Sunday, the roar of Israeli tanks and armored vehicles could be heard from inside Lebanon as they crossed into Israel. An armored column creaked across the border into the community of Moshav Avivim, sending clouds of dust into the air.

Israeli military officials said the last soldiers returned to Israel around 2:30 a.m., ahead of the onset of Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar.

Israeli forces abandoned their hilltop position near the village of Marwaheen early Sunday. The state-run news agency said Israeli forces also vacated nine other positions along the border, but an unspecified number of soldiers remained in the Lebanese section of the divided village of Ghajar.

The chief of the U.N. force in Lebanon, France's Maj. Gen. Alain Pellegrini, said in a statement, "Significant progress has been achieved today."

The Lebanese government had no immediate comment on Sunday's pullout, but has demanded an end to the surveillance flights and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Chebaa Farms.

After Israel abandoned its position near the village of Marwaheen people came to inspect the area. Seeing a chance to make a little money, a group of men in a pickup truck grabbed some discarded tires.

Several Ghanian soldiers in a white U.N. armored personnel carrier photographed the site, apparently verifying the Israeli withdrawal.

Two Lebanese plainclothes military intelligence officers also surveyed the area and a member of Amal, the Shiite group allied to Hezbollah, came by to take a look.

Village farmers were glad to see the troops gone. "May God never bring them back," said Mohammed Musseileh, 67. His 65-year-old brother Salem, also a farmer, added: "They are a treacherous enemy. They could be back anytime."

But there were no celebrations like those that followed Israel's pullout in 2000, ending an 18-year occupation along a strip of border. Residents' muted response may owe to the relatively limited and brief Israeli presence during the July 12-Aug. 14 fighting this summer, which left more than 150 Israelis and 850 Lebanese dead.

Israel has been gradually withdrawing troops since the cease-fire went into effect, from a peak of 30,000 during the fighting to several hundred soldiers. The Israeli naval blockade of Lebanon ended more than three weeks ago.

Israeli officials had been reluctant to withdraw the last of the troops. They cited disagreements over the deployment of Lebanese and U.N. forces in southern Lebanon, which has long been a stronghold of the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah guerrillas.

Israel is concerned about the force's ability to prevent Hezbollah from rearming.

The U.N. resolution that ended the fighting calls for 15,000 peacekeepers to work with an equal number of Lebanese soldiers to prevent another outbreak of hostilities. It mandates a full Israeli pullout and requires the south be kept weapons-free except for arms approved by the Lebanese government.

Some 10,000 Lebanese soldiers and more than 5,000 U.N. troops have been deployed in the south.
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Israel delays withdrawal from Lebanon

2006-09-21T19:55:00.000+03:00

Israel is unlikely to complete its withdrawal from Lebanon by the weekend, Israel's army chief said Wednesday, backing away from earlier predictions. "We very much hoped it would happen by Friday, but in the dialogue we have been holding with the UN and the Lebanese Army there are a few issues to be wrapped up," Lieutenant General Dan Halutz told Israel Radio Wednesday.

"I hope it will take place in the next few days, but it looks likely to be after the holiday," he said, referring to the Jewish New Year, which begins Friday night.

Halutz said earlier this week that Israeli forces would be able to quit Lebanon by Friday.

That timetable was confirmed earlier Wednesday by Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz. "This is our intent, we definitely want to complete it," Peretz said during a tour of southern Israel. "Let's hope there are no hitches and delays in the coordination with the Lebanese Army and the international forces."

The United Nations secretary general's representative in Lebanon also said early Wednesday that the remaining Israeli troops would withdraw from Lebanon by the weekend.

"The UN is looking forward to achieving a full Israeli withdrawal and ensuring a successful cooperation between the Lebanese Army and UNIFIL," Geir Pedersen said after meeting with Defense Minister Elias Murr.

Halutz did not specify what was holding up the withdrawal.

Earlier on Wednesday, a spokesman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) told AFP that the number of its peacekeepers in South Lebanon had more than doubled to 5,000 - a key condition that Israel has demanded before completely exiting its northern neighbor.

"We have reached the 5,000 troops. The first phase of the UNIFIL deployment is now completed," said Alexander Ivanko in the Mediterranean coastal town of Naqoura on the border with Israel.

The prewar number of about 2,000 UNIFIL troops, Ivanko said, had been boosted by three new battalions from France, Italy and Spain, although it would still take weeks for all the new troops to be deployed in the South.

Troops from other countries, notably Indonesia, will follow in October and November, he said, adding that the operation posed a "logistical nightmare".

In Berlin, German lawmakers were voting by a large majority to send warships to the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon with a mandate to stop arms shipments to Hizbullah.

"There is perhaps no other area of the world where Germany's unique responsibility, the unique responsibility of every German government to heed the lessons of our past is so clear than it is here," Merkel said.

Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands are also sending warships to join the expanded UN force.

The Swedish military said Wednesday that a Swedish coastal patrol vessel has left for the Mediterranean.

"The corvette HMS Gaevle set sail late on Tuesday as part of its transfer to the Mediterranean," the military said in a statement. No date has been set yet for the ship's arrival off the Lebanese coast.

To defuse opposition at home, Merkel has ruled out sending combat troops in an attempt to ensure that German soldiers will not get caught up in a confrontation with Israeli forces.

Malaysia also got the go-ahead to send troops to Lebanon despite initial objections from Israel, the Malaysian state news agency said Wednesday.

Premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said the UN had invited Malaysia to join the peacekeeping force in Lebanon, although it will send less than the 1,000 troops originally offered.

"The UN has approved the deployment of 360 Malaysian peacekeepers in Lebanon," Abdullah was quoted as saying by the official Bernama news agency in New York Tuesday.

In South Lebanon, 17 Israeli soldiers interrogated three Lebanese civilians fishing in the Wazzani River.

The National News Agency reported that Maher Ibrahim Sayyed, Moussa Suleiman al-Hadi and Ali Mohammad Qassem Khalil were questioned "for some time" before the Israelis asked them to leave the land they claimed belonged to the Israeli Army.

In other developments, an International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) spokesperson said Wednesday an ICRC team in Tel Aviv had visited four Lebanese detainees.

"The ICRC has conveyed oral messages to the detainees' families," Hisham Hassan said but refused to reveal any names.

UN peacekeeping boss wants Lebanon to serve as a model

2006-09-16T19:20:00.000+03:00

Agence France Presse(AFP)
Saturday, September 16, 2006

UNITED NATIONS: With some 89,000 personnel deployed around the world, the United Nations is struggling to fulfill its far-flung peacekeeping missions and counting on increased contributions of troops from developed countries. The current beefing up of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon offers a model of what UN peacekeeping should be lke, according to Jean-Marie Guehenno, the French head of UN peacekeeping operations (DPKO).

"We are on track to deploy a very significant force there because a whole category of countries that used to stay away from peacekeeping is re-engaging," Guehenno said. "It's an event of historical importance."

European countries are providing the backbone of a sharply expanded UN force in Southern Lebanon expected to reach up to 15,000 troops.

"We have a deployment on a time frame - a couple of weeks after a conflict - that is unprecedented in recent years," he said. "That makes the point that if the political will is there, it is possible."

He expressed the hope that the Lebanese operation would impress upon rich countries the need to bolster overstretched UN peacekeepers.

The UN force helping Lebanon secure its borders in line with the UN resolution that ended the 34-day war with Israel includes 2,450 Italian troops, 2,000 from France and 1,100 from Spain.

It is also to include smaller troop contingents or naval units from Bangladesh, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Sweden and Turkey.

Another major challenge has been shaping up in Sudan, where the UN wants an existing 12,273-strong force beefed up to 17,300 troops and 3,300 civilian police to take over peacekeeping from a cash-strapped African Union force.

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IDF commander: We fired more than a million cluster bombs in Lebanon

2006-09-13T08:23:00.000+03:00

Haaretz
By Meron Rappaport

"What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs," the head of an IDF rocket unit in Lebanon said regarding the use of cluster bombs and phosphorous shells during the war.

Quoting his battalion commander, the rocket unit head stated that the IDF fired around 1,800 cluster bombs, containing over 1.2 million cluster bomblets.

In addition, soldiers in IDF artillery units testified that the army used phosphorous shells during the war, widely forbidden by international law. According to their claims, the vast majority of said explosive ordinance was fired in the final 10 days of the war.

The rocket unit commander stated that Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) platforms were heavily used in spite of the fact that they were known to be highly inaccurate.

MLRS is a track or tire carried mobile rocket launching platform, capable of firing a very high volume of mostly unguided munitions. The basic rocket fired by the platform is unguided and imprecise, with a range of about 32 kilometers.

The rockets are designed to burst into sub-munitions at a planned altitude in order to blanket enemy army and personnel on the ground with smaller explosive rounds.

The use of such weaponry is controversial mainly due to its inaccuracy and ability to wreak great havoc against indeterminate targets over large areas of territory, with a margin of error of as much as 1,200 meters from the intended target to the area hit.

The cluster rounds which don't detonate on impact, believed by the United Nations to be around 40% of those fired by the IDF in Lebanon, remain on the ground as unexploded munitions, effectively littering the landscape with thousands of land mines which will continue to claim victims long after the war has ended.

Because of their high level of failure to detonate, it is believed that there are around 500,000 unexploded munitions on the ground in Lebanon. To date 12 Lebanese civilians have been killed by these mines since the end of the war.

According to the commander, in order to compensate for the inaccuracy of the rockets and the inability to strike individual targets precisely, units would "flood" the battlefield with munitions, accounting for the littered and explosive landscape of post-war Lebanon.

When his reserve duty came to a close, the commander in question sent a letter to Defense Minister Amir Peretz outlining the use of cluster munitions, a letter which has remained unanswered.

'Excessive injury and unnecessary suffering'

It has come to light that IDF soldiers fired phosphorous rounds in order to cause fires in Lebanon. An artillery commander has admitted to seeing trucks loaded with phosphorous rounds on their way to artillery crews in the north of Israel.

A direct hit from a phosphorous shell typically causes severe burns and a slow, painful death.

International law forbids the use of weapons that cause "excessive injury and unnecessary suffering", and many experts are of the opinion that phosphorous rounds fall directly in that category.

The International Red Cross has determined that international law forbids the use of phosphorous and other types of flammable rounds against personnel, both civilian and military.

IDF: No violation of international law

In response, the IDF Spokesman's Office stated that "International law does not include a sweeping prohibition of the use of cluster bombs. The convention on conventional weaponry does not declare a prohibition on [phosphorous weapons], rather, on principles regulating the use of such weapons.

"For understandable operational reasons, the IDF does not respond to [accounts of] details of weaponry in its possession.

"The IDF makes use only of methods and weaponry which are permissible under international law. Artillery fire in general, including MLRS fire, were used in response solely to firing on the state of Israel."

The Defense Minister's office said it had not received messages regarding cluster bomb fire.

Blair runs into protests, snubs on Lebanon visit

2006-09-11T17:02:00.000+03:00

Reuters

September 10, 2006

BEIRUT - About 2,000 Lebanese protested against British Prime Minister Tony Blair's visit to Beirut on Monday, accusing him of backing Israel's 34-day war with Hizbollah, and several cabinet ministers refused to meet him.

"He was a party in the war," Health Minister Mohammad Khalifeh, of the Shi'ite Muslim Amal movement, told Reuters. "He supported the U.S. position and did not call for a ceasefire...It is natural that we do not receive him."

Blair angered many Lebanese by his refusal to call for an early ceasefire in the conflict which killed nearly 1,200 people in Lebanon, mainly civilians, and 157 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

Two Hizbollah ministers also declined to attend Blair's talks with the Lebanese government, even though a spokesman for Blair said the British leader had been ready to meet them.

Blair had also been due to meet Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who is the leader of Amal and a Hizbollah ally, but an aide to Berri said he had left on a private visit abroad.

Troops, riot police and barbed-wire barriers kept the demonstrators well away from the government building in downtown Beirut where Blair met Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.

"I'm standing here because Blair is the killer of Lebanese children," said Ibad Malak, a 19-year-old student.

Blair, the first British prime minister to visit Lebanon, was discussing with Siniora a U.N. truce in effect since August 14 and Britain's contribution to postwar reconstruction.

His spokesman said Britain had provided 22.3 million pounds ($41.6 million) in humanitarian aid and was giving another 20 million pounds to support U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon.

The British destroyer HMS York is also involved in efforts to patrol Lebanon's coast to enforce a U.N. arms embargo.

Blair wanted to show his support for Siniora and to discuss the full implementation of the U.N. Security Council resolution that halted the fighting on August 14, his spokesman said.

ANTI-BLAIR PROTESTS

Some protesters held placards reading "Thank you Blair for delivering the intelligent bombs" -- referring to U.S. flights carrying bombs for Israel that refueled in Scotland during the war.

"Blair you killer, go to hell," read another placard.Security sources said about 2,000 people had turned out for the protests, organized by Hizbollah and its pro-Syrian allies.Top Shi'ite cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah said on Sunday Blair was not welcome because of his support for Israel and Washington.

He also criticized Blair for allowing U.S. arms to be shipped via Britain to Israel for use against Lebanon.Fadlallah said Blair should have been told to stay away so he would "know we are not so naive as to welcome him when he has contributed to killing us and slaughtering our children."

Blair began his Middle East tour in Israel on Saturday on a peace drive that analysts say is aimed partly at countering criticism of his pro-U.S. stance during the Lebanon war and partly at bolstering his political legacy.

Last week Blair was forced to concede he will leave office within a year to quell a rebellion in his Labour Party.Blair said on Sunday the international community should deal with a unity Palestinian government if it breaks with the policies of the boycotted Hamas-led administration.

Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas said on Monday he hoped an announcement could be made soon on forming such a government after "positive" talks with President Mahmoud Abbas.

Palestinians hope creation of a unity coalition will lead to the lifting of Western sanctions imposed on the six-month-old Hamas government for refusing to recognize Israel.

Poisonous clouds of pollution spread after Israel air strike

2006-09-10T17:47:00.000+03:00

Lebanese minister says damage was deliberate, causing 'an even bigger disaster than the war itself'

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Published: 10 September 2006

The Indepenedent

More people will die as a result of pollution unleashed by Israel's bombing of the Lebanon than perished in the month-long war itself, the Lebanese government believes.

Yacoub Sarraf, its Environment Minister, speaking exclusively to The Independent on Sunday, said last week that a highly poisonous cloud spread over a third of the country - an area that is home to half its people - from a fire in a bombed fuel tank that burned for 12 days.

The same bombing released about four million gallons of oil into the sea, in the largest ever spill in the eastern Mediterranean. He insists that the environmental damage was "deliberately" caused. Experts say that, if this was so, it would constitute a war crime, in breach of both the Geneva Convention and the statute of the International Criminal Court. Israel retorts that any such suggestion is "very ridiculous".

The damage began on 13 July, when Israeli rockets hit a fuel storage tank at the Jiyyeh power station 18 miles south of Beirut. The government managed to repair the damage and prevent an oil spill. But two days later, he continued, the rockets returned, not merely hitting the same tank again - just 25 metres from the sea - but fatally damaging its protective burm, a concrete and earth barrier designed to stop any oil spilling from the tank from reaching the Mediterranean.

"It was definitely deliberate.," he said. "They did not hit the power station, just the fuel storage, and this was the tank that was closest to the sea."

He expects the greatest "catastrophe" from the toxic cloud that was blown by the prevailing wind over Beirut and one-third of the country. Tests have shown, he says, that it contains high levels of poisonous lead and mercury, and highly dangerous PCBs.

"Not only have we been breathing this for a month, but all the agricultural produce has been subjected to it. Even worse, all these poisons will come down with the rain, and some will seep through the soil and give us a polluted water table.

"Then in a couple of years every single citizen in Lebanon will definitely be subjected to poisonous matter in his drinking water." He expected more Lebanese to die from the pollution than the 1,300, overwhelmingly civilians, killed in the war. He added that studies have shown there would be decreased fertility and higher rates of cancer. "This is a bigger disaster even than the war itself," Mr Sarraf said.

A spokesman for the Israeli government said: "We deny the minister's accusations. They seem to be very ridiculous.

"We never deliberately targeted any civilian capacity or place, we only targeted places or facilities relevant to Hizbollah."

Government submits complaint on Israeli blockade to Security Council

2006-09-06T09:20:00.000+03:00

BEIRUT: Lebanon has filed an official complaint with the UN Security Council in protest against Israel's continued blockade of the country, sending copies of a letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and the members of the council. The move came as Egypt summoned Israel's ambassador in Cairo on Tuesday to demand that the Jewish state lift its blockade of Lebanon, saying it was hindering aid and would feed extremism, according to a Foreign Ministry official.

Israel has kept an air and sea embargo on Lebanon since its 34-day bombardment of the country ended on August 14.

Israel says the blockade is aimed at preventing weapons from reaching Hizbullah.

"The continuation of this siege would feed extremist currents," Assistant Foreign Minister for Arab affairs Hany Khalaf told journalists.

Khalaf said the blockade was hindering aid to Lebanon and was a violation "in letter and spirit" of the UN-brokered truce that helped end the war.

The letter, agreed upon at a Cabinet session Monday night, accused Israel of violating UN Resolution 1701, which calls for "the reopening of harbors and airports under the authority of the Government of Lebanon."

The letter said that Lebanon had deployed around 8,500 soldiers along its eastern and northern borders to strengthen security, adding that Israel is violating international law by appointing itself "a referee" with regard to the implementation of Resolution 1701.

The letter urged Annan "to deploy all efforts to put an end to the blockade and its consequences for the Lebanese."

The head of the Arab Parliament, Mohammad Jassem al-Saqr, called on Tuesday for Arab governments to break the Israeli blockade on Lebanon by sending their planes and ships to the country without the consent of Israel.

"Israel cannot stop any attempt to break the blockade," Saqr said. "If an airplane arrives here without the consent of Israel, Israel would not be able to hit it."

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UN denounces Israel cluster bombs

2006-08-31T09:19:00.000+03:00

The UN's humanitarian chief has accused Israel of "completely immoral" use of cluster bombs in Lebanon.

UN clearance experts had so far found 100,000 unexploded cluster bomblets at 359 separate sites, Jan Egeland said.
Israel has repeated its previous insistence that munitions it uses in conflict comply with international law.
Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rebuffed UN chief Kofi Annan's calls for a swift end to Israel's air and sea blockade of Lebanon.
After talks with Mr Annan, Mr Olmert said the siege would only be lifted once the ceasefire terms were fully implemented.

This included the release of two Israeli soldiers whose capture by Hezbollah militants sparked the conflict.
But a Lebanese Hezbollah cabinet minister said there would be no unconditional release of the soldiers - the pair would only be freed as a result of a prisoner exchange with Israel.

Every day, people are maimed, wounded and killed by these weapons - it shouldn't have happened
Jan EgelandUN humanitarian chief

UN efforts to rid Lebanon of cluster bombs have been under way since the conflict ended. Earlier estimates from UN experts had suggested a total of about 100 cluster bomb sites

Mr Egeland described the fresh statistics as "shocking new information".
"What's shocking and completely immoral is: 90% of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution," he said.

The UN ceasefire resolution which ended the month-long conflict between Israel and Hezbollah was agreed by the Security Council on Friday, 11 August, and came into effect on Monday, 14 August

Mr Egeland added: "Cluster bombs have affected large areas - lots of homes, lots of farmland. They will be with us for many months, possibly years.
"Every day, people are maimed, wounded and killed by these weapons. It shouldn't have happened."
Mr Egeland said his information had come from the UN Mine Action Co-ordination Centre, which had undertaken assessments of nearly 85% of the bombed areas in Lebanon.

Earlier this week the US state department launched an inquiry into whether Israel misused US-made cluster bombs in Lebanon during the conflict.

A senior White House official told the BBC that the investigation would focus on whether US-made weapons were used against non-military targets.

Blockade defended

At their talks in Jerusalem, Mr Annan and Mr Olmert discussed the deployment of UN troops in Lebanon as well as the continuing blockade.

The UN chief said he hoped Israel would withdraw from southern Lebanon once 5,000 UN peacekeepers were on the ground "in the coming days and weeks".

The BBC's Jill McGivering, in Jerusalem, said Mr Annan and Mr Olmert emerged from their meeting with little sign of the gap between them having narrowed

Mr Annan's Jerusalem talks followed a visit to Lebanon as part of a regional tour aimed at bolstering the truce between Israel and Hezbollah.

After his talks in Israel, Mr Annan flew to the West Bank for talks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

At a joint press conference in Ramallah, Mr Annan said that more than 200 Palestinians had been killed since the end of June, and the violence had to stop.

Mr Annan has now arrived in Jordan for talks with King Abdullah II, after which he is expected to proceed to Syria.

Nasrallah regrets war in hindsight

2006-08-28T12:58:00.000+03:00

Resistance leader says lebanese need not fear second round of fighting

Hizbullah's secretary general said Sunday that had the resistance known, "even 1 percent," that Israel would respond in the way that it did to the July 12 capture of two Israeli soldiers, the group would not have carried out the operation. In an interview with New Television, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said: "If I knew that the capture of the soldiers would have led to this result, had Hizbullah known even 1 percent, we definitely would have not carried it out."

Nasrallah added that the Lebanese need not fear a new round of fighting because Hizbullah would ignore "Israel's provocations."

"If we responded to these provocations, we would be in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and this could open the debate on a second resolution, which [US President George W.] Bush wants and which is connected with disarming the resistance," he said.

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Hizbullah, Israel agree to swap captives - report

2006-08-28T12:53:00.000+03:00

By Nada Bakri
Daily Star

BEIRUT: Israel and Hizbullah have reached a deal brokered by Germany for a prisoner exchange to take place within two or three weeks, state-owned Egyptian daily Al-Ahram reported Sunday. "The prisoner swap deal between Hizbullah and Israel will take place within two or three weeks at the utmost, thanks to German mediation which is currently arranging the general framework for the deal between the two parties," the paper said quoting high ranking officials.

However, Hizbullah did not confirm the report.

BEIRUT: Israel and Hizbullah have reached a deal brokered by Germany for a prisoner exchange to take place within two or three weeks, state-owned Egyptian daily Al-Ahram reported Sunday. "The prisoner swap deal between Hizbullah and Israel will take place within two or three weeks at the utmost, thanks to German mediation which is currently arranging the general framework for the deal between the two parties," the paper said quoting high ranking officials.

However, Hizbullah did not confirm the report.

"We don't have any details besides what we hear from the Israeli side, which is that a retired German general is preparing a team to broker a deal," Hizbullah MP Mohammad Raad said.

He added that Hizbullah "does not have any additional information on the deal. We are watching things closely."

Al-Ahram said the swap might happen simultaneously or in two stages.
In the second scenario, Hizbullah will hand over the two soldiers it captured on July 12 and would receive "100 percent guarantees from the German mediator" that Israel would release Lebanese prisoners on the second or third day.

Hizbullah dubbed the raid Operation True Promise, saying it was making good on an earlier pledge to continue to capture Israeli soldiers and use them to obtain the release of the remaining Lebanese in Israeli jails.

The most recent swap - also brokered by Germany - took place in January 2004 when Israel handed over more than 400 Lebanese and Palestinian detainees in return for one Israeli reservist colonel and the bodies of three soldiers abducted along the Lebanon border in 2000.

That exchange left just three Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails: Samir Qantar, Nassim Nisr and a third, Yehya Skaff - whom Israel denies is being held. Qantar has been in prison for 28 years.

Hizbullah politburo member Ahmad Malli said the prisoner exchange deal will be similar to that of 2004.

"A prisoner swap will take place regardless of Israel's demand to release the soldiers without negotiations," he said.

"We did not emerge from this war the weak party to submit to Israel's demands and nothing will stop us from swapping these two soldiers with our prisoners in the Israeli jails," he added.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has said her government is ready to negotiate for a release of the two soldiers.

Al-Ahram said an exchange between Israel and Hizbullah would help secure the release of a third Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, captured June 25 in Gaza.

"Once a Hizbullah-Israel deal is reached, the Shalit problem could be solved" even before the other two soldiers are freed, the newspaper said.

Shalit's captors have demanded the release of hundreds of Palestinians detained by Israel, including women and minors.

The Jewish state has officially refused a swap and launched a punishing offensive against the Gaza Strip but mediation efforts led by Egypt are still believed to be under way.

Graphic showing UN troops deployments

2006-08-27T10:41:00.000+03:00

European nations pledged up to 7,000 troops Friday to form the core of a beefed-up peacekeeping mission in Lebanon capable of enforcing the fragile truce between Israel and Hezbollah, officials said.(AFP/File)

An open letter to the American president

2006-08-25T10:20:00.000+03:00

By Salim El Hoss, former prime minister of Lebanon

Dear Mr. Bush,

We heard you express your regrets regarding the casualties of "Israel's" ravaging war against my country, Lebanon.

I hope you have been furnished with a true profile of the atrocities being perpetrated in my country. You pose as being at war with terrorism.

Let me honestly tell you: Charity starts at home.""Israel"" is wantonly indulging in the most horrendous forms of terrorism in Lebanon: indiscriminately killing innocent civilians at random; not sparing children, elderly or handicapped people; demolishing buildings over their residents' heads; and destroying all infrastructure, roads, bridges, water and power arteries, harbors, air strips and storage facilities.

Nothing moving on the highways is spared, not even ambulances, trucks, trailers, cars or even motorcycles, all in violation of the Geneva Conventions and human rights.

The displaced population has reached more than one fourth of the total population of my country - all suffering the harshest and most miserable of conditions.

The victims include thousands of killed and maimed.If this is not terrorism, what is?"Israel's" savage assault has been labeled retribution for Hizbullah's abduction of two Israeli soldiers.

This smacks of collective punishment, which constitutes a brazen violation of the Geneva Conventions and human rights. Furthermore, the alibi is far from plausible.

The two Israeli soldiers were abducted for the express purpose of reaching a swap of hostages with "Israel". In fact, "Israel" had acceded more than once to such swaps in the past.

Why would a swap of prisoners be acceptable at one time and a taboo, rather a casus belli, at another? This created a conviction among the Lebanese that the sweeping assault against them was premeditated, and the abduction was only a tenuous excuse."Israel" is indulging in terrorism at its worst, at its ugliest, using the most lethal and sophisticated weapons you have supplied them.

We the Lebanese are justified in seeing in "Israel" as a most atrocious terrorist power, and seeing in you a direct partner. Mr. President: You are indeed a terrorist practicing the worst variant of terrorism as you condone the annihilation of my country, precluding a cease-fire to be announced, supporting the aggression against my people politically and diplomatically and bolstering "Israel's" destructive arsenal with the most lethal weaponry.

Mr. President: You are not fooling anybody with your alleged war against terrorism.

In our perspective, you and "Israel" are the most unscrupulous terrorists on earth. If you want to fight terrorism, we suggest that you start with your administration and your hideous ally, "Israel".You repeatedly claim that "Israel" is acting in self-defense.

How preposterous! Self-defense on other people's occupied territory is tantamount to one thing: blatant aggression.You call Hizbullah a terrorist organization.

We call it a legitimate resistance movement. There would have been no military wing of Hizbullah if there had been no Lebanese territory under Israeli occupation, if there had been no Lebanese hostages languishing in Israeli jails, and if Lebanon had not been exposed to almost daily Israeli intrusions into its airspace and territorial waters, and to sporadic incursions into Lebanese land and bombardment of civilian targets.

You cannot eliminate a party by demolishing a whole country. This would have been achieved peacefully by "Israel" withdrawing from the land it occupies, releasing Lebanese prisoners, and desisting from further acts of aggression against Lebanon.

"Israel" is the most horrendous terrorist power. And you, Mr. President, are unmistakably a direct partner, and hence a straight terrorist.

Source:Daily Star, 3-8-2006. Date: 03/08/2006 Time 09:51

Amnesty: Israel broke int'l law in war

2006-08-23T11:18:00.000+03:00

Amnesty: Israel broke int'l law in war
By The Associated Press

LONDON - In a report to be released Wednesday, Amnesty International accuses Israel of war crimes, saying it broke international law by deliberately destroying Lebanon's civilian infrastructure during its recent war with Hezbollah guerrillas.

The human rights group said initial evidence, including the pattern and scope of the Israeli attacks, high number of civilian casualties, widespread damage and statements by Israeli officials "indicate that such destruction was deliberate and part of a military strategy, rather than 'collateral damage.'"

Amnesty International, whose delegates monitored the fighting in both Israel and Lebanon, said Israel violated international laws banning direct attacks on civilians and barring indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks.

The group urged the United Nations to look into whether both combatants, Israel and Hezbollah, broke international law.

Amnesty International said it would address Hezbollah's attacks on Israel separately. A senior Israeli government official, in Jerusalem, said his country acted legally. "Israel conformed to every international law.

We had attorneys in every meeting, everything we did along the way we fully explored international law," said the official, who was not authorized to speak to the media on the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Israel suffered international condemnation when it attacked targets in southern Lebanon hours after Hezbollah guerrillas operating there killed three Israeli soldiers and captured two in a cross-border raid July 12.

The Israel Defense Forces has said that between that raid and the August 14 UN-brokered cease-fire, it launched more than 7,000 air attacks on Lebanese targets and the navy conducted about 2,500 bombardments.

The UN's children's fund, UNICEF, estimates that some 1,183 people died, mostly civilians and about a third of them children, while the Lebanese Higher Relief Council says 4,054 people were injured and 970,000 displaced.

UN officials reported that around 15,000 civilian homes were destroyed. The Amnesty report cited "the widespread destruction of apartments, houses, electricity and water services, roads, bridges, factories and ports," which, taken with statements by Israeli officials, "suggests a policy of punishing both the Lebanese government and the civilian population in an effort to get them to turn against Hezbollah," it said.

It accused Israel of applying an overly broad interpretation of what constituted a military objective when it attacked power plants, bridges, main roads, seaports and Beirut's international airport, all of which are "presumed to be civilian."

Lebanon's pain grows by the hour as death toll hits 1,300

2006-08-20T18:48:00.000+03:00

Robert Fisk
Published: 17 August 2006

They are digging them up by the hour, the swelling death toll of the Lebanon conflict. The American poet Carl Sandburg spoke of the dead in other wars and imagined that he was the grass under which they would be buried.

"Shovel them under and let me work," he said of the dead of Ypres and Verdun. But across Lebanon, they are systematically lifting the tons of rubble of old roofs and apartment blocks and finding families below, their arms wrapped around each other in the moment of death as their homes were beaten down upon them by the Israeli air force. By last night, they had found 61 more bodies, taking the Lebanese dead of the 33-day war to almost 1,300.

In Srifa, south of the Litani river, they found 26 bodies beneath ruins which I myself stood on just three days ago. At Ainata, there were eight more bodies of civilians. A corpse was discovered beneath a collapsed four-storey house north of Tyre and, near by, the remains of a 16-year old girl, along with three children and an adult. In Khiam in eastern Lebanon, besieged by the Israelis for more than a month, the elderly village "mukhtar" was found dead in the ruins of his home.

Not all the dead were civilians. At Kfar Shuba, dumper-truck drivers found the bodies of four Hizbollah members. At Roueiss, however, all 13 bodies found in the wreckage of eight 10-storey buildings were civilians. They included seven children and a pregnant woman. Ten more bodies were disentangled from the rubble of the southern suburbs of Beirut - where local people claimed they could still hear the screams of neighbours trapped far below the bomb-smashed apartment blocks. The Lebanese civil defence organisation - almost as brave as the Lebanese Red Cross in trying to save lives under fire - believe at least three families may be trapped in basements deep below the wreckage.

Ignoring the dangers of unexploded ordnance, several Lebanese Shia Muslims returned to their destroyed homes to retrieve personal belongings - including family snapshots and albums that contain the narrative of their lives - only to fall between gaps in the broken apartment blocks and plunge dozens of feet into the darkness beneath. Among the last to die only minutes before the UN ceasefire came into effect was a child who was found in her dead mother's arms in Beirut.

How many of these dead would have survived if George Bush and Tony Blair had demanded an immediate ceasefire weeks ago will never be known. But many would have had the chance of life had Western governments not regarded this dirty war as an "opportunity" to create a "new" Middle East by humbling Iran and Syria.

Hezbollah says it foiled IDF commando raid in eastern Lebanon

2006-08-19T09:48:00.000+03:00

08:15 19/08/2006

BEIRUT - Hezbollah said its guerrillas clashed early Saturday with an Israeli commando force that landed near their stronghold of Baalbek deep inside Lebanon.Earlier Saturday, Israeli aircraft fired several rockets at a target in a Hezbollah stronghold in eastern Lebanon early on Saturday morning, a Lebanese security source said.An Israel Defense Forces spokesman said the report was untrue.

Lebanese security officials could not confirm the Hezbollah TV report of a drop of Israeli commandos by helicopter at a field Boudai west of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon or whether there were any airstrikes.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to release information to reporters, reported heavy Israeli overflights.

Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV said the Israeli unit landed before dawn and was driving into the village, when it was intercepted by guerrillas, who forced it to retreat under the cover of warplanes.Israeli warplanes crisscrossed the skies above Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley early Saturday, near the Hezbollah stronghold of Baalbek, security officials said.

Israeli warplanes have not attacked Lebanon since an Aug. 14 cease-fire halted 34-days of fighting between Hezbollah and Israeli forces.

Such an attack would be the first since a UN truce ended 34 days of fighting between Israeli forces and Hezbollah.The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to release information to reporters, could not confirm whether there were any airstrikes.Similar overflights were reported Friday night in the same area.

The war is not over yet..

2006-08-16T19:29:00.000+03:00

Just a feeling..Not a report from a news agency or an article by a famous writer..

Just a feeling that Israel wont stop there ..They are up to something and I hope and wish I am wrong with my feelings but watching all the Lebanese refugees going back to their destroyed homes,I felt a knot in my stomach,I felt that there is something wrong going on..

maybe Israel is just refueling,rearranging ..They said they were not ready when they started the attack,are they getting ready now?

I don't want them to catch Hezbollah off guard ..The whole cease fire procedure is suspicious..

I hope my feelings are wrong ..I pray they are

Lebanon war cost Israel 5.7 billion dollars: report

2006-08-16T09:23:00.000+03:00

The cost of the month-old war in Lebanon on Israel's economy is estimated at nearly 5.7 billion dollars, the top-selling Yediot Aharonot daily reported Tuesday.

The total cost represents 10 percent of the state budget or around half of the defence budget, the newspaper said.

Official estimates put the cost of the massive air, sea and land operation launched after the July 12 Hezbollah border attack at around 2.3 billion dollars.

The damage caused by the 3,970 rockets fired into northern Israel during the 33 days of conflict tops 1.3 billion dollars.

An estimated 12,000 homes were demolished or damaged and 750,000 trees burned.

The drop in national production is also estimated at 1.3 billion, the cost of aid transfers to the local authorities in northern Israel at around half a billion, and the damage to nature at 220 million dollars.

The newspaper warned that the impact of the war on Israel's economic growth -- which stood at six percent last year -- could eventually turn out to be higher and raise the total bill to almost seven billion dollars.

According to the newspaper, 1,600 cars, 600 businesses and 100 factories were also damaged by Hezbollah rockets.

End of report

*******
So what?

how about the estimated cost of the lives of lebanese people killed during this war?

homes can be rebuilt,bridges can be reconstructed,but can lives be restored ?

Desert of trapped corpses testifies to Israel's failure

2006-08-15T15:30:00.000+03:00

Robert Fisk
published: 15 August 2006

They made a desert and called it peace. Srifa - or what was once the village of Srifa - is a place of pancaked homes, blasted walls, rubble, starving cats and trapped corpses.

But it is also a place of victory for the Hizbollah, whose fighters walked amid the destruction yesterday with the air of conquering heroes. So who is to blame for this desert? The Shia militia which provoked this war - or the Israeli air force and army which has laid waste to southern Lebanon and killed so many of its people?

There was no doubt what the village mukhtar thought. As three Hizbollah men - one wounded in the arm, the other carrying two ammunition clips and a two-way radio - passed us amid the piles of broken concrete, Hussein Kamel el-Din yelled to them: "Hallo, heroes!" Then he turned to me. "You know why they are angry? Because God didn't give them the opportunity of dying."

You have to be down here with the Hizbollah amid this terrifying destruction - way south of the Litani river, in the territory from which Israel once vowed to expel them - to realise the nature of the past month of war and of its enormous political significance to the Middle East.

Israel's mighty army has already retreated from the neighbouring village of Ghandoutiya after losing 40 men in just over 36 hours of fighting.

It has not even managed to penetrate the smashed town of Khiam where the Hizbollah were celebrating yesterday afternoon.

In Srifa, I stood with Hizbollah men looking at the empty roads to the south and could see all the way to Israel and the settlement of Mizgav Am on the other side of the frontier.

This is not the way the war was supposed to have ended for Israel

Keep Reading

Let the voice of moderation speak

2006-08-14T18:07:00.000+03:00

By HRH Prince Hassan bin Talal
Haaretz – August 14, 2006

How much aggression in our region has been justified by the mantra that western interests are under threat? The battle cries claim that all is at stake and every strike is a final defence of freedom and stability. But the premise behind this thinking has become all too obvious. Arabs and Muslims of whatever race or hue are not to be trusted. They are not to be dealt with fairly and the ‘liberal values’ that protect the righteous of Israel or the US are not for our defence or our protection. It seems, even the moderates in Arab societies lack the fibre that would grant them equality under international law. We are all as one, barbarians at the gate to be cowed and bullied into silent submission.

But we should be thankful that Arab moderation fights on with stoicism. Moderation will continue to battle for the hearts of those millions for whom this war on terror is an offence to their existential realities.

Boaz Ganor, the prominent Israeli thinker, addressed the question of terrorism and demanded that there be ‘no prohibition without definition’. Terrorism must be defined objectively based upon accepted international laws and principles regarding what behavior is permitted in conventional wars between nations.

The roots of that Arab anger and disillusionment which allows legitimacy to be handed over to extremists cannot be ignored.

Terrorism is a tactic borne out of a perversion of lines of representation. If we do not allow the many to speak, then the violent few will scream to be heard. It may be difficult for most Israelis to admit, but the Shia of southern Lebanon became politicized and militarized only in response to repeated Israeli aggression.

The citizens of Israel and the other states in the Middle East must be honest about the effects of decades of abuse of people and of international law, unless you believe that we Arabs possess a unique terrorist gene which has ignited our responses in recent decades. If this is the case, then throw firewood on the blaze and let our region burn until you have killed or exiled every last Arab in your neighbourhood.

The founders of Israel and, indeed, the United States, fought what they perceived as an occupation. Last week, some Israelis commemorated the bombing of the King David Hotel in 1946 as a landmark act in ending the British mandate but surely this must be defined as an act of terror.

A statement in the British House of Commons at the time described the attack, in which 92 people were murdered, as “one of the most dastardly and cowardly crimes in recorded history”.

The Lebanese have been damned to repeat this phrase to describe attacks on their country. But in our world, righteousness belongs to the victor. If this is the way of the new world order and international law no longer has a place then, by all means, the extremists on all sides must fight to the death. The question is what can usefully be won in such a scenario? The evils of pain, suffering and moral bankruptcy are all the spoils of our new-world fighters.

The traumatic effects of the collective punishment of civilian populations will be felt for generations to come. The Israeli Defence Forces who occupy have made terror a daily reality for the civilian populations of Palestine and Lebanon, populations who have lived and continue to live through illegal occupation.

For the other side of this global war on terror, violence is most often something to read about. The threat of terror is fetishised by media and politicians and provides a scant excuse for policies that make terror a daily reality in the lives of millions of people in the Middle East.

No one can ignore the pain and suffering of the Israeli people in recent weeks but the policies of disproportionate reprisal and abuse of humanitarian norms can only beget further violence.

Jordan is a country that fought two world wars on the side of the allies. We have suffered from the shockwaves of aggression on all sides and we have endured threats and terror right up to Zarqawi’s terrible attacks on Amman. So do not patronise us by dubbing us allies in the war on terror and then dismiss our words when we question your policies.

The politics you entertain in this region are the product of a false perception. Our regional perspective is being ignored and, all the while, empowered extremists are gaining greater control.

We must not be fooled into thinking that a new Middle East can be devised by political strategists and imposed from top down.

The promotion of participatory democracy has been curtailed by a fear of empowering moderate Arabs and moderate Islamists.

Regimes within the region and powers outside attempt to stifle the protests of dismayed populations, protests that should be aired through banners and the ballot box. But the moderates are now shouting also.

The evolution of freedoms cannot be controlled from above, nor blasted into alien forms that poorly represent the needs of those seeking freedom.

With the ever-increasing polarisation of hate we should be grateful that exasperation has not stifled the protest of moderates.

US involved in planning Israel's operations in Lebanon: report

2006-08-14T14:08:00.000+03:00

NEW YORK, Aug 13, 2006 (AFP) -

The US government was closely involved in planning Israel's military operations against Lebanon's Hezbollah militia even before the July 12 kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers, The New Yorker magazine reported in its latest issue.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh writes that President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were convinced that a successful Israeli bombing campaign against Hezbollah could ease Israel's security concerns and also serve as a prototype for a potential US preemptive attack to destroy Iran's nuclear installations.

Citing an unnamed Middle East expert with knowledge of the current thinking of the Israeli and US governments, Hersh said Israel had devised a plan for attacking Hezbollah -- and shared it with Bush administration officials -- well before the July 12 kidnappings.

"When they grabbed the soldiers in early July, that was then a pretext" for Israel's assault on Hezbollah, Hersh said Sunday on CNN television.

"We (the US) worked closely with them (Israel) months before, not necessarily ... knowing when it was going to happen, but when there was an incident they will take advantage of the incident, what I call a fortunate timing'," Hersh said.

"Nobody is suggesting that Israel wouldn't have done what it did without the Americans," he added.

Hezbollah responded to Israel's attacks by firing missiles into Israel to escalate the month-long conflict that killed some 1,200 people on both sides.

A UN-organized cessation of hostilities planned for Monday, it was hoped, could bring an end to the fighting. In the article Hersh suggests the White House had several reasons for supporting an Israeli bombing campaign in Lebanon.

If Washington wanted to pursue a military attack against Iran over its nuclear program, the United States had to get rid of the weapons Hezbollah could use in a potential retaliation against Israel, he writes.

Citing a US government consultant with close ties to Israel, Hersh also reports that before the Hezbollah kidnappings, several Israeli officials visited Washington "to get a green light" for a bombing operation following a Hezbollah provocation, and also "to find out how much the United States would bear".

"The Israelis told us it would be a cheap war with many benefits," the magazine quotes the consultant as saying. "Why oppose it? We'll be able to hunt down and bomb missiles, tunnels, and bunkers from the air. It would be a demo for Iran."

US government officials have denied the charges, but Hersh defended his piece Sunday saying he had strong sources for the article which was thoroughly vetted by New Yorker editors.

"This White House will find a way to view what happened with the Israelis against Hezbollah as a victory, and they'll find a way to see it as a positive for any planning that is going towards Iran," he told CNN.

In the magazine Hersh writes that a former senior intelligence official said some officers serving with the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- a council of the president's top military advisors -- remain concerned that the administration will have a far more positive assessment of the air campaign than they should.

"There is no way that (Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld and Cheney will draw the right conclusion about this," Hersh quotes the former official as saying.

"When the smoke clears, they'll say it was a success, and they'll draw reinforcement for their plan to attack Iran."

lest we forget

2006-08-13T09:15:00.000+03:00

Remember???

Can we ever trust them?

There is no military solution!

2006-08-12T11:57:00.000+03:00

Gush Shalom (Translated from Hebrew, the name means "The Peace Bloc")is the hard core of the Israeli peace movement.

these ads were published in Haaretz
*************

So one general has been Replaced by another.
So we shall reach The Litani.
And then what?
Hizbullah Will continue to exist.
The rockets Will continue to fly.
The border Will not be quiet. There is only A political solution.
There is no Military solution.

The proposal of The Lebanese government To deploy 15 thousand soldiers vIs a ladder that allows us To get down from the tree.
Let's stop Endangering the Lives of our soldiers For no purpose.
Get the soldiers Out of this quagmire - N O W !

The war is Against Hizbullah.
The cease-fire Must also be With Hizbullah.
A settlement without Hizbullah and Syria Will not be Worth the paper It is written on.

This is not A resolution For a cease-fire.
This is a resolution For the continuation Of the war,
The killing, The devastation.
But what do The Americans And the French care?
It's nor their Own blood.

This war has Only one aim left:
To save the prestige of Olmert, Peretz And Halutz.
All the other aims Have gone up in smoke.
There is no military solution.

After the war, The situation will be As it was before.
A hundred speeches Of Olmert Will not change that.
There is no military solution.
Only a political settlement.

"We warned them And called on them To escape!"
That is disgusting Hypocrisy.
Because we have:
Bombed the roads.
Destroyed the bridges.
Cut off the supply of gasoline.
Killed whole families on the way.
There is only one way Of preventing more such disasters, Which turn us into monsters:
T O S T O P!
There is no military solution!

"Condoleezza gives us All the time we need To continue the war."
"Condoleezza will stop The war In a week."
Condoleezza and her boss Open and close The tap - According to their Own interests, Of course.
From this tap There flows Blood.

Now they all admit:
The government has started this war In light-hearted haste, Without checking alternatives, Without prior discussion.
Now we are stuck in the mud.
All the wise guys have an advice About how to get out of it:
Get into it even deeper.
To get out of this mud There is only one way:
To get an agreement and
G E T O U T!

While the eyes of the public Are riveted to the Daily bloodletting in Lebanon
The wholesale killing In the Gaza Strip Is going on.
Women and children Are also killed Every day.
This bill, too, Will be presented to us In the future.

What do you say to a man whose family is buried under the rubble

2006-08-11T11:05:00.000+03:00

Robert Fisk
Published: 09 August 2006

There were bulldozers turning over the tons of rubble, a cloud of dust and smoke a mile high over the smashed slums of Beirut's southern suburbs and a tall man in a grey T-shirt - a Brooklyn taxi driver, no less - standing on the verge of tears, staring at what may well be the grave of his grandfather, his uncle and aunt.

Half the family home had been torn away and the entire block of civilian apartments next door had been smashed to the ground a few hours earlier by the two missiles that exploded in Asaad al-Assad Street

What do you say to a man whose family is buried under the rubble?

The last corpse had been a man whose face appeared etched in dust before the muck was removed and he turned out to be paper-thin - so perfectly had the falling concrete crushed him.

Mohamed al-Husseini had left New York for a holiday with his young wife and infant child - they were safe in the centre of Beirut - because he wanted to see his family home and talk to the relatives he grew up with

"Just look what the Israelis have done," he said, not taking his eyes off the floors of the apartments, now scarcely an inch between them.

"I am confused. You know? I don't know what to do. I could go back to my wife and kid but the rest of my family is in there. They used to live in the south and they survived there. Then they come to Beirut and die here."

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I fear for Lebanon

2006-08-10T08:02:00.000+03:00

Almost a month now since the brutal attack on Lebanon started, the UN is STILL considering a ceasefire,the headlines of middle east crisis are still about Lebanon(I wonder who's next),the Lebanese nation is still scattered ,many are homeless,many are buried in mass graves..

I fear for Lebanon

I fear the day the world will look at the Lebanese crisis as they look at the Palestinian one,I fear that the day will come when the world loses interest in solving the matter and when the UN comes up with more defied resolutions.

I fear for Lebanon

what I fear most is that the attack on Lebanon turns into something common ,that the death of children there will be expected..Same as in the Palestinian intifada..I fear the day will come when we all lose interest,when we stop checking the news,when we leave the whole issue into the hands of those who care less

I fear that the deaths there will be a new statistic
the homeless settle outside their land
and the ones who left start a new life outside their homeland

This draft shows who is running America's policy... Israel

2006-08-09T09:09:00.000+03:00

By:Robert Fisk

So the great and the good on the East River laboured at the United Nations Security Council - and brought forth a lemon. You could almost hear the Lebanese groan at this draft resolution, a document of such bias and mendacity that a close Lebanese friend read carefully through it yesterday, cursed and uttered the immortal question: "Don't these bastards learn anything from history?"

And there it all was again, the warmed-up peace proposals of Israel's 1982 invasion, full of buffer zones and disarmament and "strict respect by all parties" - a rousing chortle here, no doubt, from Hizbollah members - and the need for Lebanese sovereignty. It didn't even demand the withdrawal of Israeli forces, a point that Walid Moallem, Syria's Foreign Minister - and the man the Americans will eventually have to negotiate with - seized upon with more than alacrity. It was a dead UN resolution without a total Israeli retreat, he said on a strategic trip to Beirut.

A close analysis of the American-French draft - the fingerprints of John Bolton, the US ambassador to the UN, were almost smudging the paragraphs - showed just who is running Washington's Middle East policy: Israel

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