The scene of a collapsed apartment building which was destroyed by renewed Israeli air strikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon on Wednesday. (AP / Ben Curtis)
A high-ranking IAF officer caused a storm on Monday in an off-record briefing during which he told reporters that IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz had ordered the military to destroy 10 buildings in Beirut in retaliation to every Katyusha rocket strike on Haifa.
The officer said that the equation was created by Halutz and that every rocket strike on Haifa would be answered by IAF missile strikes on 10 12-story buildings in the Beirut neighborhood of Dahiya, a Hizbullah stronghold. Since the beginning of Operation Change of Direction, launched on July 12 following the abduction of two soldiers during a Hizbullah cross-border attack, over 80 buildings in the neighborhood have been destroyed.
UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon contacted Israeli troops 10 times before an Israeli bomb killed four of them, an initial UN report says.
The post was hit by a precision-guided missile after six hours of shelling, diplomats familiar with the probe say.
I pray to Almighty God that He may spare nations the terrible sufferings that have just been inflicted on my people.... The very refinement of barbarism consisted in carrying ravage and terror into the most densely populated parts of the territory, the points farthest removed from the scene of hostilities....
In a word, it is international morality that is at stake.... Apart from the Kingdom of the Lord there is not on this earth any nation that is superior to any other. ... God and history will remember your judgment....
Haile Selassie to the League of Nations, June 1936
What future other than one of fear, frustration, financial ruin and fanaticism can stem from the rubble? Is the value of human life less in Lebanon than that of citizens elsewhere?
Are we children of a lesser God? Is an Israeli teardrop worth more than a drop of Lebanese blood?
Can the international community continue to stand by while such callous retribution by the state of Israel is inflicted upon us?
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, July 26, 2004
UPDATE: meanwhile...
The Israel Defense Forces killed 23 Palestinians in fighting across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, including at least nine militants, three children and a disabled man, medics and witnesses said. ...
Saeb Erekat, a top aide to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, called on the world to remember the plight of the Palestinians despite the conflict in Lebanon.
"This is the forgotten war," he told Reuters. "We urge the international community to intervene."
Meanwhile, among the so-called opposition, our Democratic Senator Feinstein holds a "Support Israel" rally in San Francisco on Sunday, our other Democratic Senator goes off to Connecticut this week to campaign for Lieberman, and Pelosi threatens a Congressional walkout if the Iraq PM repeats his condemnation of Israel's murderous behavior in Lebanon.
ReplyDeleteAre you starting to smell a pattern here? These people all belong in jail.
Thanks for the great quotes, by the way.