JULY 2006

LEBANON with important updates

UPDATED
28th July:

Interesting discovery in an Australian newspaper re.2 Israelis captured by Hezbollah after Israelis crossed over the border:

Sky fills with smoke as border becomes fire zone

Rocky road … Israeli soldiers take position in Zar'it.
Photo: AP

July 13, 2006

EXPLOSIONS tore through the sky over northern Israel - the sound of stable doors slamming too late.

Six hours after the Hezbollah raid that killed or captured nine of its soldiers, the Israeli Defence Force yesterday fired across the border into southern Lebanon, where the attackers came from.

Akram Arviv, a chicken farmer, 43, sat on the terrace of his house metres from the border, watching shells burst near the Israeli Palmonit border post, perched high on a hilltop across a wooded valley.

"It's bad for business," he said. "Whenever there's shooting the chickens stop laying. It can take a week for production to get back to normal."

From near Palmonit, machine-guns fired long intermittent bursts into Lebanon. Overhead two helicopter gunships circled, occasionally releasing flares to foil any heat-seeking missiles. Then they swung abreast and four missiles thumped to earth 500 metres off.

"That's the [Israeli Defence Force's] old Karkom position," Arviv commented. "It's inside Lebanon, and we had to give it up when we pulled out six years ago. Hezbollah have a place there, but I don't think they are still there now. We have attacked it many times before."

There was the whoosh of a jet engine and the earth jerked as a larger explosion jarred the hilltop, sending flame and smoke into the air above the abandoned army post. "F16," Arviv said.

Twice more the jets attacked, swooping then pulling into a tight climbing turn to bring them back over Israel, spouting flares. About 100 metres up the road a Merkava tank guarded the road to the nearby border. Its crew said they were from Alon company - the same unit that lost a tank and three men when it crossed into Lebanon hours before, vainly pursuing the fleeing guerillas.

"I don't feel anything special about it," said a conscript crewman, a study in nonchalance. "We are trained for war."

His sergeant said the attack had come about 9am local time when a patrol was driving along a border road screened by dense scrub trees. Eight soldiers, including several reservists, were travelling in two Humvees.

"They were hit by a missile and maybe an explosive device too," he said.

To the east, hidden in the haze, an attack helicopter fires long bursts from its cannon.

.........................................

A high school student from California said: "I don't know where to even begin. I saw parts of bodies. I saw small children and old people and women stuck in the rubble. . . And on the road coming to Tyre yesterday we saw cars that had been rocketed with dead people still inside. There were so many cars I couldn't count. I couldn't even look at some of
them." AP quoted another American saying, "It was a massacre. It was a massacre."

26th July

The observers were part of the Untso mission - the first peacekeeping operation ever established by the UN, which has been operating in the Middle East since 1948, and currently has about 150 observers.

Annan accusation

The observers had taken shelter in a bunker under their base because there had already been 14 Israeli artillery attacks on their position.

The BBC's Paul Adams says that they called the Israeli military 10 times over a period of six hours to tell them to stop shelling before they were killed with a precision guided missile.

Four unarmed observers, from Austria, Canada, China and Finland, died in the attack.

A UN rescue team also came under fire as it searched the rubble for survivors.

In a statement on Tuesday Mr Annan was quick to say the attack was the result of "apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defence Forces". He demanded a full investigation.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has expressed his regret over the deaths in a phone call to Mr Annan, saying that the post was hit by mistake.

Governments around the world have condemned the attack. Lebanese Foreign Minister Fawzi Sallukh, described it as barbaric and premeditated aggression.BBC World News

In Ireland the Israeli Ambassador said that the attack was an accident.....

25th July
Official justification for Israel's invasion on thin ice
By Joshua Frank
Since 2000, Hizbullah violated the Blue Line on the Israeli-Lebanese border 100 times, while Israeli violated that line 11,782 times. (These numbers are based on UN observers and were cited by Lebanese Speaker of Parliament in his interview with Al-Arabiya TV).

posted by As'ad @ 5:37 PM www.angryarab.blogspot.com

As Lebanon continues to be pounded by Israeli bombs and munitions, the justification for Israel’s invasion is treading on very thin ice. It has become general knowledge that it was Hezbollah guerillas that first kidnapped two IDF soldiers inside Israel on July 12, prompting an immediate and violent response from the Israeli government, which insists it is acting in the interest of national defense. Israeli forces have gone on to kill over 370 innocent Lebanese civilians (compared to 34 killed on Israel’s side) while displacing hundreds of thousands more. But numerous reports from international and independent media, as well as the Associated Press, raise questions about Israel’s official version of the events that sparked the conflict two weeks ago.

The original story, as most media tell it, goes something like this: Hezbollah attacked an Israeli border patrol station, killing six and taking two soldiers hostage. The incident happened on the Lebanese/Israel border in Israeli territory. The alternate version, as explained by several news outlets, tells a bit of a different tale: These sources contend that Israel sent a commando force into southern Lebanon and was subsequently attacked by Hezbollah near the village of Aitaa al-Chaab, well inside Lebanon’s southern territory. It was at this point that an Israel tank was struck by Hezbollah fighters, which resulted in the capture of two Israeli soldiers and the death of six.

As the AFP reported, “According to the Lebanese police force, the two Israeli soldiers were captured in Lebanese territory, in the area of Aitaa al-Chaab, near to the border with Israel, where an Israeli unit had penetrated in middle of morning.” And the French news site VoltaireNet.org reiterated the same account on June 18, “In a deliberated way, [Israel] sent a commando in the Lebanese back-country to Aitaa al-Chaab. It was attacked by Hezbollah, taking two prisoners.”

The Associated Press departed from the official version as well. “The militant group Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers during clashes Wednesday across the border in southern Lebanon, prompting a swift reaction from Israel, which sent ground forces into its neighbor to look for them,” reported Joseph Panossian for AP on July 12. “The forces were trying to keep the soldiers’ captors from moving them deeper into Lebanon, Israeli government officials said on condition of anonymity.”

And the Hindustan Times on July 12 conveyed a similar account:

“The Lebanese Shi’ite Hezbollah movement announced on Wednesday that its guerrillas have captured two Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon. ‘Implementing our promise to free Arab prisoners in Israeli jails, our strugglers have captured two Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon,’ a statement by Hezbollah said. ‘The two soldiers have already been moved to a safe place,’ it added. The Lebanese police said that the two soldiers were captured as they ‘infiltrated’ into the town of Aitaa al-Chaab inside the Lebanese border.”

Whether factual or not, these alternative accounts should at the very least raise serious questions as to Israel’s motives and rationale for bombarding Lebanon.

MSNBC online first reported that Hezbollah had captured Israeli soldiers “inside” Lebanon, only to change their story hours later after the Israeli government gave an official statement to the contrary.

A report from The National Council of Arab Americans, based in Lebanon, also raised suspicion that Israel’s official story did not hold water and noted that Israel had yet to recover the tank that was demolished during the initial attack in question.

“The Israelis so far have not been able to enter Aitaa al-Chaab to recover the tank that was exploded by Hezbollah and the bodies of the soldiers that were killed in the original operation (this is a main indication that the operation did take place on Lebanese soil, not that in my opinion it would ever be an illegitimate operation, but still the media has been saying that it was inside ‘Israel’ thus an aggression first started by Hezbollah).”

Before independent observers could organize an investigation of the incident, Israel had already mounted a grisly offensive against Lebanese infrastructure and civilians, bombing Beirut’s international airport, along with numerous highways and communication portals. Israel didn’t need the truth of the matter to play out before it invaded Lebanon. As with the United States’ illegitimate invasion of Iraq, Israel just needed the proper media cover to wage a war with no genuine moral impetus.

GNN contributor Joshua Frank is the author of Left Out!: How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush, just published by Common Courage Press. You can order a copy at a discounted through Josh’s blog at www.brickburner.org.

BEIRUT, Jul 24 (IPS) - BUNKER BUSTERS INTO SHELTERS AND PHOSPHOROUS ON CIVILIANS
About 55 percent of all casualties at the Beirut Government University Hospital are children of 15 years of age or less, hospital records show.

"This is worse than during the Lebanese civil war," Bilal Masri, assistant director of the hospital, one of Beirut's largest, told IPS Monday.

Not only are most of the patients children, but many of the injured have been brought in serious condition, he said. "Now we have a 30 percent fatality rate here in Beirut. That means that 30 percent of everyone hit by Israeli bombs are dying. It is a catastrophe."

The fatality rate was high, he said, "because the Israelis are using new kinds of bombs which can enter shelters. They are bombing the bomb shelters which are full of refugees."

Masri told IPS that he believed so many children were becoming casualties because of the "widespread and indiscriminate nature of the bombings" and because "children are least able to run away when the bombings commence."

This new 544-bed hospital was forced to open its emergency room six months early due to the current crisis. The hospital has had to handle "scores and scores" of casualties, according to the assistant director.

Masri said he had barely slept in the 13 days since the Israeli bombing of Lebanon began. His hospital, he said, was functioning with only 25 percent staff because "most are now unable to get here because so many roads and bridges are bombed. Those who are here are eating, sleeping and living here 24 hours a day because if they leave they fear they may be unable to return."

On Sunday, Jan Egeland, the United Nations emergency relief chief, toured the devastated areas of south Beirut. He described what he saw as "horrific" and said the destruction "makes it a violation of humanitarian law."

Egeland said UN supplies of humanitarian aid would arrive within the next few days, but "we need access," and "so far Israel is not giving us access."

Aid is now a matter of life and death. Masri said his hospital would soon begin to run out of medicines and supplies.

"We are concerned about what is to come because we cannot continue at this rate," he said. "Already we've had to go to the Ministry of Health to get extra supplies. If the UN succeeds in opening safe passage from the south, we will be deluged with patients."

Masri said hospitals in Sidon and other southern cities are overwhelmed with patients, who are being treated in the corridors and lobbies.

According to Masri many of the injured there are suffering from the impact of incendiary white phosphorous. The Lebanese ministry of interior has officially said that the Israeli military has used this weapon.

"We don't know why we aren't getting help from the International Committee of the Red Cross," Masri said. "The Lebanese Red Cross is helping us the best they can, but no foreign agencies are helping us. Why not?"

Inter Press Service News Agency
...................................................................................

Also re. Phposphorous:Delicate Monster comment on Daily Kos:here are a few more links from various sources, unfortunately... funny how the Tel Aviv press is carrying nothing about this!

http://news.scotsman.com/...
(note the description of the 'white dust')

http://www.naharnet.com/...

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/...

http://euronews.net/...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/...

There's tons of other links of course. And there is one little old article in Haaretz about IDF using White Phosphorous in training excercises in 2005...hmmm evidence mounts!

http://www.haaretz.com/...

ALSO;

But without a doubt, I think the most important thing that people need to understand right now is that the Israelis are using white phosphorus in Southern Lebanon, and also it's been unconfirmed, but the Lebanese Army is reporting that they are using -- dropping cluster bombs from warplanes, as well, and other illegal munitions also. But that, as of yet, to be confirmed by an independent source.

Dahr Jamail via Democracy Now

Now we see another detail??: Israel plans to siphon off the Litani River:Israel 'to control Lebanon strip' . Israel says it will keep control over an area in southern Lebanon until an international force can be deployed. BBC WorldNews
If the Lebanese Parliament has a care it should watch the Israelis like Hawks to prevent them stealing the water.....


Israel set war plan more than a year ago http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/07/21/MIDEAST.TMP Israel's military response by air, land and sea to what it considered a provocation last week by Hezbollah militants is unfolding according to a plan finalized more than a year ago.     Israel wants to set up a BUFFER ZONE within Lebanon, probably build yet another one of their Berlin style stone walls!! So, I've just heard (on CNN, oh god) that Israel wishes to create, what can only be called a "no-man's-land" inside Lebanon. A "twenty-mile" swath of area that no one, Lebanese, will be allowed to occupy. This, curiously enough, would actually expose Syria's western flank to attack. Currently, Syria is virtually landlocked, or is landlocked, with no real access to its borders from Israel. This "removal" or shifting of Lebanon's border twenty miles northward would now "conveniently" open up Syria's border, her western edge, to an Israeli/U.S. attack, creating the potential for an attack on Syria from the west and from the east via Iraq
simultaneously.

24TH JULY:    
 
trying out dick cheney's new weapons
Gbu 28 Guided Bomb Unit-28 (GBU-28) Replenishing the Stockpiles of Israel's WMD

      The bombs which are now being rushed to Israel are the large 5000 lb GBU
28 bunker buster bombs, which can in one strike in an urban area kill literally
hundreds of people.

      The US claims that the bunker buster bomb is safe for the surrounding
civilian population, because the explosion is underground. Israel has stated
that the GBU 28 is to be used against Hizbollah, because Hizbollah has taken
refuge in deap underground bunkers:       "Designed to penetrate hardened command centers located deep underground, the GBU-28 is a 5,000-pound laser-guided bomb that uses a 4,400-pound penetrating warhead and contains 630 pounds of high explosives."

      http://www.irmep.org/GBU.htm

      The GBU-28 has already been used in densely populated urban areas inside
Lebanon. The gruesome images of charred and mutilated bodies following these
aerial bombings, could  indeed be the result of the use of  the GBU-28, which is
among the deadliest weapons in the conventional arsenal (see below).
      "Israel's need for precision munitions is driven in part by its strategy
in Lebanon, which includes destroying hardened underground bunkers where
Hezbollah leaders are said to have taken refuge, as well as missile sites and
other targets that would be hard to hit without laser and satellite-guided
bombs." (NYT, 21 July 2006)

Hizbullah: We won’t hesitate to attack Haifa refineries

Terror group's TV station says: 'After killing and destruction left by enemy, the Islamic resistance announces that it attacked Haifa with dozens of rockets'
Roee Nahmias

Hizbullah announced Sunday morning on its al-Manar television station that it fired Raad-type rockets at Haifa Eight people were killed and dozens injured in Haifa following the rocket attacks.The terror group said it would not hesitate to attack the oil refineries in Haifa.

Received 16th July:
14 July 2006

Dear All,

I am writing now from a cafe, in West Beirut's Hamra district. It is filled with people who are trying to escape the pull of 24 hour news reporting. Like me. The electricity has been cut off for a while now, and the city has been surviving on generators. The old system that was so familiar at the time of the war, where generators were allowed a lull to rest is back. The cafe is dark, hot and humid. Espresso machines and blenders are silenced. Conversations, rumors, frustrations waft through the room. I am better off here than at home, following the news, live, on the spot documentation of our
plight in sound bites. The sound of Israeli warplanes overwhelms the air on occasion. They drop leaflets to conduct a "psychological" war. Yesterday, their sensitivity training urged them to advise inhabitants of the southern suburbs to flee because the night promised to be "hot". Today, the leaflets warn that they plan to bomb all other bridges and tunnels in Beirut. People are flocking to supermarkets to stock up on food. This morning, I wrote in my emails to people inquiring about my well-being that I was safe, and that the targets seem to be strictly Hezbollah sites and their constituencies, now, I regret typing that. They will escalate. Until a few hours ago, they had only bombed the runways of the airport, as if to "limit" the damage. A few hours ago, four shells were dropped on the buildings of our brand new shining airport.

The night was harrowing. The southern suburbs and the airport were bombed, from air and sea. The apartment where I am living has a magnificient view of the bay of Beirut. I could see the Israeli warships firing at their leisure. It is astounding how comfortable they are in our skies, in our waters, they just travel around, and eliver their violence and congratulate themselves.

The cute French-speaking and English-speaking bourgeoisie has fled to the Christian mountains. A long-standing conviction that the Israelis will not target Lebanon's Christian "populated" mountains. Maybe this time they will be proven wrong? The Gulfies, Saudis, Kuwaities and other expatriates have all fled out of the country, in Pullman buses via Damascus, before the road was bombed. They were supposed to be the economic lifeblood of this country. The contrast in their sense of panic as opposed to the defiance of the inhabitants of the southern suburbs was almost comical. This time, however, I have to admit, I am tired of defying whatever for whatever cause. There is no cause really. There are only sinister post-Kissingerian type negotiations. I can almost hear his hateful voice rationalizing laconically as he does the destruction of a country, the deaths of families, people with dreams and ambitions for the Israelis to win something more, always more.

Although I am unable to see it, I am told left, right and center that there is a rhyme and reason, grand design, and strategy. The short-term military strategy seems to be to cripple transport and communications. And power stations. The southern region has now been reconfigured into small enclaves that cannot communicate between one another. Most have enough fuel, food and supplies to last them until tomorrow, but after that the isolation of each enclave will lead to tragedy. Mayors and governors have been screaming for help on the TV.

This is all bringing back echoes of 1982, the Israeli siege of Beirut. My living nightmare, well one of my living nightmares. It was summer then as well. The Israeli army marched through the south and besieged Beirut. For 3 months, the US administration kept dispatching urges for the Israeli military to act with restraint. And the Israelis assured them they were acting appropriately. We had the PLO command in West Beirut then. I felt safe with the handsome fighters. How I miss them. Between Hezbollah and the Lebanese army I don't feel safe. We are exposed, defenseless, pathetic. And I am older, more aware of danger. I am 37 years old and actually scared. The sound of the warplanes scares me. I am not defiant, there is no more fight left in me. And there is no solidarity, no real cause.

I am furthermore pissed off because no one knows how hard the postwar reconstruction was to all of us. Hariri id not make miracles. People work hard and sacrifice a lot and things get done. No one knows except us how expensive, how arduous that reconstruction was. Every single bridge and tunnel and highway, the runways of that airport, all of these things were built from our sweat and brow, at 3 times the real cost of their construction because every member of government, because every character in the ruling Syrian junta, because the big players in the Hariri administration and beyond, were all thieves. We accepted the thievery and banditry just to get things done and get it over with. Everyone one of us had two jobs (I am not referring to the ruling elite, obviously), paid backbreaking taxes and wages to feed the "social covenant". We fought
and fought that neoliberal onslaught, the arrogance of economic consultants and the greed of creditors just to have a nice country that functioned at a minimum, where things got done, that stood on its feet, more or less. A thirving Arab civil society. Public schools were sacrificed for roads to service neglected rural areas and a couple Syrian officers to get richer, and we accepted, that road was desperately needed, and there was the "precarious national consensus" to protect. Social safety nets were given up, healthcare for all, unions were broken and coopted, public spaces taken over, and we bowed our heads and agreed. Palestinian refugees were pushed deeper and deeper into forgetting, hidden from sight and consciousness, "for the preservation of their identity" we were told, and we accepted. In exchange we had a secular country where the Hezbollah and the Lebanese Forces could co-exist and fight their fights in parliament not with bullets. We bit hard on our tongues and stiffened our upper lip, we protested and were defeated, we took the streets, defied army-imposed curfews, time after time, to protect that modicum of civil rights, that modicum of a semblance of democracy, and it takes one air raid for all our sacrifices and tolls to be blown to smithereens. It's not about the airport, it's what we built during that postwar.

As per the usual of Lebanon, it's not only about Lebanon, the country has paradigmatically been the terrain for regional conflicts to lash out violently. Off course speculations abound. There is rhetoric, and a lot of it, but there are also Theories.

1) Theory Number One.
This is about Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah negotiating an upper hand in the negotiations with
Israel. Hezbollah have indicated from the moment they captured the Israeli soldiers that they were willing to negotiate in conjunction with Hamas for the release of all Arab prisoners in Israeli jails. Iran is merely providing a back support for Syria + Hamas.

2) Theory Number Two.
This is not about solidarity with Gaza or strengthening the hand of the Palestinians in negotiating the release of the prisoners in Israeli jails. This is about Iran's nuclear bomb and negotiations with the Europeans/US. The Iranian negotiator left Brussels after the end of negotiations and instead of returning to Tehran, he landed in Damascus. Two days later, Hezbollah kidnapped the Israeli soldiers. The G8 Meeting is on Saturday, Iran is supposed to have some sort of an answer for the G8 by then. In the meantime, they are showing to the world that they have a wide sphere of control in the region: Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon. In Lebanon they pose a real threat to Israel. The "new" longer-reaching missiles that Hezbollah fired on Haifa are the message. The kings of Jordan and Saudi Arabia issued statements holding Hezbollah solely responsible for bringing on this escalation, and that is understood as a message to Iran. Iran on the other hand promised to pay for the reconstruction of destroyed homes and infrastructures in the south. And threatened Israel with "hell" if they hit Syria.

3) Theory Number Three.
This is about Lebanon, Hezbollah and 1559 (the UN resolution demanding the disarmament of Hezbollah and deployment of the Lebanese army in the southern territory). It stipulates that this is no more than a secret conspiracy between Syria, Iran and the US to close the Hezbollah file for good, and resolve the pending Lebanese crisis since the assassination of Hariri. Evidence for this conspiracy is Israel leaving Syria so far unharmed. Holders of this theory claim that Israel will deliver a harsh blow to Hezbollah and cripple the Lebanese economy to the brink of creating an internal political crisis. The resolution would then result in Hezbollah giving up arms, and a buffer zone between Israel and Lebanon under the control of the Lebanese army in Lebanon and the Israeli army in the north of Galilee. More evidence for this Theory are the Saudi Arabia and Jordan statements condemning Hezbollah and holding them responsible for all the horrors inflicted on the Lebanese people.

There are more theories... There is also the Israeli government reaching an impasse and feeling a little worried out by Hezbollah and Hamas, and the Israeli military taking the upper hand with Olmert.

The land of conspiracies... Fun? I can't make heads or tails. But I am tired of spending days and nights waiting not to die from a shell, on target or astray. Watching poor people bludgeoned, homeless and preparing to mourn. I am so weary...

Rasha.

Coalition of Women for Peace
cwp@coalitionofwomen.org
http://www.coalitionofwomen.org


15th July:
"The Israelis are suffocating us. They destroyed our roads
and bridges. We cannot even flee," said southern resident
Ahmad Kamel.

"They are killing civilians because they cannot kill
Hizbollah fighters. They want to bring us back to the
occupation era. We cannot take this injustice any more.
Will the world continue to watch them kill children
without doing anything?" asked Jamil Hassan.

Women and children were among those killed when their vehicles were struck by missiles on the coastal road to the southern city of Tyre. "Bodies litter the road," an eyewitness said.

Local residents told al-Jazeera TV the victims had been hit after being told to leave the village of Marwahin by the Israelis and then refused shelter by the UN forces.

The main road had been under continuous bombardment, Ahmad Ali Ubayd said.

the pictures:These are people who were asked to leave
their village , Ter Hafra , this morning , within two hours , or 
else. ... So those who were able to flee went to the closer UN base 
where they were asked to leave. I think that after the Qana massacres 
in 1996 when civilians were bombed after they took chelter in UN 
headquarters , the UN does not want to be responssible for the lives 
of civilians.A FEW MINUTES AGO , the
Israeli asked the people of Al Bustan village in the south to 
evacuate their homes. I am afraid massacres will keep happening as 
long as Israeli actions are uncheked. Please help us if you can
Hanady Salman"


13th July :

After a mid-morning lull, Israeli helicopter gunships were in action above the border around midday, firing with heavy machine guns from the air close to the border.

Green and yellow shells

Unconfirmed reports suggest that there may have been efforts to retrieve the bodies of four Israeli soldiers killed when their tank was blown up on Wednesday.

The Israeli government has threatened a severe response to the killing and capture of its soldiers.

This afternoon I watched two truck loads of green and yellow shells being delivered to a tank position.

They will soon be screaming over these beautiful hills into southern Lebanon.

7 soldiers killed, 2 snatched in Hezbollah border attacks

By Amos Harel, Avi Issacharoff, Jack Khoury and Yoav Stern, Haaretz
Correspondents, and Agencies

Seven Israel Defense Forces soldiers were killed and two others were abducted Wednesday in attacks by guerillas from the militant Hezbollah organization.

Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said Wednesday evening that a prisoner exchange was the only way to secure the release of the soldiers, who he said were being held in a "secure and remote" location. "No military operation will return them," Nasrallah told a news conference in Beirut. "The prisoners will not be returned except through one way: indirect negotiations and a trade."

The militants attacked two IDF armored Hummer jeeps patrolling along the border with gunfire and explosives, in the midst of massive shelling attacks on Israel's north. Three soldiers were killed in the
attack and two were taken hostage. Later in the day, four IDF soldiers were apparently killed when their tank hit a mine some 6 kilometers inside Lebanese territory. The army withheld news of the deaths for several hours while the soldiers' families were notified.

The IDF had Wednesday afternoon sent troops across the border to search for the missing soldiers, marking the first incursion into Lebanon since the withdrawal in May 2000. Army Radio reported large numbers of troops, as well as aircraft, were taking part in searches on the Lebanese side of the border.

According to Channel 10 television, the IDF later said that it had lost all hope of retrieving the abducted soldiers with ground forces. The IDF also ordered troops deployed on the Lebanon and Gaza borders on high alert in the event that armed groups may attempt to fire Katyusha and Qassam rockets into Israel. GOC Northern Command Udi Adam told reporters that Israel plans to "push back" Hezbollah guerrillas controlling southern Lebanon, adding that the IDF has "no intention at the moment of involving Syria," which has great influence over Hezbollah. "We think at the moment the debate is beween us and the government of Lebanon," he said.

Immediately after the Hezbollah attack, the organization's Al-Manar television station began broadcasting clips calling on Israel to release Lebanese prisoners held in Israel in return for the soldiers. The group in particular emphasized the release of Lebanese militant Samir Kuntar, jailed in Israel since a 1979 attack in the northern town of Nahariyah, in which he entered an apartment and murdered three family members and an Israeli police officer. Al-Manar also broadcast video clips of previous Palestinian and Lebanese attacks on IDF troops.

"Fulfilling its pledge to liberate the [Arab] prisoners and detainees, the Islamic Resistance... captured two Israeli soldiers at the border with occupied Palestine," the Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hezbollah said in a statement. "The two captives were transferred to a safe place," it said, without stating what condition the soldiers were in.

Reserve troops called up

In the wake of the attack, IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz headed into the military's war room at the Defense Ministry complex in Tel Aviv, Channel 10 television reported.

During consultations, senior IDF officers called for an end to the restraint against Hezbollah and said Lebanon should be made to pay a heavy price.

Halutz ordered the IDF to mobilize a reserve infantry division that was expected to be sent to the northern border. General Staff exercises held over the past several years tested a number of possible responses to kidnapping scenarios.

One of these responses involves the massive incursion of IDF ground forces into Lebanese territory. Military sources told Haaretz that Israel is liable to act with the aim of "altering the rules of the game on the northern front."

Two Israelis were wounded when gunmen in Lebanon began pounding the IDF's Zarit position and other posts along the border before 9 A.M. According to Al-Manar, Hezbollah kidnapped the two IDF soldiers at 9:05 A.M. and transferred them to a safe location. The two were wounded either by mortar shells or rockets that slammed into Moshav Zarit. One was lightly to moderately wounded and the second was lightly hurt. Two other people suffered from shock. All four were evacuated to a hospital in Nahariya.

IDF responded to the attacks from Lebanon with heavy artillery and tank fire. Al-Manar television reported that IDF artillery was pounding the fringes of the villages of Aita el-Shaab, Ramieh and Yaroun in the hills east of the coastal border port of Naqoura.

Israel Air Force jets struck roads, bridges and Hezbollah guerrilla positions in southern Lebanon, Lebanese security officials said. The air raids were apparently intended to block any escape route for the guerrillas who may be taking the captured IDF soldiers to areas further removed from the border in order to prevent an Israeli rescue mission.

Lebanese security sources said two Lebanese civilians were killed and a Lebanese soldier was wounded in the IAF air strike on the coastal Qasmiyeh bridge in the south of the country.

The fighting apparently began when at least two rockets fired from south Lebanon exploded near Shlomi, located about 15 kilometers east of the Mediterranean coast, Reuters reported. Hezbollah guerrillas also attacked IDF positions in the Shaba Farms area to the east, Lebanese security sources said. Channel 10 said that the Hezbollah attack and kidnapping took place the same day that IDF units were switched in the border area.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in response to the violence in the north that enemies are putting Israel to a test. He said they would fail in their efforts and would pay a "heavy price" for their actions. Olmert called a special cabinet session on Wednesday in the wake of the incident. Olmert's office said the cabinet would convene at 7 P.M. An official said the ministers would discuss "today's events." "These are difficult days for Israel and its citizens," Olmert told reporters. "There are elements, to the north and the south, that are threatening our stability and trying to test our determination," he said. "They will fail and pay a heavy price for their actions."

Media reports said that before the cabinet meeting, Olmert would consult with IDF and defense officials on a military response to the events on the border.

Meanwhile, the Lebanese government-affiliated said Israel Navy warships had entered Lebanese territorial waters and IDF forces were massing in the border area.

The possibility of border clashes in the north was raised during security situation meetings over the past two weeks since the kidnapping of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit next to the Gaza Strip.

Opinion/Editorial
A hard rain's gonna fall

Laurie King, The Electronic Intifada
13 July 2006


"If you are not rain, my love
Be tree
Sated with fertility, be tree
If you are not tree, my love
Be stone
Saturated with humidity, be stone
If you are not stone, my love
Be moon
In the dream of the beloved woman, be moon
(So spoke a woman to her son at his funeral)"

From the poem, "Under Siege," by Mahmoud Darwish


The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have named their relentless military operation in Gaza "Summer Rain" (gishmei ha-qeitz in Hebrew), which is cruel and sarcastic given the political, historical, and environmental context of the Eastern Mediterranean. It does not rain in the summer in this region. From early May to mid-September, one can expect clear skies and no precipitation. What is raining, though, is fire and metal, along with leaflets bearing chillingly familiar threats.

Any Palestinian in Gaza, or indeed anyone who knows what happened in Lebanon one scorching summer 24 years ago, will be appropriately terrified by those leaflets warning people of the firestorms to come. The metal rains of the summer of 1982 in Beirut were heavy and deadly. No one stopped the IDF then from committing massive crimes, directed against an Arab capital crowded with civilians. And sadly, no one will stop them now. Thursday morning, President G.W. Bush and the newly elected German leader Angela Merkel reiterated that Israel has the "right to defend herself."

Institutionalized Israeli impunity is an amazing phenomenon: The capture of one Israeli soldier, taken as a bargaining chip to ransom hundreds of Palestinian men, women and children held in administrative detention in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, now provides the unquestioned and self-righteous pretext for massive violations of international humanitarian law. Given the mainstream media's depiction of Palestinians as cruel, heartless terrorists, and Hamas as the most evil organization ever to exist, the IDF can safely assume they'll get away with crimes this summer that will rival those committed in 1982, when 17,000 civilians lost their lives in Lebanon and Beirut was put to a brutal siege during the hottest months of the year.

Israeli Prime Minister Olmert declared last week that he wanted no one in Gaza to sleep. With the dramatic bombings of buildings and accumulating corpses in Gaza the last two nights (among them seven children in the last 24 hours), he need not worry that anyone is dozing, oblivious of the might of the IDF. As for losing sleep at night, you don't have to be in Gaza to be tossing and turning. The dynamic interaction of recent events in the region, and beyond, augur for one of the hottest summers on record.

For the last three years, I have wondered if the Middle East is at a turning point or a breaking point. The former would entail a denouement, a last-minute deliverance from horror. It would require, more than anything else, wise leadership on all sides, strong moral vision, courage, and compassion. The indices of a turning point, sadly, are not in evidence.

A breaking point would entail a cataclysmic but contained explosion or implosion, bringing a long and bloody chapter of modern history to a violent but decisive end. This, too, seems unlikely, because the region has reached another, far more dangerous stage: a tipping point that poses lethal threats and dramatic changes to communities far from the alleys of Gaza and the marble halls of the Knesset.

A tipping point constitutes the critical point in an evolving situation that leads to a new and irreversible development. Small changes which, seen in isolation, may appear insignificant, build up to a critical mass, such that the next small change may suddenly change everything in unpredictable and dramatic ways.

For those attentive to small changes and their interrelationships, indices of a tipping point in the Middle East are now coming into terrifying focus: Escalating intercommunal violence and outright ethnic cleansing in Iraq and the revelation that US troops have committed murder and rape in cold blood, not to mention a chilling report in the New York Times on July 7th that "a decade after the Pentagon declared a zero-tolerance policy for racist hate groups, recruiting shortfalls caused by the war in Iraq have allowed large numbers of neo- Nazis and skinhead extremists to infiltrate the military."

The report, by John Kifner, cited accounts by neo-Nazis of their infiltration of the military, including a discussion on the white supremacist Web site Stormfront: "There are others among you in the forces," one participant wrote. "You are never alone." These guys will come home one day - well organized, trained, and very knowledgeable about weapons and urban warfare tactics. They view their army training as preparation for a coming race war in American cities. Such soldiers pose a more lethal threat to American society than does Al-Qaida.

Meanwhile, the "War on Terror" is looking bleak further east, with this week's announcement that the UK is sending reinforcements to Afghanistan, where the Taliban are clearly, and predictably, pursuing a strategy to take back the cities. Pakistan, a member of the nuclear club, is also home to Taliban and Al-Qaida forces, who might one day be able to control the levers of the state and military. But this week came news that US intelligence services are no longer concerned with Al-Qaida in the Middle East, but rather, are redirecting their attention to Al-Qaida v.2 in Europe, London, and in the US.

And yesterday, the fires of the hot summer of 2006 spread to Lebanon. The Israeli Government just declared that entire country a legitimate target for massive air strikes following the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by Hizbullah members who crossed the border into Israel in a daring raid, an action that may well not have happened had the IDF's punishment of the Gaza Strip not been so cruel and the world's silence in the face of Israel's war crimes so deafening. Hizbullah, like Palestinians, wants illegally imprisoned friends and relatives to be freed and returned. Diplomatic and multilateral mechanisms for attaining this end have halted, so maybe this is the last resort: taking Israeli soldiers as bargaining chips.

If Israel carries through with its threats to "turn back the clock 30 years in Lebanon," it should surprise no one if this exacerbates growing Sunni-Shi'a tensions in the region, particularly in Iraq, and also leads to violence and chaos in countries throughout the region, all with unpredictable effects. If this scenario plays out, expect to see attempts to destabilize Jordan and Saudi Arabia in the coming weeks.

The Middle East is in dire need of the refreshing rains of law, justice, sanity, and wisdom. The clouds on the horizon, though, are full of fire and death, not life-giving water.

A hard rain's gonna fall, clanging like metal on concrete and bone. It did not have to come to this, but the tipping point is here, and few will be able to sleep peacefully through the coming storms.



Laurie King-Irani is a co-founder of the Electronic Intifada. She has lived and worked in
Israel, Palestine and Lebanon and is currently living in Washington, DC.