Israeli Air Raids Kill 12
Hizbullah Rockets kill 15
If we start in the north and work south, here is what the Israel-Lebanon War looked like on Sunday. Israeli air raids on Lebanon killed 14 civilians, including a family of 6 in their house in a village near Sidon.
Israeli warplanes conducted air raids on Akkar in the far north of Lebanon, a Sunni area, hitting bridges.
Israeli warplanes repeatedly bombed South Beirut, a slum inhabited mainly by poor Lebanese Shiites, which has been largely emptied of population. Some diehards refuse to leave, however, and some elderly, disabled, or very poor cannot.
Some of the bombing raids took place as Arab leaders landed by helicopter at Beirut Airport, which was specially opened for this purpose. Some thought that Israel was expressing its disapproval of the Arab League and its secretary general, Amr Moussa. Moussa and others, including the Syrian foreign minister, said that the draft French-US proposal for a cessation of hostilities was fatally biased toward Israel.
Then there were the air raids around Sidon, one of which killed the family of 6.
Down south along the border, 10,000 invading Israeli troops fought fierce battles with Hizbullah fighters. Israeli gunship fired artillery rounds at this area.
Then at Kfar Giladi across the border in Israel, a Hizbullah rocket killed 12 Israeli military reservists and wounded others, two of them critically.
And a rocket strike on Haifa killed 3 and wounded some 30. One rocket hit an apartemnt building where Palestinian-Israelis lived. Hizbullah continues to kill non-combatants, including Palestinian-Israelis, in its indiscriminate rocket attacks, mainly aimed at innocent civilians.
Hotheaded generals in Israel, embarrassed by their failure to stop rocket attacks, threatened to destroy even more key Lebanese infrastructure in revenge, including power plants. There are mixed reports about whether or not the angrier generals were reined in. Their stated plan was just mean-spirited revenge on Lebanese in general, and would not help the war effort.
Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, Nabih Berri, condemned the UN draft resolution as giving the Israelis everything they could want if they had been clear victors in the war. Berri clearly believes that despite the pounding Lebanon has taken, Israel has not met its war aims. Berri is a Shiite and leader of the Amal Party, a Shiite party.
The Pope called again for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon on Sunday, and complained that no one had paid any attention to the identical call he had made the previous Sunday.
Pope Benedict didn’t realize that the US Right, including Fox Cable News, is only interested in the Catholic Church to the extent that they can use it for reactionary purposes. Start talking about peace, and you’ll find yourself in a news blackout even if you are a pope. What puzzles me is why he doesn’t send in the Catholic Lobby.
If it is any consolation to Pope Benedict, no one seems to have paid attention to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani’s fatwa demanding a ceasefire yet, either.
Dick Norton asks about the status of Americans serving in the Israeli military.
More on the historical context of the Israel-Lebanon War.
The Oil Drum is a good site for discussion of energy issues.
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