Hiding Behind Children
Sunday, July 30
9:15 p.m.: China condemned Israel's bombing of Qana, and called on the two sides to declare an immediate cease-fire.8:20 p.m.: The U.N. Security Council passed a statement expressing "extreme shock and distress'' over Israel's bombing of civilians in Qana but didn't condemn it.
5:15 p.m.: WSJ's Marc Champion reports: Israel agreed to a 48-hour suspension of aerial activity in south Lebanon while it investigates the attack on Qana, said State Department spokesman Adam Ereli. Full article
3:15 p.m.: "Our hope for peace for boys and girls everywhere extends across the world, especially in the Middle East," President George W. Bush said before the start of a T-ball game at the White House. "Today's actions in the Middle East remind us that friends and allies must work together for a sustainable peace particularly for the sake of children."
2:30 p.m.: Palestinian gunmen stormed the U.N. compound in the Gaza Strip to protest the Israeli airstrike on Qana that left more than 50 people dead. Witnesses said there was damage but no immediate reports of injury.
1:00 p.m.: United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair said the attacks in Qana were "absolutely tragic" and that the situation "absolutely cannot continue." Mr. Blair said that a U.N. resolution must be passed now and once passed, the hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah must immediately stop.
12:45 p.m.: Hezbollah guerrillas hit an Israel tank with a missile in the border village of Adaisse, wounding four Israeli soldiers who were evacuated to Israel, the military said. The attack raised to eight the number of Israeli soldiers who were wounded in fighting in southern Lebanon Sunday.
11:45 a.m.: "We meet at a moment of extreme gravity first and foremost for the people of the Middle East but also for the authority of this organization and especially this council," U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said as a Security Council meeting opened. "Action is needed now before many more children, women and men become casualties of a conflict over which they have no control." Mr. Annan renewed his call for an immediate cease-fire.
10:30 a.m.: "We extend our condolences to the families of the Qana victims and to all the people of Lebanon," White House spokesman Blair Jones said. "This was a terrible and tragic incident. We continue to urge the Israeli government to exercise the utmost care so as to avoid any civilian casualties. This tragic incident shows why this is so critical." Earlier, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, the U.S. State
Department's third-ranking official, reaffirmed the White House's position that
Israel has the right to defend itself and contended on Sunday an agreement was
near on ending the fighting that has ravaged Lebanon.9:45 a.m.: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that he needs 10 days to two weeks to finish offensive in Lebanon, according to a senior Israeli government official.
9:30 a.m.: Ms. Rice is abruptly breaking off her diplomatic mission in the Middle East and returning to Washington after Israel's deadly attack on the southern Lebanese village of Qana, a U.S. official said. The secretary was expected to work from Washington on a U.N. Security Council resolution to end the crisis. The Security Council was due to hold consultations on Lebanon at 11:00 a.m.
8:00 a.m.: New photos are now available. (Warning: graphic images)
7:50 a.m.: Lebanon Prime Minister Fuad Saniora telephoned U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urging him to convene an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council and arrange for an immediate ceasefire, the government said.
5:45 a.m.: "From the village and its surroundings, hundreds of Katyusha [rockets] have been fired at Israel, toward Kiryat Shemona and Afula," Mr. Olmert said during Israel's weekly cabinet meeting, according to a participant in the meeting. "The army did not get an order to strike at Lebanese civilians. In Kfar Qana, hundreds of Katyushas are hidden."
5:30 a.m.: Jordan's King Abdullah II voiced his strongest criticism of Israel yet, saying an attack on the southern Lebanese village of Qana that left 50 people dead, including 27 children, was "criminal aggression" which targeted innocent civilians. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she is "deeply saddened by the terrible loss of innocent life" after an attack on a village in southern Lebanon but did not call for an immediate cease-fire in the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.
5:20 a.m.: Protesters angry over the Israeli strike on Qana broke into the main U.N.
building in Beirut. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the Lebanese village was used as a Hezbollah base for launching hundreds of rockets at Israel.4:30 a.m.: Ms. Rice put off a Lebanon stop after the Lebanese government asked her not to come. Lebanese officials said the request was made after dozens of civilians were killed in an attack on Qana.
4 a.m.: Lebanon's Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said Beirut would only be open to
discussing an "immediate and unconditional" cease-fire.3:30 a.m.: Mr. Olmert said Israel would not rush into a cease-fire in southern Lebanon until it achieves its goals there. "I think it needs to be clear that Israel is not in a hurry to have a cease-fire before we reach a situation in which we can say that
we achieved the central goals that we set down for ourselves," Mr. Olmert said
before Israel's weekly Cabinet meeting.2:50 a.m.: Civil defense workers in the southern Lebanese town of Qana said up to 50 civilians were killed in the early morning attack by Israeli planes.
2:40 a.m.: The Israeli army confirmed reports by Hezbollah television that its troops were operating in the Taybeh area, about two miles inside Lebanon, and that one soldier was moderately wounded in the fighting.
2:14 a.m.: Lebanese security officials said three houses were destroyed by Israeli strikes in the southern town of Qana and that 20 bodies have been dug from the rubble so far.
1:50 a.m.: Israel's ambassador to the U.S. said the fate of the disputed Chebaa Farms territory will not be part of any deal to end the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, but aides to Israel's prime minister said Mr. Olmert was not opposed to a pullout from the disputed border area.
1:40 a.m.: Hezbollah's television channel reported fierce clashes between the guerrilla and Israeli troops who had "infiltrated" a zone known as the Taybeh Project area. The report could not immediately be confirmed with the Israeli army.
1:24 a.m.: Hezbollah said it had shelled Israeli outposts along the border. The Israeli army said Katyushas rockets were falling in Nahariya, Kiryat Shemona and an area close to Maalot. It said the rockets mostly fell in open areas, and that no injuries were reported.
Saturday, July 29
10:35 p.m.: The U.S. has asked Australia to contribute troops to a proposed peacekeeping force in war-torn Lebanon, but any Australian contingent would be "very limited," its foreign minister said.10:30 p.m.: An Israeli force has massed on the Israel-Lebanon border to the east of Khiam, a Lebanese town the army left hours earlier, Lebanese security officials said. The town has been under intense bombardment in recent days -- including a strike that hit a U.N. post nearby, killing four observers.
10:20 p.m.: The Associated Press reports: A draft resolution circulating Saturday among U.N. Security Council members would call for an immediate halt to fighting between Israel and Hezbollah and seek a wide new buffer zone in south Lebanon monitored by international forces and the Lebanese army. The proposal, which aims to promote lasting peace between Lebanon and Israel, was sent quietly by France to the other 14 members of the council ahead of a possible meeting of foreign ministers in New York to discuss Lebanon sometime next week.
4:35 p.m.: An international agreement, leading to a cease-fire in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, is possible sometime in the next few days, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said. But the international community must act decisively and collectively, and both Israel and the Hezbollah militia must agree to end the violence, he said.
4:10 p.m.: New photos from today's news are available here.
3:30 p.m.: U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had dinner with Israeli Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert but didn't speak publicly afterward, the Associated Press reports. On Sunday, she plans to meet with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Amir Peretz. Further details on the schedule weren't available.2:20 p.m.: Israeli missiles that landed near a Lebanese border post at the main Syria-Lebanon crossing closed the border for the first time in the conflict, police officials told the Associated Press.
2:05 p.m.: Two United Nations peacekeepers have been injured in an Israeli airstrike on their post in southern Lebanon near the Israeli border. On Thursday, four unarmed U.N. observers were killed in a strike on their border post. Just Friday, in response to that fatal strike, the U.N. said it had decided to move 50 unarmed observers from their posts to the better-protected positions of 2,000 lightly armed U.N. peacekeepers.
2 p.m.: WSJ's Marc Champion and Yochi Dreazen report: A senior administration official said the U.S. would push for a Security Council resolution to include language stressing the urgent need for a cease-fire -- but not demanding the immediate cessation of hostilities that most European and Arab governments want. The official also said the White House doesn't expect Israel to end its offensive in Lebanon until the new international force had begun deploying into Lebanon, a process likely to take at least a week. Full article
12:15 p.m.: The Associated Press reports: Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah threatened more rocket attacks on cities in central Israel and claimed Israel suffered a "serious defeat" in ground fighting around the Lebanese border town of Bint Jbail, from which Israeli troops pulled back on Saturday after a week of heavy battles. Israel "has not made a single military accomplishment" in its 18-day offensive, Nasrallah said in a speech aired on Hezbollah's Al-Manar television.
11:25 a.m.: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's plane has landed in Jerusalem. No word on whether she will travel back to Beirut or elsewhere in the region after expected talks with Israeli Prime Minister Olmert and Foreign Minister Livni.
10:10 a.m.: In his regular weekly radio address, Bush calls the fighting in Lebanon "painful and tragic," but says it also presents opportunity for change in the Middle East, a region that has "suffered decades of tyranny and violence." The president said he will work toward a U.N. Security Council resolution mandating a multinational force in southern Lebanon, where fighting has raged between Israel and the Hezbollah militia.
6:30 a.m.: Israel has rejected a request by the U.N. for a three-day cease-fire in Lebanon to deliver humanitarian supplies and allow civilians to leave the war zone. Avi Pazner, a government spokesman, said Israel already has opened safe corridors across Lebanon for such shipments and that Hezbollah guerrillas are blocking them to create a humanitarian crisis.
The highlighted sections in the above are what I am going to address here today. Okay - it's hard to begin actually with this being as long as it is. But I'll try and keep my points short as I only have a few minutes left in my lunch.
First of all, it is a well documented fact that Hezbollah fires missiles and attacks from highly populated residential areas. They don't slink off to the desert or fire from a military compound, they fire missiles at Isreal from their neighbors front yard. Or a six year old's street. In a battle, it would make sense to try and target your enemies weapons caches to limit their fire power to use against you. That was what Israel was doing when it fired upon Quana. It was firing on the rockets that Hezbollah and hidden there.
But more to my point - Israel is not fighting regular army, and this incident, and their tactics, are further proof of that. Regular army wear uniforms that carry rank, serial number, and identification. Terrorists were street clothes and look like civilians. How do you distinguish between terrorist guerillas and civilians? You don't. You can't. Not when the terrorists are launching rockets at you from housing developments.
This is tragic. Terribly terribly tragic. But Hezbollah planned it, for all intents and purposes. You don't shoot missiles off from areas like that thinking you won't get hit. You shoot missiles off from there hoping to get hit so you can win a battle of the minds and pyschologically beat your opponent who has a conscience. And you don't. So you don't mind if 27 small children die. Because now Israel will be more cautious. They will not want to kill more children. They won't want the bad press. They get enough of that as evident by the list of countries above who call for them to stop the violence.
Excuse me ... did I miss something? Or did Hezbollah not provoke these attacks to begin with? Shouldn't we be demanding that Hezbollah stand down so that Israel will no longer have a reason to defend herself?
The world is full of anti-semites, that's what this shows me. The world hates the Jewish people and Israel as a nation. I don't know about you, but any culture that has an entire religious movement calling for its annihilation deserves a safe and secure state. Like the one we (the UN) gave them after WWII.
If any other group was calling for the annihilation of say -- Spaniards -- you could bet that neighboring countries would stand up and say, "Hey, you can't do that!" Because how long before you come for me?
And that's what I keep thinking. How long before they come for the West? Which they also hate. How long before they decide that my pagan, zionist life style (their words not mine) is a direct threat to their entry to heaven so they must die in order to kill me so they can visit those virgins they've been promised. How long? And do I have to wait for that day? Or can I stand up and say -- you know, every group has a right to exist, at the bare minimum. You can't say that you want to annihilate them. That's wrong.
Say it with me China, Germany, France, Russia, Kofi Annan, and the list of others ... "That's wrong."
Because there is a clear right and wrong here. And maybe I'm too simplistic. Maybe my years of prayer for a discerning heart have made me too basic. Maybe there isn't always one right solution and one wrong.
But to me - it's clear as day. The terrorists (Hezbollah) and the country that harbors them (Lebanon) are wrong for letting them attack Israel without cause and for using Lebanese civilians as human shields. Shame on Lebanon's leaders for letting that happen. SHAME SHAME SHAME. Israel is right to defend herself. Because as I said - everyone at least deserves to exist and to defend themselves against those that wish to annihilate them.
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