T he following information appeared in the UNIFIL daily situation report: "Lebanon: Heavy exchanges of fire continued, 27 Jul 2006"

Naqoura - Heavy exchanges of fire continued with the same intensity along the length of the Blue Line in the past 24 hours. Hezbollah continued to fire rockets from various locations, and the IDF continued intensive shelling and aerial bombardment of the south. The IDF has maintained their presence inside Lebanese territory in the area of Marun Al Ras, Bint Jubayl and Yarun in the central sector. Intensive fighting in these areas, as well as the shelling of the area of Aytarun, and the aerial bombardment of the areas of At Tiri and Brashit north of Bint Jubayl was reported yesterday. This morning, sporadic fighting was reported in Bint Jubayl and Marun Al Ras, and intensive shelling of the area of At Tiri. There are a number of civilians who are still stranded in these towns and caught in the crossfire.

There were three incidents of firing close to UN positions in the last 24 hours from the Israeli side. It was also reported that Hezbollah fired from the vicinity of four UN positions at Marwahin, Alma Ash Shab, Brashit, and At Tiri. The UNIFIL Engineering Contingent from China successfully disposed of one mortar bomb inside the Ghanaian battalion position, in the area of Marwahin. All UNIFIL positions in the area of operation remain permanently occupied and maintained by the troops. A number of positions were resupplied yesterday, and additional supply convoys to forward positions are planned for today. UNIFIL suspended last night a search operation to recover the mortal remains of the military observers killed in aerial bombardment on 25 July at the patrol base of the Observer Group Lebanon (OGL) in Khiyam. Heavy engineering equipment is required to resume the search for the fourth observer.

Over 600 civilians from Naqoura, Alma Ash Shab, and other neighboring villages were sheltered inside the UNIFIL Headquarters in Naqoura yesterday, and provided with food and water. UNIFIL also provided humanitarian escorts to a group of 250 of them yesterday from Naqoura to Tyre, and to another group of around 300 this morning. Around 100 civilians still remain in the UNIFIL compound. The ICRC distributed this morning some food to UNIFIL in Naqoura for the remaining group. UNIFIL hospital in Naqoura provided treatment for 39 civilians.

Approximately 1000 local civilians from Alma Ash Shab, Al Bustan, Yarin, Al Duharya, and other neighboring villages, were sheltered inside a UNIFIL position of the Ghanaian battalion in the area of Al Duharya at noon yesterday. Around 670 of them left the position for Tyre later in the afternoon. A group of 330 remained inside the position, and UNIFIL will attempt to provide a humanitarian escort and transportation for them to Tyre today. There were other reports of convoys of civilian cars moving from these areas in the direction of Tyre.

UNIFIL evacuated some 176 UN dependents and foreign nationals from the country on board a French ship which delivered supplies to UNIFIL in Naqoura yesterday.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5275.shtml
Criminalizing Civilians

In the days before the US-commanded forces unleashed the second siege of Falluja in November 2004, a quarter million women, children and old men fled the city, but males between the ages of 15 and 45 were denied passage. They were essentially criminalized and forced to remain in a zone upon which hell was about to descend. These poor souls were condemned to a legal category that philosopher Giorgio Agamben calls hominus sacres, those without rights who can be killed without it being called the murder of a human, homicide.

Israeli leaders have a decision to make. After the IDF's devastating losses at Bint Jabeil on Wednesday, the Washington Post Foreign Service reported this statement from former Mossad officer Yossi Alpher: "I dare say, based on what we've seen so far, these may be the best Arab troops we've seen so far." An Nahar today reported that, Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon proclaimed: "Everyone who is still in south Lebanon is linked to Hizbullah, we have called on all who are there to leave." He then suggested that "maximum firepower has to be used." As justification, he cited the meeting in Rome, from which "we have in effect obtained the authorization to continue our operations until Hisbullah is no longer present in southern Lebanon."

Look at this logic: since Israel has asked civilians to leave - any that disobeyed have forfeited their status as civilians. Because the United States and its British followers have blocked the resolution to stop the killing, Israel will continue until Hezbollah "is no longer present." But remember Hezbollah has been redefined to include all those "still in south Lebanon." This crude logic renders all the people of southern Lebanon hominus sacres.

A serious war crime may be imminent. The responsibility to protect civilians does not end when an invading army asks them to clear out. An Nahar also reported that hundreds of people were trapped in southern villages. Moreover, there is evidence that some who tried to flee north in cars have been targeted.


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http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5273.shtml

In a private meeting with 70 American Jewish leaders in his Jerusalem office on July 25, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed that his government would not “run away” from the war in Lebanon. Olmert told the United Jewish Communities Solidarity Mission that the battle “may be painful,” with two million Israelis living in bomb shelters and daily life at a halt in the country’s north. But he cited an opinion poll showing that 95 percent of the country’s Jewish population supported the war.

Despite Olmert’s declarations, there are signs of mounting unease in Israel. As yet, there is no mass movement against the invasion of Lebanon, as there was in 1982. But there have been daily antiwar vigils, the announcement of the war’s first conscientious objector, and media commentaries calling into question the war’s morality or warning that it is leading to disaster.

Several factors are contributing to the disquiet, including genuine horror at the atrocities being committed against the defenceless Lebanese population. There is also shock at the unexpectedly determined resistance of Hezbollah fighters, the failure of the Israeli military’s aerial bombardment to crush Hezbollah, making a ground war necessary, and the rising casualty toll among Israeli soldiers. Disputes have also emerged over the war’s economic and social impact on ordinary Israelis, particularly in the north.

During the first two weeks of the offensive in Lebanon, relatively small but significant antiwar rallies were staged in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa. This week, another demonstration was held in Haifa, demanding an immediate cessation of the fighting in both Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.

Protesters carried signs, in Hebrew, Arabic and English, reading: “Stop the War”, “Ceasefire Now” and “Better to Exchange Prisoners than to Dig Graves.” When counter-protesters arrived at the rally, local police demanded that the antiwar demonstration disperse and detained four participants. The pro-war supporters yelled racist phrases such as “Death to Arabs” and threw stones at the demonstrators, yet it was the latter who were arrested.

Protests have also taken place in front of the prime minister’s house every day, with women calling out the number of deaths in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, and Lebanon. Another group has demonstrated every day in Haifa and held protests in a number of cities every Friday.

Several of these groups issued an open letter to visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, calling on her “to end the war in Lebanon immediately.” They wrote, “[T]he core reason for the violence in our region is the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories and the ongoing oppression of the entire civil society in the occupied territories.”

This week, 40 Israeli film makers sent a message of “camaraderie and solidarity” to Arab filmmakers gathered in Paris for the Arab Film Biennial. “We unequivocally oppose the brutality and cruelty of Israeli policy, which has reached new heights in recent weeks. Nothing justifies the continued occupation, closure and oppression in Palestine. Nothing justifies the bombing of civilians and the destruction of infrastructures in Lebanon and Gaza.”

The war produced its first conscientious objector last week when Staff Sergeant Itzik Shabbat, a 28-year-old TV producer, refused to comply with an emergency order to report for reserve duty in the Palestinian territories in order to free troops for the Lebanese front. Shabbat, a resident of Sderot, a town that has sustained rocket attacks, told Haaretz:

“I know people will attack me and ask how could I not take part in this war when Qassams are falling on my hometown and Katyushas on the towns in the north. In my opinion, only this type of opposition that I’ve chosen will put an end to the madness that is going on now and will shatter the false feeling that the entire home front supports this unnecessary war that is based on deceptive considerations.”

A member of the movement Courage to Refuse, Shabbat has in the past been jailed for 28 days for disobeying orders to serve in the Palestinian territories.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2006/jul2006/isra-j28.shtml

A war to remember
by Al-Ahram Weekly (reposted)

The shaping of a "new Middle East" is being attempted by force, but Hizbullah so far have the upper hand, writes Charles Harb

The Israeli war machine has completely destroyed South Lebanon's infrastructure, has bombed milk and textile factories in the Bekaa Valley, Beirut's airport and harbour, and taken down mobile phone networks across the country. Entire neighbourhoods in Beirut and entire villages in the south have been flattened, in what the UN's humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator called "a violation of humanitarian law" (read: war crimes and crimes against humanity). Israel's stated aim is the destruction of Hizbullah, and yet it is Lebanon that is in ruins.

Israel's military campaign is having a significant impact on the Lebanese socio-political establishment, further polarising divisions that crippled the government's decision-making process since Prime Minister Rafik Al-Hariri's assassination. Political forces in Lebanon were equally divided between two camps: the "government camp" representing large sections of the Sunni and Druze communities, and the "opposition camp" representing large sections of the Maronite Christians and Shia communities.

As such, one of the aims of the Israeli war is to weaken Hizbullah to such an extent that the balance of power within the Lebanese system tips in favour of the government camp. However, the wanton destruction of Lebanon's infrastructure and the ineptitude of the Lebanese government to forcefully deal with the crisis are more likely to weaken the government than strengthen it. Lebanon will come out of this more fractured than united, and grand decisions will be even more difficult to implement.

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http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/805/re71.htm

Birth pangs

Condoleezza Rice is on a mission to rescue the "new Middle East", but it feels more like a swan song, writes Graham Usher
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"What we are seeing here," said United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, en route to Beirut, Israel and thence Rome, "is the birth pangs of a new Middle East. And, whatever we do, we have to be certain we're pushing forward to the new Middle East, not going back to the old one".

The US secretary of state was signalling that her latest bout of diplomacy would brook no return to the pre-12 July "situation" when routine Israeli violations of Lebanese sovereignty were held in check by batteries of Hizbullah weaponry on the Israel-Lebanese border. Instead the Lebanese resistance -- humbled and preferably disarmed -- would have to retreat 20 kilometres north or to wherever Israel deemed was the comfort zone, she told Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora on 24 July.

But there are many in the region who will interpret Rice's words differently. For them the old Middle East is represented by Washington's abject failure to refashion the region in the aftermath of the 11 September attacks. That grand design now lies buried under the sectarian carnage of Iraq, the death of hope in Palestine and the rubble of Beirut. It is not clear what new Middle East will emerge but harbingers suggest a resurgent Iran and an ever-more defiant Islamism in the form of Hizbullah, Hamas and Muqtada Al-Sadr.

The American project, post-9/11, was predicated on three "enduring principles". Israel has invoked each one in its latest onslaught on Lebanon. Indeed if the US borrowed from Israel in the invasion of Iraq, Israel is repaying the compliment in kind in Gaza and Lebanon.

The first "principle" was the right to use massive pre-emptive force to "change the balance of power on Israel's northern border", said Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

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http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/805/re61.htm

At the entrance to Bint Jbeil, next to Sahet Al-Berka (Pond Square), stands a rusty Israeli tank with a Hizbullah flag hoisted over it. The tank was captured by Hizbullah fighters during their war of liberation in the year 2000 and was kept at the entrance to stand witness to their victory over a ruthless enemy. Bint Jbeil, the border town with a population of 3,000 people and "the Dame of Jabl Amel and Galile" -- as its residents call it -- made news headlines this week when focus shifted to cover the fierce battles between Hizbullah fighters and the Israeli war machine that did not spare women, children, houses or fields in its atrocious war of destruction against Lebanon. Throughout the week, the Israeli propaganda machine hyped up the image of the town, projecting it as "the capital of Hizbullah" and the stronghold of the missile launchers, in order to sell its capture as a major victory and justify any atrocities Israel will commit against civilians.

The city does enjoy a significant status, however, but it is more symbolic than strategic. Bint Jbeil is commonly dubbed "the capital of liberation and resistance". Posters of shuhadaa (martyrs) from Bint Jbeil, as well as Hizbullah's yellow and green flags, adorn the streets of the town. Hizbullah's Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah is venerated here. Last year, he gave a speech commemorating the fifth anniversary of the liberation in the centre of town. One important reason why Bint Jbeil is significant is that of all the southern towns, Hizbullah and its leadership enjoy massive unquestioning support among the inhabitants: for this is a city that has always prided itself for defeating the Israelis.

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http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/805/re81.htm

The Iranian lesson

Israel is waging an open-ended war on Lebanon, with criminal US cover, opportunistic European collusion and shameful Arab acquiescence. Nothing good can come out of this war. Neither Israel nor Hizbullah can emerge victorious. It holds out no hope for the eventual dispensation in the Arab world. Lebanon is being systematically destroyed and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. The international community says it will only intervene when it is good and ready -- that is, once the damage has been done. Then we will see negotiations taking place, perhaps to save face for both sides, perhaps to give Israel -- yet again -- everything it wants. And what does Israel want but the total destruction of both Hamas and Hizbullah?

But we should learn something from this war, and from the way in which the US is standing behind Israel as it pummels its opponents into obliteration. We should look again at our helplessness and humiliation and ask ourselves how much of our condition can be blamed on the machinations of the world's sole superpower. We should compare our conditions and actions with those of Tehran. Iran has doggedly pushed on with its nuclear programme in the face of fierce US and European opposition. Iran has been cajoled and threatened, offered carrots and sticks, and it refused to listen. Iran refused to trade its nuclear programme for a bag of poisoned sweets. We, on the other hand, buckled at the first temptation. Egypt and other Arab countries gave up their nuclear programmes in the 1970s and 1980s, because we were told to do so or else were frightened in the wake of Chernobyl. Whatever the motives, Arab populations were duped and now have to pay homage to a scientifically and militarily superior Israel.

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http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/805/op4.htm