{"article":{"id":168657,"heading":"Massacre of 20 civilians in Lebanon","author":"antiwar","created":"2006-07-16 17:38:18","modified":"2006-07-22 01:05:48","last_modified":"Sat, 22 Jul 2006 09:05:48","article":"

Israel kills 34 civilians in strikes

By Laila Bassam July 15th, 2006

BEIRUT (Reuters) -



Israel killed at least 34 civilians on Saturday, including 15 children, in air strikes meant to punish Lebanon for letting Hizbollah guerrillas menace the Jewish state's northern border.

Israel's bombing of Lebanese roads, bridges, ports and airports, as well as Hizbollah targets, is its most destructive onslaught since a 1982 invasion to expel Palestinian forces. For the first time, ports in Christian areas were bombarded and a helicopter missile hit a lighthouse on Beirut's seafront. Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora demanded an immediate U.N.-backed ceasefire, denouncing Israel for turning his country into a \"disaster zone.\" He appealed for foreign aid.

An Israeli missile incinerated a van in southern Lebanon, killing 20 people, among them 15 children, in the deadliest single attack of the campaign launched by Israel after Hizbollah captured two of its soldiers and killed eight on Wednesday. Police said the van was carrying two families fleeing the village of Marwaheen after Israeli loudspeaker warnings to leave their homes. Many of the bodies were charred and broken.

Other raids on north, east and south Lebanon killed 14 people and wounded 37, security sources said.

At least 103 people, all but four of them civilians, have been killed in Israel's four-day-old assault, which has choked Lebanon's economy and prompted tourists and foreigners to flee.<\/p>\n","contact":"","link":"","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","summary":"An Israeli missile incinerated a van in southern Lebanon, killing 20 people, among them 15 children. Police said the van was carrying two families fleeing the village of Marwaheen after Israeli loudspeaker warnings to leave their homes. Many of the bodies were charred and broken. All photos by Reuters photographers. Full story: \r\nhttp:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/nm\/mideast_dc;_ylt=Aozer6GRALvzhiDpD_s8qh.aK8MA;_ylu=X3oDMTA5bGVna3NhBHNlYwNzc3JlbA","numcomment":17,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2006\/07\/lebanon1.jpg","filesize":"27.2 kibibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2006\/07\/168657.php","image":{"original":"\/uploads\/2006\/07\/lebanon1.jpg","small":"\/uploads\/2006\/07\/lebanon1.jpgthumb.jpg","medium":"\/uploads\/2006\/07\/lebanon1.jpgmid.jpg"}},"attachments":[{"id":168658,"heading":"Dead civilians","article":"Civilians killed by the Israeli airstrike are lined up roadside by U.N. peacekeepers, who collected the bodies.","author":"antiwar","parent_id":168657,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2006-07-16 17:38:18","modified":"2006-07-16 17:38:18","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2006\/07\/lebanon2.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2006\/07\/lebanon2.jpg"}},{"id":168659,"heading":"Your tax dollars at work","article":"An innocent civilian "accidently" blown away while following the orders of the invading Israeli army","author":"antiwar","parent_id":168657,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2006-07-16 17:38:18","modified":"2006-07-16 17:38:18","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2006\/07\/lebanon3.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2006\/07\/lebanon3.jpg"}},{"id":168660,"heading":"Another victim","article":"Roasting alive fleeing civilians will really teach those "terrorists" a lesson they will not soon forget.","author":"antiwar","parent_id":168657,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2006-07-16 17:38:18","modified":"2006-07-16 17:38:18","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2006\/07\/lebanon4.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2006\/07\/lebanon4.jpg"}},{"id":168661,"heading":"Burned","article":"An innocent man, burned alive and blasted to bits. ","author":"antiwar","parent_id":168657,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2006-07-16 17:38:18","modified":"2006-07-16 17:38:18","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2006\/07\/lebanon5.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2006\/07\/lebanon5.jpg"}},{"id":168662,"heading":"Shame","article":"A man? Perhaps a woman? Maybe a child? Who can tell. Shredded by "democratic" missiles - it's all for a good cause, right?","author":"antiwar","parent_id":168657,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2006-07-16 17:38:18","modified":"2006-07-16 17:38:18","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2006\/07\/lebanon6.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2006\/07\/lebanon6.jpg"}}],"comments":[{"id":168664,"heading":"There's our U.S. tax dollars at work--End welfare to Israel!!!","article":"This is why we must stop funding their terror.","author":"Jimmy","parent_id":168657,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2006-07-16 17:50:08","modified":"2006-07-16 17:50:08","fileurl":""},{"id":168792,"heading":"Racism sucks","article":" Racism is "the belief that one 'racial group' is inferior to another and the practices of the dominant group to maintain the inferior position of the dominated group. Often defined as a combination of power, prejudice and discrimination."\r\n\r\nThis is how the British Library defines racism on its Web site. The above definition hardly deviates from the essence of almost all definitions of the ominous concept. And, indeed, the concept is being fully utilized with Israel's onslaught against the Palestinians, and the international community and media's mild, if not accommodating response to the onslaught.\r\n\r\nThe capture of Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit is an act of self-defense. According to international law and the Geneva Conventions, he can be considered a prisoner of war, but not according to CNN, Fox News and the increasingly spineless BBC, which presents the soldier as a victim, who was "kidnapped" by Palestinian "militants" who are "affiliated" with the Hamas government.\r\n\r\nBy not challenging the Israeli narrative in any meaningful way, the uncritical media has become a tool in the hands of Israel's war strategists and their eternal concoctions.\r\n\r\nConsider this example. An Israeli military commander tells a BBC correspondent dispatched to the border area between Israel and Gaza, that Israel intends on opening the border for "as long as it takes" to offset the humanitarian crisis developing in Gaza. The Israeli Army representative in a barefaced lie declares that the border has always been open, despite the perpetual Palestinian threat on the state of Israel. The BBC correspondent thanks him and signs off.\r\n\r\nIs it possible that the BBC is unaware of the fact that Gaza has been under a strict military siege since Hamas' democratic advent to power through the January 2006 elections? Could it be that the Western media has missed the dozens of shocking reports that have warned that the Israeli siege -- which began months before the capture of Shalit -- was soon to create chaos and panic among the already malnourished Palestinians in Gaza? Did they all miss statements by top Israeli officials vowing to carry on with the siege until the outset of Hamas?\r\n\r\nSome reporters misrepresent facts out of ignorance, not by design. But if that indeed was the case, then how can one excuse the fact that the same media that coined the term "kidnapping" to describe the action of the Palestinian fighters who captured Shalit refused to use the same association to describe the kidnapping of most of the elected Palestinian Cabinet, mostly academics with no connection to any militant wing?\r\n\r\nMore\r\nhttp:\/\/counterpunch.com\/baroud07142006.html","author":"Scapegoated Jew","parent_id":168657,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2006-07-17 14:40:43","modified":"2006-07-17 14:40:43","fileurl":""},{"id":168805,"heading":"We must end war and racism","article":" International Action Center statement:\r\n\r\n STOP THE U.S.--ISRAELI WAR AGAINST LEBANON AND PALESTINE!\r\n\r\n July 13, 2006\r\n\r\n The blood in Gaza and Lebanon is on George Bush's hands. The bombs,\r\n shells and missiles now pounding Lebanese and Palestinian cities and\r\n villages, wiping out entire families and leaving hundreds of thousands\r\n without power or water, are made in the U.S. So are the planes and\r\n cannons that launch them.\r\n\r\nThe Israeli attack on Gaza and the sovereign state of Lebanon is part\r\nof Bush's war against Iraq--part of a decades-long war against the Arab\r\npeople and the people of the Middle East.\r\n\r\nThe Bush regime pays the bills for the Israeli war machine and has\r\ngiven it a green light to go to war. And it is using the\r\nIsraeli-created crisis as a pretext for attacks on Syria and Iran.\r\n\r\nIsrael has launched a terror bombing against the people of Gaza and\r\nLebanon, allegedly in response to the capture of Israeli soldiers by\r\nPalestinian and Lebanese freedom fighters. This excuse is a lie.\r\nIsraeli artillery murdered a dozen civilians in Gaza, including a\r\nfamily resting on the beach, the week before Corporal Shalit was\r\ncaptured.\r\n\r\nIsrael's invasion of Gaza and kidnapping of Palestinian ministers were\r\nplanned six months ago. What Israel seeks is the overthrow of\r\nPalestine's democratically elected government. And the Bush regime\r\nseeks complete control over the Middle East for the greater profit of\r\nBig Oil and the military-industrial complex.\r\n\r\nThe three captured Israeli soldiers are not hostages, as Israeli Prime\r\nMinister Ehud Olmert claims. They are volunteers in the brutal, racist\r\nIsraeli military. They are prisoners of war. The real hostages are the\r\n9,000 Palestinian political prisoners, including hundreds of women and\r\nchildren, held in Israeli concentration camps. They are illegally\r\nimprisoned, and many have been tortured. If the Israeli state cared\r\nabout its soldiers' welfare, it would agree to a prisoner exchange.\r\n\r\nThe three POWs are the latest of many pretenses used by Israel to\r\njustify decades of war and terror against the people of Palestine,\r\nLebanon, Syria, Egypt and Jordan. Since the Palestinian people were\r\nforced from their homes by force and massacre in 1948, hundreds of\r\nthousands of Arab women, men and children have been murdered and maimed\r\nby Israeli bombs and missiles. And the U.S. government has spent\r\nhundreds of billions to make this possible. The U.S. poured arms and\r\naid to Israel while the people of New Orleans drowned, while Katrina\r\nevacuees are being evicted onto the street, while tens of millions in\r\nthis country lack health care.\r\n\r\nThe International Action Center calls on justice-loving people in the\r\nU.S. and the world over to stand in solidarity with the people of\r\nPalestine and Lebanon. They have a right to defend themselves. They\r\nhave a right to fight for land and freedom. They have a right to seek\r\nfreedom for their unjustly imprisoned compatriots.\r\n\r\nThe Lebanese and Palestinian combatants--be they in Hezbollah, Hamas or\r\nthe Popular Resistance Committees--are not terrorists. They are freedom\r\nfighters, like the Spear of the Nation in South Africa, like the Jewish\r\nresisters of the Warsaw Ghetto. The Israelis, with their mass\r\ncollective punishment of civilians, are emulating the Nazis.\r\n\r\nWe salute the stand of the Congress of South African Trade Unions\r\n(COSATU), which fought so long against a white minority regime backed\r\nby Israel and the United States. COSATU has denounced Israeli apartheid\r\nas worse than that in South Africa, and called for international\r\nsanctions against the racist Israeli settler state. The South African\r\nCouncil of Churches has also adopted this call.\r\n\r\nPeace in the Middle East is possible. It requires an end to occupation\r\nfrom Iraq to Palestine, the freedom of Lebanese and Palestinian\r\nprisoners and the right of displaced Palestinians to return to their\r\nhomes. It requires the U.S. to withdraw from the region and stop\r\nfinancing the brutal Israeli war machine.\r\n\r\nU.S.-Israel, Hands Off Gaza and Lebanon!\r\nFree All Lebanese and Palestinian Political Prisoners!\r\nU.S. Out of the Middle East!\r\nStop Aid to Israel!\r\n\r\nInternational Action Center\r\nhttp:\/\/www.iacenter.org\r\n212-633-6646\r\n\r\n\r\nhttp:\/\/www.iacenter.org","author":"Critical Thinker","parent_id":168657,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2006-07-17 15:06:04","modified":"2006-07-17 15:06:04","fileurl":""}]}