The Israeli massacre of Lebanese civilians, mainly children, in the village of Qana is a colossal war crime for which the United States government bears full responsibility.
The repeated missile strikes, launched in the dead of night while the targeted victims were asleep, reduced a four-story apartment building and nearby houses to rubble, killing at least 57 residents, including 37 children.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora called the Qana bombing a “heinous crime” committed by “Israeli war criminals.” Speaking in English, so as to make clear his message was addressed to the Bush administration, Siniora scotched a planned visit by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, saying he would not hold talks with her until a ceasefire had been called.
For millions of people around the world, the atrocity captured the essence of the US-backed war on Lebanon, epitomizing its brutality and inhumanity. While the broad mass of humanity reacted with horror at the tragic loss of innocent life, and outrage toward the governments of the United States and Israel, the official response from Washington was utterly banal and callous.
There were the standard expressions of “regret” and “sadness,” as though such empty phrases legitimized the policy that produced this latest crime and the countless others that preceded it.
President Bush reiterated the American mantra of a “sustainable peace” in the Middle East—a euphemism for giving Israel more time to destroy all resistance within Lebanon to American and Israeli domination. With the bodies of 37 Lebanese children, killed by US-supplied missiles and fired by Washington’s war ally, yet to be buried, Bush spoke of his “hope for peace for boys and girls everywhere... especially in the Middle East.”
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a Jerusalem press conference that she was “deeply saddened” by the “terrible loss of life” and reiterated US “concern” over Israeli attacks on civilian targets.
She then said, “We are pushing for an urgent end to the current hostilities, but the views of the parties on how to achieve this are different.” The first part of that sentence was an obvious lie, and the second omitted the fact that the chief international actor whose “different views” are blocking a ceasefire is the United States.
Other US spokesmen offered cold-blooded apologies for Israel’s action. Undersecretary of State Nicolas Burns declared that Hezbollah “located its military forces among civilians” and repeated the canard that Hezbollah had provoked Israel’s massive assault by carrying out a border raid and capturing two Israeli soldiers on July 12.
As always after such atrocities, Israeli officials blamed their victims. Prime Minister Olmert declared, “The village and its surrounding areas were a source for launching hundreds of rockets.”
Dan Gillerman, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, charged that Hezbollah was responsible for the killings in Qana because it “used women and children as human shields.” He suggested that the Lebanese government and the Lebanese people were harboring Hezbollah and therefore reaping what they had sowed.
The “human shield” claim is the standard justification given by every imperialist military when it attacks civilian targets. In this case, it is an all-purpose excuse for continuing to bomb Lebanon’s Shiite population, which overwhelmingly supports Hezbollah—a mass political party with delegates in the Lebanese parliament and ministers in the current government.
Various Israeli spokesmen repeated the official line that Israel had dropped leaflets warning residents to evacuate towns and villages in south Lebanon—as if that relieved Israel of responsibility for dropping bombs and firing precision missiles on their homes! In any event, as is well known, Israel has destroyed roads and bridges to make flight nearly impossible, and bombed civilian convoys that were attempting to flee to the north.
If anything, the official responses from the United States and Israel to the massacre placed in sharper relief the chasm that separates them from the vast bulk of humanity.
The tide of international revulsion was so great that Washington felt obliged to pressure Israel to accept a 48-hour suspension of its air war in southern Lebanon. Nervous lest the opposition to the US-Israeli war spin out of control, the Bush administration decided it needed to make a gesture so as to buy time and review its joint war strategy with Israel.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora called the Qana bombing a “heinous crime” committed by “Israeli war criminals.” Speaking in English, so as to make clear his message was addressed to the Bush administration, Siniora scotched a planned visit by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, saying he would not hold talks with her until a ceasefire had been called.
For millions of people around the world, the atrocity captured the essence of the US-backed war on Lebanon, epitomizing its brutality and inhumanity. While the broad mass of humanity reacted with horror at the tragic loss of innocent life, and outrage toward the governments of the United States and Israel, the official response from Washington was utterly banal and callous.
There were the standard expressions of “regret” and “sadness,” as though such empty phrases legitimized the policy that produced this latest crime and the countless others that preceded it.
President Bush reiterated the American mantra of a “sustainable peace” in the Middle East—a euphemism for giving Israel more time to destroy all resistance within Lebanon to American and Israeli domination. With the bodies of 37 Lebanese children, killed by US-supplied missiles and fired by Washington’s war ally, yet to be buried, Bush spoke of his “hope for peace for boys and girls everywhere... especially in the Middle East.”
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a Jerusalem press conference that she was “deeply saddened” by the “terrible loss of life” and reiterated US “concern” over Israeli attacks on civilian targets.
She then said, “We are pushing for an urgent end to the current hostilities, but the views of the parties on how to achieve this are different.” The first part of that sentence was an obvious lie, and the second omitted the fact that the chief international actor whose “different views” are blocking a ceasefire is the United States.
Other US spokesmen offered cold-blooded apologies for Israel’s action. Undersecretary of State Nicolas Burns declared that Hezbollah “located its military forces among civilians” and repeated the canard that Hezbollah had provoked Israel’s massive assault by carrying out a border raid and capturing two Israeli soldiers on July 12.
As always after such atrocities, Israeli officials blamed their victims. Prime Minister Olmert declared, “The village and its surrounding areas were a source for launching hundreds of rockets.”
Dan Gillerman, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, charged that Hezbollah was responsible for the killings in Qana because it “used women and children as human shields.” He suggested that the Lebanese government and the Lebanese people were harboring Hezbollah and therefore reaping what they had sowed.
The “human shield” claim is the standard justification given by every imperialist military when it attacks civilian targets. In this case, it is an all-purpose excuse for continuing to bomb Lebanon’s Shiite population, which overwhelmingly supports Hezbollah—a mass political party with delegates in the Lebanese parliament and ministers in the current government.
Various Israeli spokesmen repeated the official line that Israel had dropped leaflets warning residents to evacuate towns and villages in south Lebanon—as if that relieved Israel of responsibility for dropping bombs and firing precision missiles on their homes! In any event, as is well known, Israel has destroyed roads and bridges to make flight nearly impossible, and bombed civilian convoys that were attempting to flee to the north.
If anything, the official responses from the United States and Israel to the massacre placed in sharper relief the chasm that separates them from the vast bulk of humanity.
The tide of international revulsion was so great that Washington felt obliged to pressure Israel to accept a 48-hour suspension of its air war in southern Lebanon. Nervous lest the opposition to the US-Israeli war spin out of control, the Bush administration decided it needed to make a gesture so as to buy time and review its joint war strategy with Israel.
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Hezbollah used Qana as a base to fire missiles at Israel.
31.07.2006 09:13
Melanie Philips
Israel is in the wrong
31.07.2006 09:55
Israel refused a day before this incident to open a safe corridor, as requested by international Aid organisations and the UN, for the civilians to leave the south of lebanon safely with their children. Not to mention that the disproportionate Israel response had left all roads and bridges completely destroyed. This is way the members of these two extended families, who were masacred by Israel in the basement of their house, couldn't leave. To suggest that there is any other reason but a bloddy killing of innocent civilians and a war crime is a distortion of the facts.
Israel was asked to start a cease fire, well before this killing happened, by the representatives of the mayority of the world, with the exception of only two countries, Britain and USA, who have UN veto, so there is no excuse for what happened.
If Israel wants to be understood by the civilised world it cannot use the excuses that terrorists use for the killing of innocent civilians, but it may be that Israel is not so civilised after all and not so different from the terrorists it claims to fighting against.
There is never too soon to start a cease fire.
ceasefire now
(Unreported) PM thanks Hezbollah for defending Lebanon
31.07.2006 10:04
Siniora said it would be "normal" for Hezbollah to retaliate over Israel's Qana raid, and thanked the Shiite guerrilla group.
"I thank (Hezbollah leader) Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah for his efforts and I thank all those who are sacrificing their lives for Lebanon's independence, " he said, referring to Hezbollah fighters.
(Extracted from full article below)
Israel suspends air strikes after 52 killed in Lebanon
By Agence France Presse (AFP)
Monday, July 31, 2006
by Stephen Collinson
JERUSALEM, July 31, 2006 (AFP) - Israel on Monday agreed to temporarily halt air strikes in south Lebanon a day after 52 people were killed, many of them sleeping children, when Israeli warplanes bombarded the Lebanese village of Qana, triggering global outrage and warnings of retribution for alleged "war crimes".
The 48-hour halt to aerial activity was announced by an aide to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whose latest Middle East mission was thrown into turmoil by the attack.
"Israel has agreed to a 48-hour suspension of aerial activity in south Lebanon" pending an investigation into the Qana attack, spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters just after midnight following talks between Rice and top Israeli officials.
The halt is effective immediately, and Israel will also coordinate with the United Nations on a 24-hour period of "safe passage" for civilians who wish to leave the area, Ereli said.
Police said 52 villagers, including 30 children, were killed in the pre-dawn air raid Sunday which left homes in ruins and villagers trapped under the rubble. Bahia Hariri, an MP for southern Lebanon, said 15 of the children were disabled.
It was the bloodiest attack since Israel launched its war on the Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah following the capture of two soldiers on July 12.
Israel expressed "deep regret" over the civilian deaths and ordered an inquiry but said it had warned residents to leave and pinned the blame on Hezbollah for launching rockets from the village.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he was in "no rush" for a truce and told Rice that Israel needed 10 to 14 days more to continue its offensive against Hezbollah, an Israeli government official said.
Separately, the Israeli army said it aimed to establish a "security zone" along the southern Lebanese border by Wednesday.
"By Wednesday we are going to establish a two-kilometer (one-mile) wide 'security zone' in which there will be no infrastructure or sign of Hezbollah's presence," army operations chief General Gadi Eisenkaut told reporters.
Israel has mobilised thousands of army reservists but has ruled out another occupation of its northern neighbour.
Amid faltering diplomatic efforts to secure a ceasefire in a conflict now in its 19th day, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan asked the Security Council in an emergency meeting to call for an immediate ceasefire.
"I'm deeply dismayed that my earlier calls for immediate cessation of hostilities were not heard, with the result that innocent lives continue to be taken," he said, adding that both sides in the conflict were guilty of "grave breaches of international humanitarian law." The White House, Israel's staunchest backer, urged the Jewish state to use restraint in its military offensive in Lebanon, calling the Qana killings a "horrible event".
"Today's actions in the Middle East remind us that the United States and friends and allies must work for sustainable peace, particularly for the sake of children," US President George W. Bush said.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora denounced the Qana carnage as a "war crime," demanding an immediate ceasefire in a conflict that Health Minister Mohammed Khalifeh said had killed 750 people.
Siniora said it would be "normal" for Hezbollah to retaliate over Israel's Qana raid, and thanked the Shiite guerrilla group.
"I thank (Hezbollah leader) Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah for his efforts and I thank all those who are sacrificing their lives for Lebanon's independence, " he said, referring to Hezbollah fighters.
An AFP count has put the death toll at more than 500, while the United Nations has said around one-third of the casualties were children.
o
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Gradually, the truth about the Kana incident is starting to emerge
31.07.2006 10:41
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yaakov Katz, THE JERUSALEM POST Jul. 30, 2006
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the deadliest attack since Israel started its offensive against Hizbullah 19 days ago, 57 civilians - most of them children - were killed on Sunday in a building in the southern Lebanese village of Kafr Kana, apparently as a result of an IAF missile strike.
While the entire Israeli political echelon expressed regret for the results of the strike, Air Force Chief of Staff Brig.-Gen. Amir Eshel said Sunday night that the three-story building had been struck by the missiles a little after midnight and that it only collapsed seven hours later, at close to 7 a.m.
Eshel refrained from specifying what had caused the structure to collapse seven hours after it was hit, but senior IAF officers said Sunday night that the explosion could have been caused by an unexploded missile or by a Hizbullah-planted explosive device.
"It could be that there was something in the building that caused the explosion," Eshel said.
Eshel said that close to 150 Katyusha rockets had been fired from the Lebanese village over the past 20 days. Hizbullah had hidden rocket launchers, Eshel said, in civilian buildings in the village. Video footage he presented at a press conference in Tel Aviv Sunday night showed rocket launchers being driven into the village following attacks on northern Israel.
The dead were old people, women and children from four families whom residents said had gathered to spend the night on the ground floor, where they felt they were safe from Israeli attacks. The bodies of at least 27 children were found in the rubble, said Abu Shadi Jradi, a civil defense official at the scene.
In 1996, Israel was forced to suspend Operation Grapes of Wrath against Hizbullah after IDF artillery shells killed more than 100 civilians seeking refuge in a UN building in the village.
A high-ranking IAF officer said the IDF had warned Kafr Kana residents to evacuate the village in anticipation of airstrikes on Katyusha launchers. The officer said the air force had been targeting the village for the past three days and that on Saturday night it struck 10 targets there. He said the building hit Sunday was chosen as a target after intelligence indicated that Hizbullah guerrillas were hiding inside, where Katyusha rockets and launchers were also hidden.
"We warned the residents that we would be attacking there," the high-ranking officer said. "We work under the assumption that the villages are empty and that whoever is there is affiliated with Hizbullah."
The IAF did attack targets in the village at 7 a.m. Sunday, Eshel said, but these buildings were 500 meters away from the building where the civilians were killed.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed deep regret for the harm inflicted on the civilians in Kafr Kana.
"I, along with Israel and the IDF, express deep regret at the death of civilians in Kafr Kana," said Olmert. "There is nothing further from our intent than when we hit civilians - everyone understands that. When we do harm civilians, the whole world recognizes that it is an exceptional case that does not characterize us."
Olmert said the area was a focal point for the firing of Katyusha rockets at Kiryat Shmona and Afula. He said that from the outset of the current violence, "hundreds of rockets have been fired from the Kana area."
Defense Minister Amir Peretz also profoundly regretted the fatal strike, saying, "This is a tragic incident that is the result of a war against Hizbullah, which is operating from civilian areas and knows full well that by so doing it is endangering lives." The defense minister ordered the IDF to conduct a thorough investigation into the incident.
IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz also expressed sorrow over the loss of innocent life. "We were operating in a place from where Katyushas are being fired and we distributed notices to residents. Unfortunately, people who assembled in the area, whom we were unaware of, were harmed," said Halutz.
Nevertheless, Halutz said, the IDF would continue to fight to protect northern Israel and to bring calm to the region. "The terrorist organizations are taking cover among populated areas," he said. "We will continue to fight, causing the minimum harm to civilians."
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora demanded an immediate and unconditional cease-fire and an investigation into the attack.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she had called Saniora to say she would be postponing a visit to Beirut scheduled for Sunday and that she had work to do in Jerusalem to end the fighting. "We are also pushing for an urgent end to the current hostilities, but the views of the parties on how to achieve this are different," she said.
AP contributed to the report.
The truth will out
Melanie Phillips - apologist & disgrace to "journalism"
31.07.2006 11:28
If it is you posting to Indymedia (god knows why?), can you please give one example of when you have criticised anything Israel has done other than not killing innocent civilians and destroying what was emerging as a stable, "modern", democratic and booming country quick enough?
C
truth in the corporate media ?
31.07.2006 11:39
The fact that the situation is not balanced is made very clear by the difference in the number of casualties suffered by both sides. Like about 15 or 20 to 1. The amount of damage and suffering that is inflicted on the almost defenceless Lebanese and Palestinians.
The corporate media tries to make out that there are two sides fighting each other, instead of one rogue nuke powered super state with all the latest up to date high tech killing machines against a bunch of people who barely have enough fuel to for their domestic needs.
Other parts of the media are blatantly biased, I rarely buy Newspapers, but being on Holiday I bought a copy of the Italian left wing , so they say , Republica and was totally diisgusted by their coverage.
A fair old slice of the media is controlled by Jewish interests where you'll find that the Israeli version of the "truth" will get excellent coverage in certain sections of the media.
Under what international agreement did the israelis order the people of lebanese villages to leave their homes ?
Even the british government didn't resort to bombing Irish villages (from the sky I mean) when there were cross border incursions by the IRA.
Even if you get your lackies to write a million articles stating the truth according to Israel, bombing civilians is a crime against humantiy although I am 100% certain that no israeli general will ever be hauled up to the Hague to stand trial. It seems that the so called civilised world is just a little more barbaric after this evil deed .
Wouivre
Do you know where you're posting this crap to?
31.07.2006 11:40
These lies will be debunked within a few days, but the apologists and propagandists don't mind as long as it muddles the picture or changes the headlines now - in a few days the mainstream media will have moved on and won't revisit with the facts. It'll have another tragedy or war crime by then anyway and a new set of lies and propaganda peddle.
C
Melanie Phillips...............
01.08.2006 00:12
Kelly:
Dog
Melanie should learn to spell her name
01.08.2006 00:39
There is only one `L` in Genocidal however and this awful carnage should be brought to an end forthwith.
Paul (one `L` in surname) O'Hanlon
Paul O'Hanlon
e-mail:
o_hanlon@hotmail.com
Olmert Regime Admits: No Rockets At Qana
02.08.2006 20:06
Make you sound less ridiculous ...
Qana was attacked in such a way so that the rest of its inhabitants would be terrorized and leave, minimizing the Resistance to the planned Annexation of this land by the Zionist Extremists and the poor saps they send to do their dirty work.
Zionism, Irrelevant Within A Generation