Arab League chief calls for Qana "massacre" probe

[cal04]

Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa called on Sunday for an international investigation into an Israeli air strike in the village of Qana that killed at least 40 Lebanese civilians, including 23 children.

"The Arab League Secretary General requested an international investigation into this massacre and other Israeli war crimes that were committed in Lebanon, especially those that affected Lebanese civilians," Moussa said in a statement issued by the Arab League.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L30783645.htm

[theHandpuppet]

1. Here's how to get an investigation RIGHT NOW

Turn off the taps to the oil until there's a ceasefire.

[mom cat]

4. Very good idea!

[Warren Stupidity]

2. Why is massacre in quotes?

Is there any confusion here that this is somehow not a massacre? Shame on Reuters.

[Igel]

3. "The act or an instance of killing a large number of humans ..."

... indiscriminately and cruelly."

The level of clarity depends on one's assumptions.

[Up2Late]

5. Outrage as 52 killed in Israel strike on Qana (AFP)

(How many more dead children is it gonna take George? Condi? Dick? Hey! Where IS DICK?)

Outrage as 52 killed in Israel strike on Qana

30/07/2006 14h53

QANA, Lebanon (AFP) - Fifty-two people have killed, more than half of them children, in an Israeli air blitz on the Lebanese village of Qana, triggering outrage around the world and warnings of retribution for Israel's "war crime."

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whose latest Middle East mission was thrown into turmoil by the attack, she was "deeply saddened" by the loss of innocent lives and said it was time to "get to a ceasefire" in Lebanon but stopped short of calling for an immediate halt to hostilities on Sunday.

The raid on Qana, which left homes in ruins and villagers trapped under the rubble, was the deadliest single attack since Israel launched its devastating war on the Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah 19 days ago.

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.

(more at link) <http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/060730144539.icrzrfxx.html>

[partylessinOhio]

6. MSNBC says more than 60 dead.

Did anyone else hear that this little hamlet, Qana, was hit with 80 strikes by the Israelis last night?

Why were 80 mistakes all made at the same time?????????

[Up2Late]

8. oops.

This is beginning to sound like Vietnam too.

[EVDebs]

7. Chronologies

BBC's Israel's history of bomb blasts
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1197051.stm

Chronology of Terrorist Attacks in Israel
Part III: 1981-1992
sarchive.net/terrorism/terrisrael-3.html

I guess the Israelis just want to lash out at any nearby since it isn't a 'war crime' to attack THEM apparently.

[LaBanty]

9. Reciprocity

What the MSM fails to mention is that this area has been launching attacks against the Israelis, which prompted the response, and Hezbollah has been using both the UN and its own citizens as human shields to maximize anti-Israeli sentiment. The use of human shields is nothing new. Unfortunately, they also like to use children.

[HongKonger]

16. The Bottom line?

Israel is losing the PR game.

Period.

Now that Ted Turner has control.

Back.

[KamaAina]

23. Ted Turner has control? Of what?

The Atlanta Braves?

Are you trying to tell me that Chipper Jones is somehow mixed up in all this? :sarcasm:

I'm so confuuuuuuuused! </barbarino>

[prole100]

17. Two Wrongs Don't Make A Right Unless AIPAC Is In Control Of PR

eom

[IndianaGreen]

20. I hear the echo of Israel's megaphone desktop tool

Today's conflicts are won by public opinion.
Now is the time to be active and voice Israel's side to the world.

Join the effort in 3 easy steps:
Download and install Megaphone desktop tool
Receive desktop alerts on key articles and surveys
Click alerts to easily voice your opinion

Help us by reporting relevant articles and surveys.

http://giyus.org/

The "hiding among civilians" myth

Israel claims it's justified in bombing civilians because Hezbollah mingles with them. In fact, the militant group doesn't trust its civilians and stays as far away from them as possible.

By Mitch Prothero


Photo by Mitchell Prothero/WPN
A dog walks through the rubble of buildings hit by
Israeli airstrikes in the nearly deserted town of
Nabatiya, Lebanon, on Tuesday.

Throughout this now 16-day-old war, Israeli planes high above civilian areas make decisions on what to bomb. They send huge bombs capable of killing things for hundreds of meters around those targets to destroy them, and then blame the inevitable civilian deaths -- the Lebanese government says 600 civilians have been killed so far -- on "terrorists" who callously use the civilian infrastructure for protection.

But this claim is almost always false. My own reporting and that of other journalists reveals that in fact Hezbollah fighters -- as opposed to the much more numerous Hezbollah political members, and the vastly more numerous Hezbollah sympathizers -- avoid civilians like the plague. Much smarter and better trained than the PLO and Hamas fighters, they know that if they mingle with civilians, they will sooner or later be betrayed by collaborators -- as so many Palestinian militants have been.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/07/28/hezbollah/index_np.html

[BeHereNow]

22. Gee, there you go...reading my mind again.

I was thinking the SAME thing.
Shame on you though for sharing that little
fact about the militants and their civilian
counterparts-
Now the megaphone will have to go to
work on a talking point to counter that...
:evilgrin:
BHN

[jonnyblitz]

25. LMFAO

:rofl:

[Up2Late]

26. That's nearly exactly what the reporter said on NPR tonight...

...he said he had yet to find any evidence of Hezbollah among the dead or even in the civilian areas, and neither had a U.N. Peace Keeper he talked to.

Here's the link: <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5593073>

[umtalal]

21. It is called blackmail.

Israeli forces can't fight fighters so they are killing the children. The worst kind of blackmail to freedom fighters and the resistance when you kill their children or they have to give up their weapons to defend their own land and water resources that Israel had her eyes on since it is creation in 1948

IDF= Infant Dead Forces

[AliceWonderland]

10. Again, interesting to see who is too cowardly to post in this thread

Fascinating. Always the cries of "where are you condemnations when Israelis die?" Well, here are my condemnations: "no innocent should EVER EVER be a victim of violence, no one, nowhere, no how."

Where are their condemnations of this act? Is it alright to them? The Lebanese children deserved it? It's "Hez's" fault? Israel is the good guy?

Waiting...

ETA: there it is, above.

[LostinVA]

13. Didn't take long, eh?

With strangely similar headings...

[BeHereNow]

15. My condemnation is this: There was a request for a ceasefire

With the express intent of removing civilians
who were too poor to get out of the area which
is largely populated by low income farmers.
The UN requested 3 days of safe passage for
the civilians trapped there. Everyone knew they
were there, because they couldn'y afford to leave.
The request was denied and the poor trapped there
were Katrina'd.
Courtesy, once again, of Bushco's policy towards
the poor.
BHN

[Truthiness Inspector]

11. The IDF will be releasing video

showing that Hezbollah was firing rockets from this area.


On edit: The video was just released.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1770914

[IndianaGreen]

27. The video doesn't show the building in Qana

this has already been debunked, as so many other of Israel's megaphone bullshit stories have been debunked. CNN's reporter also said that no remains of rocket launchers were found, debunking the precious video that IDF released to the MSM.

Khalil Shalhoub, who survived amid the wreckage in Qana yesterday, said that his family and the Hashims were just too "terrified" to take the road out of the village, which has been attacked by aircraft for more than two weeks. The seven-mile highway between Qana and Tyre is littered with civilian homes in ruins and burnt-out family cars. On Thursday, the Israeli Army's Al-Mashriq radio, which broadcasts into southern Lebanon, told residents that their villages would be "totally destroyed" if missiles were fired from them. But anyone who has watched Israel's bombing these past two weeks knows that, in many cases, the Israelis do not know the location in which the Hizbollah are firing missiles, and - when they do - they frequently miss their targets. How can a villager prevent the Hizbollah from firing rockets from his street? The Hizbollah do take cover beside civilian houses - just as Israeli troops entering Bint Jbeil last week also used civilian homes for cover. But can this be the excuse for slaughter on such a scale?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14287.htm

[uppityperson]

12. Reuters link/article too

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=newsOne&storyID=2006-07-30T173656Z_01_L30823603_RTRUKOC_0_US-MIDEAST.xml

An Israeli air strike killed more than 60 Lebanese civilians, including at least 37 children, on Sunday, fuelling world pressure for a ceasefire. The raid on the southern village of Qana -- the bloodiest single attack during Israel's 19-day-old war on Hizbollah -- prompted Lebanon to tell U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice she was unwelcome in Beirut for talks.

Rescue workers dug through the rubble with their hands for hours, lifting out the twisted, dust-caked corpses of children. A Lebanese foreign ministry official told an urgent session of the U.N. Security Council that more than 60 people were killed, mostly women and children. Police earlier put the toll at 54, 37 of them children.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged the Security Council to condemn the attack and call for an immediate end to hostilities. "I am deeply dismayed that my earlier calls for an immediate cessation of hostilities were not heeded," Annan said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed "deep sorrow" at the bombing, but vowed the war against Hizbollah would go on. He told Rice on Saturday the army needed another 10 to 14 days to press its offensive, a spokesman at his office said...(more, unfortunately, @ link)

I don't care what the provocation, Anyone who kills innocents is WRONG!. I condemn these actions, as I condemn suicide bombers, or anyone who kills innocents. It is wrong.

[uppityperson]

14. link to map to locate Qana, Reuters comment also

http://map.web.mapquest.com/?e=9&GetMapDataDirect=Gme5diw%2ca%3a9u12%3b%40%24xl%2da2u672%26a8%261f1wu6%24g%21rbxlab%3ag%2dtxgu2n%26u70hz85%26u2gu%2c2%3a9672%3b%40b20w%24%3a%26%40%24xl%2da2u672%26a8%261f1wu6%24%3a%26ur2u%2da%7c%26yt29%40%24&rnd=6724

...Police said Qana, about 11 km (seven miles) from the border with Israel, was bombed at 1:30 a.m. (2230 GMT Saturday). The raid flattened a three-storey building where more than 60 displaced people were in the basement. Many died as they slept...

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-07-30T173656Z_01_L30823603_RTRUKOC_0_US-MIDEAST.xml

[BeHereNow]

18. The Israeli Ambassador is full of shit on this one:

"Israeli U.N. Ambassador Dan Gillerman told the Security Council
that Qana was "a hub for Hizbollah" and said Israel
had beseeched the residents of the village to leave..."

Yes, they made sure that they were on record
as warning civilians to leave and then promptly
refused safe passage for those who could not
afford to leave.
No different than the people who were trapped
in New Orleans when Katrina hit.
And those who can not see the connection
between the Bush KKKABAL policies towards
the poor playing out on the civilians of Lebanon
through Israel deserve to have Bush as pResident.

BHN

[ckramer]

19. I would believe Condi if she resigned from her job to protect the

Israeli killing of civilians.

[Up2Late]

24. kick n/t

:kick:

[digno dave]

28. good luck with all that