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Ghaziyah Shiyah Bombed With Civilian

Juan Cole 08/09/2006

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Ghaziyah, Shiyah, Bombed, with civilian Casualities
Israeli Civilians Shelled, Evacuated from North

The Israeli air force hit civilians at Ghaziyah in the south on Monday, killing 14. When the victims’ families and friends held a funeral procession on Tuesday, the Israelis hit them again, killing 6 more innocent civilians. (This terror tactic, where you kill people and then kill their funeral party later, as well, is commonly used by the Baathist insurgency in Iraq).

The Israelis killed another five innocents, these being fruit packers and truckers near the border with Syria.

In the south, the Israeli invaders fought hard battles as they moved as much as 7 miles into Lebanon, losing two reservists in firefights with the formidable Hizbullah.

So the Israelis warned the southern Shiites that they should flee north, otherwise these ordinary civilians would be considered fair game. So thousands flee north to Beirut and go to schools and other shelters in Shiite districts like Shiyah. So then the Israelis bomb Shiyah. If they were going to be bombed anyway, they may as well have stayed home.

Israel has effectively cut South Lebanon off from the rest of the country, having destroyed roads and bridges, etc. Aid workers have been forced to leave the area. The Israelis have declared southern Lebanon a “no-drive” zone, promising to kill anyone who drives around a vehicle. This policy would make it difficult for aid workers to truck in grain and other foodstuffs and medicine. So, they have just left.

The Israelis also bombed a Palestinian refugee camp. The nascent Israeli military ethnically cleansed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948, expelling some 100,000 from their ancestral homeland north into southern Lebanon, where they were reduced to living penniless and in squalor in camps in someone else’s country. They have grown to 400,000, though some demographers suspect that half that number has gone off to Europe, where they cannot get work visas and so spend their days visiting parks and riding the subway.

The Israelis seem to have a list of old scores to settle, and are taking advantage of the war to settle some vendettas. Had anyone charged that Israel was attacked from refugee camp in Lebanon? This is just opportunism (like the whole war).

Hizbullah rained over a hundred katyusha rockets on northern Israel again on Tuesday, forcing the evacuation of Israeli towns in the north near the border. The Israeli army is frustrated at not having been able to stop the rocket attacks, the number and force of which seem undimmed despite Israel’s massive air raids and its invasion of south Lebanon. The Israelis also suspect that Iran and Syria are finding ways of re-arming the guerrilla movement. I don’t find this plausible. I think it is more likely that Hizbullah just had made excellent preparations for this war, and had a lot of munitions hidden away.

Dennis Perrin on Lebanon.

Another Beirut Blog

Chomsky at Finkelstein.

A Lebanon diary by an Augustinian friar.

What is wrong with American news.

Justin Raimondo endorses Daniel Levy’s warning against “creative destruction.”

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About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

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Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires



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The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam


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