"We have many surpises for the Israelis. We have thousands of pinatas, I mean fighters just waiting for them."
L
Posted on 07/16/2006 5:33:30 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher
HEZBOLLAH leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed today to wage an unrestrained campaign against Israel as 45 Lebanese were killed in a devastating blitz of Israeli strikes and the Jewish state was hit by an unprecedented rocket attack.
But in the strongest international message yet to the protagonists, the G8 group of top world nations, at their summit in Saint Petersburg, demanded an end to Israeli military operations and attacks by militants on Israel. Lebanon was hit by a slew of deadly Israeli air strikes as it endured the fifth day of a blistering offensive that has left much of its infrastructure in tatters and raised fears of all-out regional war.
Beirut's international airport, already shut to traffic, was hit again overnight by Israeli warplanes which staged eight consecutive raids in less than 15 minutes, firing 10 missiles on a runway and setting the night sky ablaze.
"We will use all means," Hizbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said in an address on Lebanese television.
"As long as the enemy has no limits, we will have no limits."
"Surprises are coming. Our forces are still intact, and we are the ones who are choosing the time and the place" for the attacks, he said.
The rocket attack by Hezbollah on the Mediterranean port of Haifa was the deadliest cross-border rocket attack on Israel in decades and strengthened its resolve to destroy the Shiite militant group.
"Nothing will deter us, whatever far-reaching ramifications regarding our relations on the northern border and in the region there may be," said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Hezbollah claimed it fired dozens of anti-tank missiles on Haifa and warned it would not spare the city if Israel retaliated. The Israeli military ordered residents to flee villages in southern Lebanon, warning of air and artillery operations.
Israeli medics said eight people were killed and dozens wounded by the rocket attacks on Haifa, with most casualties at the main railway station.
Israeli jets showed no sign of letting up with an ever-widening assault on Lebanon that has almost completely cut it off from the outside world, with the airport shut and ports blockaded.
In the deadliest raid, at least 19 civilians were killed and 56 others wounded in a air strike on a Lebanese military office topped by a radio transmitter in the southern port city of Tyre, hospital sources said.
A family of five Lebanese-Canadians on vacation were among seven people killed when Israeli aircraft struck the southern Lebanese border village of Aitarun, police said. Canada said eight Canadian citizens were killed.
The new deaths today brought to over 148 the number of people killed in the Israeli offensive which began last Wednesday, according to an AFP tally based on official and medical sources.
Shell-shocked Beirut residents were stocking up on basic goods and making plans to flee to the relative safety of the mountains outside the capital.
Prime Minister Fuad Siniora declared Lebanon a "disaster zone" and appealed for urgent international help for a country that was slowly rebuilding after a devastating 15-year civil war and the end of a three-decade Syrian military presence.
But diplomatic efforts finally began to gain momentum, with a UN mission arriving in Beirut for talks with Mr Siniora on a possible ceasefire and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice saying she is considering travelling to the region.
In the highest profile visit since the crisis began, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana also arrived in Lebanon for talks and was due to meet with Mr Siniora.
The United States maintained Israel has every right to defend itself and also urged restraint over the offensive, which has split the international community and raised fears of dragging Syria and Iran into the conflict.
But the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States presented a united front in urging all parties to halt violence in a statement issued at their summit.
"The extremists must immediately halt their attacks. Those extremist elements and those that support them cannot be allowed to plunge the Middle East into chaos and provoke a wider conflict."
Urging Israel "to exercise utmost restraint", it demanded "an end to Israeli military operations (in Lebanon and Gaza) and the early withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza".
The Group of Eight leaders also urged the United Nations to consider the deployment of an "international security/monitoring presence" in Lebanon.
Israel said the aim of its operation is to destroy Hizbollah, which sparked the offensive by capturing two Israeli soldiers last week and was instrumental in Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 after a bloody 22-year occupation.
For the past few days, northern Israel has come under a barrage of rocket fire from across the border in Lebanon that has now killed a total of 20 people.
Hezbollah also claimed a rocket attack on Friday on an Israeli warship enforcing the blockade that killed four sailors in another display of its military capabilities.
Israel has also put the commercial capital Tel Aviv and all towns further north on alert for rocket attacks.
Israel's arch-foe Syria, blamed by the United States and the Jewish state for backing Islamist militants, warned that it would respond to any attack, while Iran warned of "unimaginable losses" from any such action.
Damascus warned that any Israeli attack "will provoke an unlimited, direct and firm response using all means necessary".
Iran also warned of "unimaginable losses" if Israel attacked Syria and accused the US of playing a "destructive role by vetoing resolutions and hence encouraging the Israeli crimes".
Israel is now fighting on two fronts after it launched a similar deadly offensive in the Gaza Strip over the capture of another soldier by Palestinian militants more than three weeks ago.
Israel also pressed on with its assault on Gaza, killing six more Palestinians in air raids and a ground incursion today. At least 85 Palestinians and one Israeli have been killed.
Both Hezbollah and Palestinian militants holding the soldiers are demanding the release of prisoners from Israeli jails - something Israel has rejected outright.
"We have many surpises for the Israelis. We have thousands of pinatas, I mean fighters just waiting for them."
L
Israel needs a group of heavy bombers, like B-52s, for Arclight. Maybe they could modify a few of El Al planes.
and after both barrels, Israel will be allowed to really go after the lunatics, in order that there shall be fewer lunatics walking at the close of each day from this day forward.
Hezbollah are a bunch of adolescent hormone rampent cowards getting their rocks off. ISrael is a disciplined army that will systemicatically kill off these guys one by one...It will take time folks.. be patient.. I am sure there is all kind of intelligence coming into Israel as we speak...
You're correct.
Colonel (Graham Chapman): get some discipline into those chaps, Sergeant Major!
Sargeant (John Cleese, shouting throughout): Right sir! Good evening, class.
All (mumbling): Good evening.
Sargeant: Where's all the others, then?
All: They're not here.
Sgt.: I can see that. What's the matter with them?
All: Dunno.
Chapman (member of class): Perhaps they've got 'flu.
Sgt.: Huh! 'Flu, eh? They should eat more fresh fruit. Ha. Right. Now, self-defence. Tonight I shall be carrying on from where we got to last week when I was showing you how to defend yourselves against anyone who attacks you with armed with a piece of fresh fruit.
(Grumbles from all)
Palin: Oh, you promised you wouldn't do fruit this week.
Sgt.: What do you mean?
Jones: We've done fruit the last nine weeks.
Sgt.: What's wrong with fruit? You think you know it all, eh?
Palin: Can't we do something else?
Idle (Welsh): Like someone who attacks you with a pointed stick?
Sgt.: Pointed stick? Oh, oh, oh. We want to learn how to defend ourselves against pointed sticks, do we? Getting all high and mighty, eh? Fresh fruit not good enough for you eh? Well I'll tell you something my lad. When you're walking home tonight and some great homicidal maniac comes after you with a bunch of loganberries, don't come crying to me! Now, the passion fruit. When your assailant lunges at you with a passion fruit...
All: We done the passion fruit.
Sgt.: What?
Chapman: We done the passion fruit.
Palin: We done oranges, apples, grapefruit...
Jones: Whole and segments.
Palin: Pomegranates, greengages...
Chapman: Grapes, passion fruit...
Palin: Lemons...
Jones: Plums...
Chapman: Mangoes in syrup...
Sgt.: How about cherries?
All: We did them.
Sgt.: Red *and* black?
All: Yes!
Sgt.: All right, bananas.
I disagree. This calls for Team America.
"Hey terrorist...Terrorize this!"
I hope somebody is lying because for all that fuel and ordinance 148 deaths seems awfully low.
At that point, I think the US would engage, and the muzzies in syria will see their skies blackened by US fighters and bombers, and ballistic missiles from iraq.
Right. modifications will be done by tomorrow at noon.
(dumbfounded)
I'm counting the hours. Only 48 hours left in Israel ultimatum. I can almost see Syria going up in smoke.
Carpet bombing has been used since Viet nam. This is nothing new. We used it in Afghanistan. Why would anyone want to convert a commercial aircraft for military bombing purposes when there are dozens of B52s on hand?
Because Israel does not have B-52s, and their direct acquisition might have been sticky. Thus a substitute to a B-52 could have been improvised from the available materials.
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