Lebanon says up to 600 killed in Israel's attacks [Jenin II?]

Lebanese Health Minister Mohammad Khalifeh says hospitals have received 401 bodies of people killed since fighting began; 'on top of those victims, there are 150 to 200 bodies still under the rubble,' he adds

Israeli warplanes and artillery hammered Lebanon again on Thursday and the Beirut government said up to 600 people may have been killed in Israel's 16-day-old campaign against Hizbullah terrorists.

Israel's inner cabinet chose to pursue a strategy of air strikes and limited ground incursions, rather than a full-scale invasion of Lebanon, to halt Hizbullah rocket fire on its towns.

Lebanese Health Minister Mohammad Khalifeh said hospitals had received 401 bodies of people killed during the war launched by Israel after the Shiite terrorists captured two of its soldiers and killed eight in a cross-border raid on July 12.

"On top of those victims, there are 150 to 200 bodies still under the rubble. We have not been able to pull them out because the areas they died in are still under fire," he told Reuters.

At least 437 people, most of them civilians, have been confirmed killed in Lebanon, according to a Reuters tally. Fifty-one Israelis, including 18 civilians, have been killed.

Bodies still lie in the streets in some isolated Lebanese border villages, where fighting has trapped terrified civilians, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said.

"In every fight, we are sheep for the slaughter," said Hafez Ebeid, 65, who had fled his border village of Marwaheen to the relative safety of Sidon, the biggest city in the south.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's security cabinet decided against a major expansion of the ground war at a meeting called a day after nine Israeli soldiers were killed in Lebanon, the army's heaviest one-day loss in the conflict.

Israel's army does not want to get bogged down in south Lebanon only six years after it pulled out under Hizbollah fire.

Dozens of Hizbullah rockets landed in northern Israel on Thursday, wounding four people. More than 1,400 rockets have hit the Jewish state since the conflict began.

The United States has given Israel the green light to pursue its assault on Lebanon by refusing to call for an immediate ceasefire or to allow the UN Security Council do so.

France said it was disappointed that an international conference in Rome on Wednesday had failed to call for an immediate end to hostilities and urged UN Security Council foreign ministers to meet early next week to work on a ceasefire resolution.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who visited Beirut and Jerusalem this week, said she would return to the Middle East if she believed she could clinch a lasting peace in Lebanon.

Her comments, made on arrival in Malaysia for a regional security conference, underlined Washington's intention not to press Israel to stop fighting until Hizbullah terrorists, backed by Iran and Syria, had been significantly weakened.

"I am willing and ready to go back to the Middle East at any time that I think we can move toward a sustainable ceasefire that can end the violence," Rice told a news conference.

With anger among Arabs and Muslims mounting over Israel's offensives in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, al-Qaeda declared it would not stand by, and urged Muslims to fight.

"How can we remain silent while watching bombs raining on our people?" asked the group's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri.

Apart from the dead, the Lebanese Health Ministry said 1,788 people had been seriously wounded in the fighting.

An ICRC report said one of its delegates had found about 700 people, including 300 children, sheltering in a mosque in Blida, a village near the embattled southern town of Bint Jbeil.

Other villages, running short of basic supplies, were living in fear. "Dead bodies had not been removed from the streets and others were still buried in rubble," the ICRC said.

Israeli planes destroyed radio masts north of Beirut and hit trucks in eastern Lebanon, killing three drivers, security sources said. Warplanes and artillery also blasted targets in the mainly Shi'ite south, killing a motorcyclist.

An opinion poll published on Thursday showed 95 percent of Israelis still believed the offensive in Lebanon was justified.

Reuters: "Hey Hizbollah, how many people have the evil Zionists killed in your country?"

Hizbollah: "About 600 have been made martyrs by the Zionist occupiers."

Reuters: "How may of those were your brave soldiers?"

Hizbollah: "Only a handful."

Reuters: "Ok, thanks. I really appreciate your help. It's so hard to get hard numbers on these things. I hate having to venture so far from my hotel to gather information."

Hizbollah: "We are always happy to help you find the truth, if you need more information, contact me and we can meet again?"

Reuters: "Ok. Do you prefer meeting here by the orphanage, or did you like meeting at the hospital better?"

Hizbollah: "I don't like keep a consistent schedule, maybe we will meet by the UN observer post next time."

Reuters: "That sounds great! They're usually a good source of information too!"

The First Palestinian State

Posted December 10, 2003.

(snip)

Lebanon had once been called the Paris of the Middle East, the Garden of Eden spot for vacationing Arabs, with a Banking Center for the Arab world - but all that was destroyed. The Christians and Muslims had worked out a ‘peaceful, political accommodation’ to run Lebanon and, particularly, Beirut. Arafat had stirred them up, so now they were bitter enemies, attacking each other and fighting Arafat’s Palestinian Mini-State of Terror. The killings went on day and night, with whole villages massacred, with a retaliatory massacre soon after. Arafat turned the various Arab refugee camps into his bases of operation. Weapons and explosives were stored in apartment building, hospitals and schools, using the civilians as human shields.

As confusion and terror reigned, Arafat continued to expand his mini-State of Palestine with the presumption that one day all of Lebanon would be a Palestinian State.

Arafat’s methods were a mirror image of what Americans found in Iraq, particularly Bagdad, where Saddam’s family and Republican Guards wreaked havoc. Granted, Saddam’s regime was larger and very well-funded, but the hideous brutality was virtually the same.

Arafat’s gunman roamed the streets with modified pick-up trucks, manned with 30-50 caliber guns mounted in back. They were looking for various factions of Christian militia to gun down, but Muslims were also shot dead - as were any of the few Jews who still lived in Lebanon. (By that time, the Arab/Muslim nations had ejected almost all of their Jews (approximately 800,000) and had confiscated all their property and assets - personal and community. In effect, this was a replay of Hitler and Europe’s confiscation of all that their Jews owned.)

Arafat launched frequent terrorist cross border attacks into Israel from his safe Mini-State in Lebanon - just as does Hezb’Allah does now. Hezb’Allah, a fierce terror organization based in Lebanon, is run by Syria and funded by Iran. When those attacks became intolerable, Prime Minister Begin gave Defense Minister Gen. Ariel Sharon permission to attack Arafat’s Terror State in Lebanon. The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) discovered and exposed many things that were photographed, catalogued and described in books published subsequently about the savagery of Arafat’s treatment of his Lebanese brothers. As today, the Left-leaning liberal media ignored what Israel had discovered, but they did castigate Israel for daring to respond to Palestinian terror attacks.

Israel’s early encounters came from what then was called the RPG Kids (Rocket-Propelled Grenade). These were 9- to 11-year old kids who were trained (on Arafat’s orders) to use rocket-propelled grenades and hide behind their seemingly innocent youth. Many Israeli soldiers were killed because they hesitated to kill mere children. However, these were not ‘mere’ children; they were fully trained Palestinian killers who were merely smaller than Arafat’s regular terrorists. They were trained from early childhood to hate, kill and obey their master. (That education to hate, kill and obey continues to this day in the Palestinian Authority.)

The IDF discovered miles of machine-dug tunnels, stocked full of arms, ammunition and plans for the next major war against Israel - aimed at her elimination. These were the pre-stocked positions for planned advancing Palestinians, with regular Syrian troops, into Israel. I believe it was the Austrians who supplied the huge tunnel-digging machines, which could dig wide tunnel into the Lebanese mountains, thus allowing large trucks to deliver their deadly loads.(1)

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