Do you believe Israel is targeting Hezbollah civilians?

Jeremiah, You are absolutely correct; Israel is reacting like a brute rather than trying to minimize the killing of innocent people. That's not to say Israel doesn't have the right to protect itself, but what they are doing is overkill.

Add to that the simple fact that Israel is an aparthied state that provides no rights to Palestinians, and the US supports with money and weapons to add to the carnage against innocent Lebanese. It's a crime against humanity.

BTW, WELCOME to A2K.

They've deliberately attacked the Lebanese army too. But what's most amazing about this atrocity is the fear of criticism Israel generates. Kinda like OJ Simpson calling those who think he did it racists. Israel plays the anti-semite card to the hilt. So much so that seemingly intelligent people are scared to call a crime against humanity a crime against humanity.

Frm the BBC:

Israel 'would accept' peace force
Israel has said it is prepared to accept a European peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon providing it is robust and has a strong mandate.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made the announcement after his government met envoys from Germany, France and the UK.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives on Monday for talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

A senior United Nations envoy, Jan Egeland, has strongly condemned Israel's bombing of Beirut.

Israeli air strikes killed at least eight people in Lebanon on Sunday while rocket attacks on Israel by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah killed two people.

An Italian UN military observer was wounded during fighting between Israeli troops and Hezbollah inside Lebanon.

At least 362 Lebanese, many of them civilians, and 37 Israelis - about half of them civilians - have been killed since the violence erupted 13 days ago.

The crisis was triggered by the capture of two Israeli soldiers on 12 July by Hezbollah which is demanding a prisoner exchange with Israel. The Israelis withdrew from south Lebanon in 2000.

Israel has since vowed to destroy the group's ability to launch rockets at its territory.

'Combat experience'

Mr Olmert has been making his position clear ahead of Ms Rice's visit, the BBC's Crispin Thorold reports from Jerusalem.


His requirements include the enforcement of UN resolution 1559, which calls for the disarming of militias in Lebanon.

But Jerusalem now says that it also wants robust peacekeepers to take the place of Unifil, the largely toothless UN force in southern Lebanon, our correspondent says.

Mr Olmert said he was prepared to accept the deployment of European soldiers in southern Lebanon instead.

This could be a Nato force or a European Union one but the Israeli premier insists that any troops deployed must have combat experience.

They would have, he added, to control border crossings between Syria and Lebanon as well as supporting Lebanon's own army.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier held talks with Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz on Sunday.

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy visited Haifa, where he called for a ceasefire "which answers Israel's legitimate aspiration to live in security and a ceasefire which preserves the state of Lebanon".

British foreign office minister Kim Howells also visited the city.

The Israelis are hinting at a more realistic assessment of what they can achieve through the application of brute force alone, BBC diplomatic correspondent Paul Adams reports from Jerusalem.

Senior political sources have told the BBC the government does not think its military operation will complete the task of disarming Hezbollah, and it believes it needs another week or 10 days in which to operate.

Saudi Arabia has urged Washington to press for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

'Disproportionate'

After visiting bomb-blasted suburbs of Beirut, Jan Egeland said the "disproportionate response" by Israel to Hezbollah's actions was a "violation of international humanitarian law".

July 24, 2006
Civilians
To Flee or to Stay? Family Chooses Too Late and Pays Dearly
By HASSAN M. FATTAH
SIDIQEEN, Lebanon, July 23 ?- Muntaha Shaito's eyes rolled back as the paramedics screamed at her to stay awake and implored her son Ali to keep her engaged, as she teetered near death from shrapnel wounds inflicted by an Israeli rocket.

"Pray to God!," one paramedic shouted at her as she writhed in Ali's arms.

"Don't go to sleep Mama, look at me!," Ali shouted, tears streaking his bloodied face. "Don't die, please don't die!"

It was the scene that members of the extended Shaito family said they had feared most, the real reason they had held out for days in their village of Tireh in southern Lebanon, terrified of the Israeli bombardment, but more terrified of what might happen if they risked leaving. On Sunday they gave up their stand, and all 18 members crammed into the family's white Mazda minivan. They planned to head north toward the relative safety of Beirut.

Within minutes they became casualties of Israel's 12-day-old bombardment of southern Lebanon, which the Israelis say they will continue indefinitely to destroy the military abilities of Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group. By the Lebanese official count, Israel's attacks have killed more than 380 Lebanese.

An Israeli rocket, which Lebanese officials said was likely fired from a helicopter, slammed into the center of the Shaitos' van as it sped round a bend a few miles west of their village, and the van crashed into a hillside. Three occupants were killed: an uncle, Mohammad; the grandmother, Nazira; and a Syrian man who had guarded their home. The missile also critically wounded Mrs. Shaito and her sister. Eleven others suffered less severe wounds.

"They said leave, and that's what we did," said Musbah Shaito, another uncle, as his niece, Heba, 16, cried hysterically behind him for her dead father, whose head was nearly blown off. This reporter watched as paramedics struggled to remove the dead from the van, but soon gave up, as an Israeli drone hovered overhead.

"This is what we got for listening to them," Mr. Shaito said, speaking of the Israelis.

The Shaitos came from a farming village about five miles from the Israeli border in a region known for tobacco, citrus and olive crops. They had waved a white flag from the van, signifiying to Israeli aircraft that they were non-threatening, Mr. Shaito told reporters later.

The Israeli military said in a statement that its aircraft operations over southern Lebanon on Sunday had targeted "approximately 20 vehicles" suspected of "serving the terror organization in the launching of missiles at Israel, and were recognized fleeing from or staying at missile-launching areas." The military did not comment on specific bombings, but cited the area south of Tyre, where the Shaitos were driving, as "an area used continuously by Hezbollah to fire missiles."

Bombing victims, witnesses and officials interviewed in the area on Sunday said Israeli warplanes hit people escaping by vehicle from their villages at least six times in a day of fierce bombardments. Lebanese Red Cross ambulance drivers complained about narrowly avoiding Israeli fire themselves as they cleared out the wounded, and a Lebanese freelance photographer, Layal Najib, 23, was killed when an Israeli missile struck near her car, about five miles from near the scene of the Shaito family bombing.

Israeli forces have sought to clear the area of all residents, in what seemed to be an attempt to separate the civilians from Hezbollah fighters hidden in the hills and villages. Just days earlier leaflets dropped by Israeli planes warned residents to leave the area and head north of the Litani River, effectively making the area a free-fire zone.

A drive through the southern villages on Sunday morning was like a tour through a string of ghost towns, with most residents having cleared out or holed up in their homes, as Israeli aircraft continued their bombardment. Roads were bombed, making passage difficult or impossible, and fields were scorched as the hulks of bombed cars littered the roads. All but a few stores were shut, with glass and rubble littering the streets.


The families in Tireh had preferred to stay home, but with dwindling supplies and Israel's warning to evacuate, many of them decided it was time to go.

There were only about 52 people left in Tireh when most left for Beirut in a convoy this weekend, leaving the Shaitos largely to fend for themselves. Without much food or water, the family gave up its stand early Sunday.

Family members included Muntaha Shaito and her boys, Ali, 13, and Abbas, 12; her brother in-law Mohammad and his two daughters, Heba, 14, and Kawther, 17; and several other relatives.

They packed into their van, with all their money and valuables, and raced toward Tyre, the big southern seaport about 15 miles west.

It proved a day of carnage for the Zabad and Suroor families, too, said family members and medical staff members who treated them.

The Zabad family and their relatives, the Suroors, who were desperate enough to break into shuttered stores to steal food in the town of Mansoureh a few miles away, gave up their stand, too, on Sunday.

Minutes before Red Cross ambulances carted away the Shaito family, the Suroor family barreled down the road headed toward Tyre, with the Zabad family right behind.

When the Zabads spotted a wounded man on the road, they stopped and picked him up in their Nissan sport utility vehicle. They stopped again to pick up two men who had been attacked on a motorcycle and got even farther behind the Suroors.

Suddenly a missile hit the Suroors' Mercedes sedan, killing Mohammad Suroor, the father, and Darwhish Mdaihli, a relative, and severely burning Mohammad's son, Mahmoud, 8, and wounding his two brothers and sister.

As soon as the Zabads saw the car hit, they sped past, hoping to get to the Najm Hospital, less than a mile away. But a minute later a missile struck near them, setting the car on fire, and the family jumped out. .

The scene was chaotic at Najm hospital, on the outskirts of Tyre, which has been flooded with wounded from the bombing campaign. Doctors rushed to X-ray several of the victims, checking for shrapnel, as others where treated for burns and other injuries. For a short while, the hospital nurses rubbed cream on an 8-month-old baby for burns until they found her mother, Mrs. Suroor.

Despite the severe burns on his face, Mahmoud Suroor turned to his mother while in the emergency room and asked where his father was. She did not respond. Then he turned again to his mother.

"Don't cry Mama, we'll all be O.K.," he said.