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DAY 19

Actually today I wanted to report about yesterday's "Solidarity Demonstration Against the Israeli Aggession in Lebanon and Palestine", which took place in Berlin. But considering the latest developments in the Middle East, especially in Lebanon I don't want to comment this trash-event(the demo in Berlin) today(perhaps I'll do it tomorrow or so..).

As I wrote in the beginning of the IDF operation in Gaza, about 4 weeks ago - some in the region were already talking about the "Israeli mass murder" - that's just a matter of time that real war crimes, or worse a massacres by the IDF will take place. Today in the morning(local time) it was happen: an Israeli air strike against the south Lebanese village Qana killed, according to CNN Int'l(tv), 54 civilians/34 children.

Of course the int'l condemnation of Israel is very strong. Even CNN Int'l brought full coverage about it and denounced it clearly as war crime. For example the anchor-woman of the 1 pm(CET) edition was extreme strange and angry during an interview with the Israeli spokes-woman of the foreign ministry.

In the course of the early afternoon thousands of extreme angry protestors - muslims AND christians, but also "communists" and "ordinary" people - took the streets of Beirut and stormed the UN compound there.

UN stormed amid fury over Qana bombing (Al Jazeera)

BTW.. this wasn't the first deadly attack against Qana: In April 18, 1996, IDF attacked a UNIFIL base there where hundreds of Lebanese refugees took shelter and killed about 150 of them.

1996 massacre in Qana

Here the first facts by int'l news agencies...

Children hit hard in Israeli strike (IHT/NYT) 

An Israeli airstrike killed at least 50 people - more than half of them children - in a southern Lebanese village Sunday in the deadliest attack in 19 days of fighting. The U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, postponed a visit to Lebanon in a setback for diplomatic efforts to end hostilities.
 
Infuriated Lebanese officials said they had asked Rice to postpone the visit after Israel's missile strike. But Rice said she had called Prime Minister Fuad Siniora to say she would postpone the trip, and that she had work to do in Jerusalem to end the fighting.
 
The missiles destroyed several houses in the village of Qana as people were sleeping. Rescue officials said at least 50 people were killed, and the bodies of 27 children were found in the rubble.
 
Israel said it attacked Qana because it was a base for hundreds of rockets launched at Israel, including 40 that wounded five Israelis on Sunday. Israel said it had warned civilians several days before to leave the village.
 
"One must understand that Hezbollah is using their own civilian population as human shields," said an Israeli Foreign Ministry official, Gideon Meir. "The Israeli defense forces dropped leaflets and warned the civilian population to leave the place because the Hezbollah turned it into a war zone."
 
Rescuers aided by villagers dug through the rubble by hand. At least 20 bodies wrapped in white sheets were taken away, including 10 children. A row of houses lay in ruins and an old woman was carried away on a plastic chair.
 
Villagers said many of the dead were from four families that had taken refuge on the ground floor of a three- story building, believing they would be safe from bombings.
 
"We want this to stop!" shouted Mohammed Ismail, a middle-aged man pulling away at the rubble in search for bodies, his brown pants covered in dust. "May God have mercy on the children. They came here to escape the fighting."
 
"They are hitting children to bring the fighters to their knees," he said.
 
Rice said she was "deeply saddened by the terrible loss of innocent life" in Israel's attack. But she did not call for an immediate cease-fire.
 
"We all recognize this kind of warfare is extremely difficult," Rice said, noting that it came in areas where civilians lived. "It unfortunately has awful consequences sometimes."
 
"We want a cease-fire as soon as possible," she added...

Please read the full article here:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/07/30/news/mideast.php

Rice says time for cease-fire after IAF strike kills 54 people in Qana (Haaretz)
 
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking after the Israel Air Force strike bombing of the Lebanese village of Qana, said it was time for a cease-fire in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.

Rice will hold a second round of talks with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday evening, after cancelling a scheduled trip to Beirut to hammer out a cease-fire deal with Israel.

At least 54 Lebanese citizens were killed, at least 37 of them children, in the IAF strike on a building early Sunday, Lebanese police said. Dozens of others were reportedly trapped in the rubble. Several houses collapsed and a three-story building where about 100 civilians were sheltering was destroyed, witnesses and rescue workers said.
 
Israel, meanwhile, expressed "deep regret" for the deaths and said it would investigate the bombing.

"Israel deeply regrets, is greatly saddened, by this attack on innocent civilians in Lebanon. Israel takes full responsibility and is going to start an open investigation to find out how this happened," government spokeswoman Miri Eisin said...

The entire article here:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/744295.html

Dozens killed in Lebanon air raid (BBC World) 
 
Lebanon described the bombing as a "heinous crime"

More than 54 civilians, at least 34 of them children, have been killed in a town in south Lebanon in the deadliest Israeli strike of the conflict so far.
Displaced families had been sheltering in the basement of a house in Qana, which was crushed after a direct hit.

Lebanon's prime minister denounced "Israeli war criminals" and cancelled talks with the US secretary of state.

Israel said it regretted the incident - but added that civilians had been warned to flee the village...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5228224.stm 
 

Meanwhile..

..Hizbullah(said): We won't ignore massacre (ynet/Yedioth Ahronoth)

Terror groups threaten to avenge what they refer to as 'Qana village massacre.' Iranian president says, 'US and Britain must pay the bill for the Zionist regime's crimes'

The Hizbullah organization threatened revenge following the Israel Defense Forces' air strike in the southern Lebanese village of Qana. According to sources in Lebanon, more than 50 people were killed in the bombing, including more than 20 children.

"We will not ignore the shocking massacre," the organization said in a statement.

Hamas also released a statement, according to which all possibilities are open for a Palestinian and Lebanese resistance following what was dubbed "the Qana village massacre."...

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3283627,00.html

..and..

Olmert: We need 10 more days of military operations (ynet) 

Israeli PM tells US Secretary of State Rice country needs 10 days to two weeks to finish Lebanon offensive. Defense Minister Peretz warns of 'final strike' by Hizbullah in retaliation for Qana attack 
 

We need ten to fourteen days of continued military operations – This was said by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a meeting between the two Saturday...

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3283686,00.html (please check out the "talkbacks" - very interesting this opinions)

*** 

If, finally, all this reports are true - no doubt: it's true!! - Israel has a real big problem. At least it forced many people, likely never before they supported Hizbullah, to the point to see them as "heroes of resistance", as the "only defenders of Lebanon, the Arab nation and its dignity", so one student of the American University of Beirut on today's mass rally in the Lebanese capital...

More about this issue in the coming days.