CINA

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VICTORY!! ...but for whom??

Especially after the Qana massacre it seems that Israel is losing the war. The "rulers" all over the world - except the US, GB and Germany - are calling for a immediate cease fire in Lebanon. (BTW.. after the 1996 Qana massacre by IDF israel was also forced by the "world's public opinion" to stop all its military actions there..).

Well, the Israeli PM Olmert said yesterday(local time) that there will be no cease fire NOW and also not in the NEAR FUTURE and today he said "Israel will keep fighting Hizbullah until multinational force deploys in south Lebanon"(and the "intl. community" said they will only deploy troops there when the fighting will be stopped..). But so or so, sooner or later the Isreali govt. will be forced to agree for a cease fire.

And what Israel was achieving with the war?

The first aim, beside to free the two kidnapped soldiers, was the "complete destruction of Hizbullah", so the Israeli media in the first days of the war. After some days of massive bomb attacks against assumed bases of Hizbullah, causing hundreds of civil losses, the new aim was to push Hizbullah back and to destroy their missile/rocket launchers.

Instead to achieve this goals by air attacks IDF ground forces got more and more involved in the battle, with heavy losses on its side.

Now the aim is "just" to push Hizbullah's forces behind the Litani River(about 20 to 40 KM north of the Israeli/Lebanese border). And this goal the IDF must achieve in the next days or coming two weeks. Actually, especially after the experiences in the last fierce battles in some few small border villages - it is impossible!!

Actually, except hundreds of killed Lebanese (mainly) civilians, 700,000 displaced people and a humanitarian desaster.. Israel achieved nothing! The soldiers are still in the hand of Hizbullah, daily Katyushas and other missiles launched by Hizbullah are raining on Isreali villages and towns(only yesterday 210 rockets, according to Israeli media)... And day by day Hizbullah is becoming more and more an "organization of hereos", the "only real resistance" for "the Arab nation and dignity", so a Jordanian bourgeois newspaper.

Finally at the present point Israel got exactly the opposite what they wanted to achieve. Instead of a weak, isolated Hizbullah they have now a strong, in the entire Lebanon, but also the surronding Arab world respected Hizbullah. For example even Israeli Arabs/Palestinians, attacked by Hizbullah missiles, like a short while ago in An-Nasirah/Nazareth, feel not like victims. They just see it as a kind of "friendly fire", so a report on CNN(8.02).

After Hizbullah's first missile, hitting yesterday the West Bank(near Jenin) a "Fatah member related that local residents cheered when they heard the rocket fall and saw the resulting flames. 'Even if it were to fall on our heads, it wouldn’t have spoiled our joy. All of us here are praying for Hizbullah’s success and victory,'" said(ynet, 8.02).

And what will be the result of this developments?

About these - in my opinion - very unattractively consequences I, possibly, will write tomorrow.

IDF paratrooper.

Not happy anymore, not really..

To get an idea of the current situation, please check out following articles:

How Israel's bombing turned Hizbollah leader into a symbol of Muslim pride

(The Independent, GB, 8.02)

A new face to Hezbollah's resistance
(Asia Times, HK/China)

Senior Fatah members: Nasrallah, bomb Tel Aviv (ynet, 8.01)

Palestinian protesters in Ramallah urge Hizbullah to fire missiles on central Israel; former Palestinian interior minister calls on Fatah fighters to go on high alert ahead of possibility of escalation in fighting

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3284779,00.html
 

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DAY 22

Today in the morning the 48 hours of arial "cease fire", after the Qana massacre(BTW... today nobody in the "West", for example in the German media, is talking/writing anymore about it..) - in fact the IAF was continuing their activities(just on a lower level) - ended. And now everything is starting again, but on a much more extreme level.

IDF is preparing for a massive ground offensive - already 20,000 soldiers are now operating in the southern border area in Lebanon. And, according to several intl. news agencies, thousands of IDF troops are ready to enter the Lebanese territory soon(likely in the coming night).

On the other side Hizbullah is attacking Israel since the morning with Katyushas and even long-range missiles. According to Hizbullah 300 missiles were fired... according to Israeli sources around 100 were hitting targets mainly in north Israel.

And IDF troops and HIzbullah fighters are involved in heavy and fierce ground battles. Already yesterday three IDF soldiers were killed in house-to-house fights in villages near the southern Lebanese border.

Here the latest by ME and intl. news agencies, news papers:

Israel raid 'captures Hezbollah fighters' (Al Jazeera)

IDF commandos complete Baalbek raid, reportedly capture five Hezbollah militants (Haaretz)

19 killed as Israel raids hospital (Guardian)

Israel strikes deep in Lebanon (IHT/NYT)

Exchanges of fire rage in Lebanon (ynet)

150 Hizbullah rockets hit Israel (Guardian)

..and so on, and so on.....

Later(likely in the coming 2 or 3 hours) i'll write some of my thoughts about it.. And perhaps not everyone will like it^^

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QANA 1996

QANA 2006

by Laure Ghorayeb, Lebanon

www.laureghorayeb.blogspot.com
 

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QANA

by Mazen Kerbaj

Beirut, Lebanon 

http://mazenkerblog.blogspot.com

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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.

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DAY 18

First of all the latest body count:

Until yesterday, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, around 600 people were killed by IDF. The Lebanese gov't gave the number of at least 400 killed and the Israeli Military Staff included there 200 killed Hizbullah fighters. At the same time in Israel and Lebanon at least 52 Israelis, mainly soldiers were killed. In Gaza, until today morning, 159 Palestinians, according to Israel mainly militants, were killed in the last 4 weeks.

Yesterday in Berlin a demonstration "For Paece - Against the Terror of Hamas and Hizbullah" took the streets - at least 1,000 people participated. At several places the demonstrators were verbally attacked by Arabs but also German neo-nazis, according to Berliner Zeitung.

Today, according to CNN International(tv), hundreds of demonstrators demanded in Moscow "solidarity for the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance". On the pictures it was clear to see that, beside several so-called "communist" and "socialist" parties and organisations also many members/activists of the National "Bolshevist" Party, in fact a fascist group, jpined the demo.

In about two hours here in Berlin a demonstration will take place, organized by several Palestinian and Arab groups, demanding "Solidarity with the People in Lebanon and Palestine". I'll go there and later I'll report about it(please be patient^^).

Here two very interesting articles about the current situation in Lebanon, especially about Hizbullah's role/resistance:

UNIFIL: Hizbullah undefeatable militarily (Ynet/AP, 7.29)

Top UN peacekeeping official says Israel would flatten whole villages, neighborhoods if Hizbullah continues firing rockets into Israel
 

A top UN peacekeeping official on Friday said he feared the war in southern Lebanon would continue until late August and voiced fears Israel would flatten Lebanon's southern villages and destroy Tyre "neighborhood by neighborhood" if Hizbullah rockets keep landing in the Jewish state.
 

At UN peacekeeping headquarters in Naqoura, barely a stone's throw from Israel, political affairs officer Ryszard Morczynski said Tyre would become a target of intense Israeli attacks because Hizbullah was firing rockets from the city's suburbs into Israel's northern port of Haifa.
 

Hizbullah boasted Friday of a new kind of rocket it called the Khaibar-1 that it fired deeper inside Israel than the hundreds of others 
since the outbreak of fighting more than two weeks ago.
 

"I have no doubt that Israel will flatten Tyre if civilian casualties continue in Haifa. Tyre will be taken off neighborhood by neighborhood," Morczynski said. "I think Israel is contemplating flattening villages, flattening every single house to deny Hizbullah any advantage of urban fighting in the streets."
 

He estimated that 80 percent of the roughly half-million people who live in southern Lebanon have already fled the embattled area. He also said he feared the civilian death toll in Lebanon was more than 600, well more than the official count of 400-plus.

'Hizbullah still strong'

"Hizbullah are still strong" 17 days into the conflict, peacekeeping chief, Maj. Gen. Alain Pellegrini told The Associated Press. Pellegrini told the Times newspaper that "a military victory will never be possible."
 

And according to Morczynski's calculation, roughly 800 Hizbullah fighters operate in the southern region on any given day.
 

"They are mobile, well-prepared, devoted and willing to act," he said. "When there is shelling ... they are not sitting in their bunkers."
 

The Hizbullah stronghold of Bint Jbeil attests to the group's tenacity.
 

"In Bint Jbeil it looks like the Israelis have pulled out and are now preparing the ground to come in again," Morczynski said, after Hizbullah fighters had pushed the limited Israeli ground force to the southern edges of the town.

'Hizbullah communication intact'

Also, he said, there was evidence Hizbullah's communications were intact and their fire-and-run tactics were still effective. There was no sign that the guerrillas' supply of rockets was dwindling and Israel has had limited success in targeting their launchers.
 

Morczynski said the peacekeepers occasionally intercept Hizbullah communications. He recalled a typical such exchange: "Allah is great. My brothers this is number 13 and we are going to operation number 7. We hope that our brothers are safe for the day." Hizbullah uses numbers and letters as codes to identify the fighter and the location.
 

Hizbullah firepower would seem to be a combination of sophisticated missiles and the older Katyusha rockets, Morczynski said. Some rockets are launched from the back of trucks, while older ones are ferried on motorcycles and fired from portable triangular-shaped launchers.
 

"They have thousands of them. They are scattered everywhere - in caves, houses, bushes, abandoned buildings. They aren't all in one, two or three depots that you can hit and say now we have wiped them out," he said adding Israel wanted to clear Hizbullah from a two-kilometer strip along its northern border.
 

"The only way to prevent the launch of rockets is to erase all launching positions of Hizbullah. That is the only solution," Pellegrini said. "But it is difficult."

'Large-scale invasion possible'

Despite the sophistication of the Israeli military machine, the advantage seems still to lay with Hizbullah, Morczynski said. While it takes the Israelis only about two minutes to target the origin of a Hizbullah rocket and retaliate, it hasn't stopped the barrage and it is unclear how many fighters have been hit.
 

The thrust of the Israeli attack is still with its air force but Morczynski said he anticipated a large-scale invasion if the hostilities continued.
 

"It is clear that if the pace of the war continues as it is today it will continue until the end of August," Morczynski said.
 

While Israel is reluctant to wage a ground assault, he said it would be unavoidable in another two weeks because the Israeli Defense Force will need a victory.
 

"Now the war is going on too long without any big success. Something has to happen soon because they have to show some success to the Israeli public," he said.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3282947,00.html

As the shells fall around them, Hizbullah men await the Israelis (Guardian, 7.29)


An injured Lebanese boy with his mother after their van was attacked by Israeli

aircraft as they fled their village in Tyre, Lebanon. Photo: Ghaith Abdul-Ahad/Getty
 

"Patience is our main virtue, we can wait for days, weeks, months before we attack. The Israelis are always impatient in battle and in strategy," says the cleric, Sayed Ali, who claims to be a descendant of the prophet. "I know them very well."...

Please read the entire article here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/syria/story/0,,1832931,00.html

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..Rainy Days "at Home"(^=^)

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DAY 16

First of all a summary from the latest developments (by Guardian, GB)


Israeli soldiers hold up a Hizbullah flag as their armoured personnel carrier pushes

across the border into Lebanon. Photograph: David Furst/AP
 

Hizbullah guerrillas fired at least 150 rockets at Israeli border towns, the highest daily total since the start of fighting, while Israel followed its highest one-day casualty toll in the fighting yesterday with air strikes on suspected Hizbullah positions across Lebanon.

Israel is also to call up three reserve divisions, but a meeting of senior Israeli cabinet ministers decided against expanding the ground offensive in Lebanon. The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said the goals of Israel's 17-day offensive were being met, participants said. 

The ministers said the call-up of reserves, comprising thousands of soldiers, was intended to refresh troops in Lebanon. 

Israeli attacks meanwhile killed three people in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian medical workers said, a day after fighting that left 24 Palestinians dead. Those who died included a 75-year-old woman, whose house was hit by a missile or shell. The identity of the other dead, aged 16 and 23, was not immediately clear.

A senior UN official said he feared an escalation in the fighting and warned there was a high risk the conflict might broaden. 

"I do not feel confident that this war between Hizbullah and Israel has peaked yet," Terje Roed-Larsen, Kofi Annan's envoy on Syria-Lebanon issues, said. "There are apparently plans and threats to hit deeper into Israel and that will for sure lead to an escalation of the conflict."

This morning's Israeli air strikes also hit a Lebanese army base, a radio relay station and destroyed several roads. The series of raids in northern, eastern and southern Lebanon killed at least one person and wounded several others.

Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida's deputy leader, warned in a tape broadcast by al-Jazeera that his group would respond to the violence in Lebanon.

Thousands of civilians are believed to be trapped in villages across the border region in southern Lebanon, according to humanitarian officials who have toured the region. Americans who escaped a village near the focus of the ground fighting said many US citizens were still there.

The Israeli military's radio station in south Lebanon today warned that the army "will totally destroy any village from which missiles are fired toward Israel". The statement, aired on al-Mashriq radio, also told Lebanese not to use the road from Qleileh - which is near the Mediterranean coast - to Houlah in eastern Lebanon, across the border from Israel's Kiryat Shmona. 

Israeli warplanes struck a road in Rayak, a few miles from the Lebanese-Syrian border early today, wounding two soldiers and a civilian, Lebanese officials said.

Israeli fighter jets also carried out more than 30 bombing runs in Iqlim al-Tuffah, a highland region where Hizbullah is believed to have offices and bases, officials and witnesses said. The airstrikes, which targeted mostly deserted houses allegedly belonging to Hezbollah activists, and roads linking villages in the region, caused a number of casualties, the officials said.

Ambulances and civil defence crews were unable to reach the targeted areas because of intense bombardment, witnesses said. A Lebanese policeman was killed when an Israeli missile struck his car as he drove in the eastern city of Zahle, security officials said.

At least 423 other people have been killed in Lebanon, including 376 civilians reported dead by the health ministry and security officials. The deaths of the soldiers yesterday brought to 51 the number of Israelis killed in the campaign, according to the military.

Israeli planes also attacked targets near the southern market town of Nabatiyeh, wounding at least three people. 

An international conference in Rome yesterday to discuss the crisis ended in disagreement, with demands from 11 countries and the United Nations for an immediate ceasefire resisted by the US and British governments.

The Israeli justice minister, Haim Ramon, who is a close ally of the prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said Israel interprets this as a green light to continue its offensive. "We received yesterday at the Rome conference permission from the world ... to continue the operation, this war, until Hizbullah won't be located in Lebanon and until it is disarmed," he told Israel Army Radio. "Everyone understands that a victory for Hizbullah is a victory for world terror."

Israel yesterday suffered its heaviest casualty toll in a single battle in the 16-day campaign, with at least nine soldiers killed and 25 wounded in house-to-house fighting in Hizbullah strongholds in Lebanon. An Israeli military source said "several dozen" Hizbullah fighters had been killed in the fighting...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1831570,00.html

Al-Qaida No 2 calls for global war

Israel Decides Not to Expand Offensive

Iranian Envoy, Hezbollah Leader Meet

Israel 'can take its time' (Al Jazeera)

Scores killed in Gaza fighting (Al Jazeera)

Security cabinet okays mass call-up of reservists, but nixes expansion of south Lebanon operation (Haaretz)
 
 
The security cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, decided Thursday morning against expanding the Israel Defense Forces operation in southern Lebanon, but did okay a further, extensive call-up of reserve troops.

During the meeting, which came a day after nine IDF soldiers were killed in fierce battles with Hezbollah, the ministers decided that while the troops would be called up, they would not be deployed until further notice.

The decision, which was passed by 11 votes to one, takes into account "the need to prepare forces for possible developments," such as an expansion of the operation, but also takes into account the need to calm Syrian concerns that Israel could be preparing for an attack on its interests...

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/743489.html

Katyushas hit communities across north; seven wounded

 

7.26, Nahariya and Haifa once again under Hizbullah attacks..

.......

Night life in Beirut. Because IDF is "only" targeting the areas in the city where

Hizbullah have offices and places from where they launch missiles, in the other parts

of the city the life is going as "usual", such as in the northern and eastern parts.

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..WHAT A SURPRISE!!

North Korea rules out six-way talks

North Korea said Thursday that it will not join any six-way talks with the United States, South Korea, China, Russia and Japan, unless Washington lifts its financial sanctions against Pyongyang.

Pyongyang's reiteration of its previous position came as its foreign minister, Paek Nam-sun, arrived in Kuala Lumpur to attend a regional security forum.

"There will be no incident (in which) we return to the six-way talks as long as the U.S. continues to impose its financial sanctions," Jung Sung-il, director-general of North Korean Foreign Ministry's international organization bureau, told reporters.

Jung made the comments on behalf of his boss Paek, who was whisked away by a sedan upon his arrival at the airport.(Yonhap, 7.27)

http://english.yna.co.kr/Engnews/20060727/610000000020060727180013E2.html

And it's just the beginning of the ASEAN summit in K.L. Our "beloved friends" from P.Y. may have some more f(unny) surprises for the coming two days!!??

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Israeli refugees from the north of the country: "Party, techno-beats and Tai Chi at

a beach refugee resort at the south coast, Netzanim", Der Spiegel(Germany)

Lebanese refugees from the south of the country after heavy bomb attacks by IDF