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ICRC alarmed by high number of civilian casualties and disrespect for international humanitarian law

30 July 2006


The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is alarmed by the increasing number of civilian casualties resulting from the ongoing armed conflict. In today’s military operations by the Israel Defense Forces against the village of Qana, a building sheltering civilians was directly hit. At the time of writing, the Lebanese Red Cross Society and the Lebanese Civil Defense have extracted 28 bodies from the rubble, 19 of whom are children. Issuing advance warning to the civilian population of impending attacks in no way relieves a warring party of its obligations under the rules and principles of international humanitarian law. 

Security Council deplores Israeli attack on Qana, urges all sides to grant access

30 July 2006


Just hours after United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan convened a Security Council meeting on the latest violence in Lebanon, the 15-member body deplored last night’s Israeli attack on the village of Qana, where over 50 civilians, mostly children, were reported killed. “The Security Council expresses its extreme shock and distress at the shelling by the Israeli Defense Forces of a residential building in Qana, in southern Lebanon, which has caused the killing of dozens of civilians, mostly children, and injured many others,” Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere of France, which holds the Council’s rotating presidency this month, said in a formal statement. 

They Have No Wine

Patrick McGreevy Beirut 30 July 2006


We visited Qana six weeks ago. To get there from Beirut, you pass through Tyre and then head southeast. The village clusters about a hilltop less than eight miles from Lebanon’s southern border, and about thirty miles from Nazareth. There is a scholarly debate about whether this was the site of the Wedding at Cana, where Jesus is said to have performed his first miracle, creating wine from water. The Roman historian Eusebius and St. Jerome both believed this was the place. There is no doubt that Qana was an early Christian site. For those schooled in Hollywood movies and religious picture books, this is a Biblical-looking landscape that exceeds all expectations. 

A loyal Beirut heart

Cathy Sultan United States 30 July 2006


My love affair with Lebanon began when I left America in 1969 to settle in Beirut with my Lebanese husband, Michel, and our two small children, Naim and Nayla. In Beirut, I found my place to grow. My commitment to stay there through the first eight years of the civil war was a consequence of that deep love affair. I had married into a family that was loving and accepting. It was exciting to wake up every day as a foreigner embraced by a Lebanese family. This is the kind of love which develops a loyal Beirut heart, one which never dissolves. When war began in 1975 I chose for practical reasons to stay and fight. When I say ‘fight’ I mean fight in a way a housewife does. 

Not in My Name

Nour Odeh 30 July 2006


Words are cheap when used to describe the ongoing slaughter and destruction in Lebanon and Palestine at the hands of the US-funded Israeli occupation army. No matter how eloquent or expressive, words stand helpless and ring hollow when confronted with the distressing human suffering inflicted on Lebanese and Palestinian civilians by the Israeli war machine and the utter apathy, even indifference, of world powers towards them. Israeli attacks have killed at least 615 Lebanese civilians in the past 18 days and 160 Palestinians over the past month under the shield of “self defense.” 

The Truth of Israel's Intentions

Karen Nakamura 30 July 2006


Israel complains endlessly about how Hezbollah and Hamas refuse to recognize Israel’s right to exist. The truth is that no major Israeli party believes in a viable Palestinian state. Just who is denying whose right to exist is clearly stated in the following direct excerpts from the platforms of Israel’s most powerful parties, Labor, Kadima and Likud. The parties’ platforms illustrate the discourse of Israeli politics - a discourse that witnesses no recognition of Palestinian identity, and is based on the denial of Palestinian rights - to Jerusalem, to return - and upon the artificial maintenance of “demographic” barriers in order to preserve an ethnically exclusive state. 

Photostory: Protesters Rally in London in Outrage over Qana and continued Israeli Crimes

Mary Nazzal-Batayneh 30 July 2006


Thousands of protesters came together in Trafalgar Square to protest Israel’s continuing mass slaughter of the Lebanese and Palestinian people and the British government’s complicity. The event highlighted the shameful complicity of the Blair government and was organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and supported by groups including the Stop the War Coalition, British Muslim Initiative, and the Lebanese Welfare Community.The rally entitled “Voices for Lebanon and Palestine” featured impassioned pleas and speeches from community and religious leaders as well as comedians, actors, and Members of Parliament. 

1,500 Protesters March Across Brooklyn Bridge

Patrick O'Connor 29 July 2006


1,500 members of the New York community, horrified at the senseless killing of Palestinians and Lebanese by the Israeli military, marched across the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan today to demand an end to the violence. The Israeli military has killed nearly 200 Palestinians in a matter of weeks, including dozens of children. In less than two weeks in Lebanon, Israel has killed nearly 500 Lebanese and made one million more refugees in their own country. In both Palestine and Lebanon, Israel has targeted civilian infrastructure, such as power plants, roads, factories, schools, airports, and bridges. 

We have lost our faith

Mayssoun Sukarieh Beirut 30 July 2006


I have been feeling numb for a while; the overwhelming news in the past few days has focused on the displaced, the searing stories of people who fled in fear and left all their possessions behind. Calls on TV stations and on the radio of people who lost their loved ones … Stories of their anxiety about homes they left behind … Scenes of people murdered on the roads as they fled … And stories of the destruction they saw on those roads. I get confused: Am I seeing and hearing the stories of Palestinians who fled their homes in fear in 1948? No: I am in Beirut, it is 2006, and these are the stories of the Lebanese who have been rendered refugees, but by the same perpetrators of the 1948 displacement: the State of Israel. 

A night at the symphony in Damascus

Leila Buck Damascus, Syria 30 July 2006


Salaam a’laykum - peace be upon you. The greeting used by Arabs and Muslims all over the world - and for the people of Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq, a poignant reminder that peace is a precious thing. Seeing the images of massacre at Qana today I don’t know where to begin - or how to stop crying. I feel I can only convey fragments - perhaps because my heart is breaking. I’m trying hard not to seem melodramatic, because I know how it is there - you read this in the midst of a long, exhausting, busy day and too many of these and it’s too much to bear, it feels so far away.