IDF commander: We fired more than a million cluster bombs in Lebanon

Meron Rappaport (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/761781.html)

“What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs,” the head of an IDF rocket unit in Lebanon said regarding the use of cluster bombs and phosphorous shells during the war.

Quoting his battalion commander, the rocket unit head stated that the IDF fired around 1,800 cluster bombs, containing over 1.2 million cluster bomblets.

Cluster bomblets on the ground outside Nabatiyeh.

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The following letter was sent by Hassan El Akhras to the National Post in response to an article about the killing of the El Akhras family published in that newspaper. The Post has refused to publish this letter.

23 August 2006

Sunday July 16 was the darkest day of my life. I lost 12 members of my family. They include my father, Ali El Akhras, my cousin, Ali Al-Akhrass, and his wife, Amira, and their four children, aged 1 to 8: Salam (which means ‘Peace’), Ahmad, Zeinab and Saja as well as the children’s grandmother Haniya Al-Akhrass.

Their bodies were crushed under the rubble of our house in the southern Lebanese village of Aytaroun. Their lives were cut short by the Israeli shelling of their hideout from the bombs. (more…)

by Rami El-Amine

Originally published by Zmag.

Racism against Arabs and Muslims long preceded the 9-11 terrorist attacks and has much of its roots in Western imperialism in the Middle East, especially Israel’s colonization of Palestine.  Yet, the escalation that we witness today can be traced to the war on terror launched after 9-11 by Bush and his neoconservative ideologues with the backing of the Democrats. Anti-Arab/anti-Muslim racism has helped sell the detentions, wars, gulags, and occupations of US imperialism’s latest and boldest venture into the Middle East and South Asia.  In turn, this imperial venture has further inflamed racist views of Arabs and Muslims.   What makes this growing racism so frightening is its wide acceptance in US society, particularly by the left.  With the latter, it is not as much conscious racism as not doing enough to fight it.  Part of this may be due to ambivalence, but it also stems from a lack of a dynamic understanding of Islamism.  Broad support gives anti-Arab/anti-Muslim racism a sense of legitimacy and respectability that makes building a mass movement that can end the war and occupation of Iraq difficult, if not impossible, since so much of the support for the war is fueled by fear and racism.

We thrash, curse for air
As our strangler declares, look
How violent the Arab
              – Haiku for the Head Locked by Zein El-Amine

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Reporting from South Lebanon

August 27th, 2006
Hicham Takache

In the afternoon, I took my family and made a tour to the neighboring villages and towns to survey the war damage. Yohmor in particular was badly hit. This small village overlooking the Litani River was bombed mercilessly by all types of ammunition; from artillery shells, to cluster bombs, to smart bombs shot from Apache helicopters and F16 fighter jets. The damage is extensive and incredible.

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Deliberate destruction or ‘collateral damage’?

Excerpt from Amnesty International report, “Israel/Lebanon: Deliberate destruction or “collateral damage”? Israeli attacks on civilian infrastructure.” Full report: www.amnesty.org.

During more than four weeks of ground and aerial bombardment of Lebanon by the Israeli armed forces, the country’s infrastructure suffered destruction on a catastrophic scale. Israeli forces pounded buildings into the ground, reducing entire neighbourhoods to rubble and turning villages and towns into ghost towns, as their inhabitants fled the bombardments. Main roads, bridges and petrol stations were blown to bits. Entire families were killed in air strikes on their homes or in their vehicles while fleeing the aerial assaults on their villages. (more…)

The UN’s humanitarian chief has accused Israel of “completely immoral” use of cluster bombs in Lebanon.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5299938.stm

UN clearance experts had so far found 100,000 unexploded cluster bomblets at 359 separate sites, Jan Egeland said.

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On Saturday July 29, the 18th day of Israeli Aggression on Lebanon, Sawsan Takiyee El Deen gave birth. The next day, her newborn became the youngest known victim of Israel’s aggression …

The Bush Administration and Israeli Government’s Master Plan:
A Massacre a day to keep the “terrorists” away

Monday July 24
Lebanon: ~14 civilians killed
Among them: Mohammad Ghandour, his wife and five children killed when Israeli army bombs their house in southern Town of Nabatiyeh.

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An inteview with Gilbert Achcar

August 10, 2006
Chris Spannos

This interview was produced for Redeye, Vancouver Co-op Radio, on August 5, 2006.

CS: Lebanon has been suffering Israeli military devastation since mid-July. Certainly Hezbollah had anticipated a response from Israel to the abduction of two Israeli soldiers. What do you think were Hezbollah’s political calculations and reasons for their actions?

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By Amira Hass

Let us leave aside those Israelis whose ideology supports the dispossession of the Palestinian people because “God chose us.” Leave aside the judges who whitewash every military policy of killing and destruction. Leave aside the military commanders who knowingly jail an entire nation in pens surrounded by walls, fortified observation towers, machine guns, barbed wire and blinding projectors. Leave aside the ministers. All of these are not counted among the collaborators. These are the architects, the planners, the designers, the executioners. (more…)