Israeli Attack on Lebanese Village Kills at Least 56, Sparks Outrage

QANA, Lebanon — At least 56 people, more than half children, were killed Sunday in an Israeli airstrike on Qana, the deadliest attack in 19 days of fighting, which shot the overall death toll over 500. Infuriated Lebanese officials canceled a planned visit by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who returned early to Washington with her diplomatic mission derailed.

Rice, in Jerusalem for talks with Israeli officials, said she was "deeply saddened by the terrible loss of innocent life" in Qana but stopped short of calling for an immediate end to the hostilities. However, she made one of her strongest statements yet saying: "We want a cease-fire as soon as possible."

[Read on here.]

A tragic situation. An accident, or perhaps faulty intelligence. The world is "outraged." How much longer will Hezbollah and Hamas continue to deliberately target Israeli civilians before the world gets around to being upset about that?

***

From Vital Perspectives:

[...]

The question is, what were the people doing there? Residents in this region and specifically the residents of Qana were warned several days in advance to leave the village. Now, what could be the most important part of this entire story from Qana... Many people are working to confirm this now, but this video shows Hezbollah terrorists firing rockets from behind a three-story building which looks remarkably similar to the building destroyed in Qana:

[...]

The Jerusalem post has more here.

Civilian casualties and the dual racism
By TigerHawk

An Israeli airstrike has killed a big cluster of civilians -- more than 50 -- including a large number of children. This is a great tragedy, but the Israelis say that Hezbollah was firing rockets at Israeli civilians from the village that Israel hit -- "hundreds" since the beginning of the conflict. There is not yet any reason to doubt Israel on this. Nevertheless, leaders of countries that have done worse are protesting, and Condoleezza Rice has postponed her next trip. They are pandering to the worldwide hatred of Israel. On the facts known this morning, culpability may just as easily lie with Hezbollah. Of course, it should never go unsaid that Hezbollah targets Israeli civilians without even bothering to justify its attacks on them as incidental to a military purpose. Killing Jews is quite sufficient, thank you very much. Every launch of every Hezbollah rocket into every Israeli city should earn similar denunciations, but they do not. Why? The dual racism that holds Israel to a higher standard than the rest of the world, and Arabs to a lower one. ...

[Read on here.]

Don't miss Donald Sensing's comments here.

U.S. State Department: Israel Has Right to Defend Itself

WASHINGTON  — The Bush administration on Sunday urged Israelis to avoid civilian casualties in the fighting in Lebanon and expressed sorrow about the deaths of at least 56 civilians in a village in southern Lebanon.

ButWhite House spokesman Blair Jones reaffirmed the administration's insistence on reaching a sustainable cease-fire.

[...]

The administration has insisted that any cease-fire come with conditions to address long-standing regional disputes, including the insistence by Israel that Hezbollah be disarmed — something the Lebanese government has been unable to do.

"We want to avoid a situation where we essentially put a Band-Aid on something," Burns said. "We have to a have view of a sustainable cease-fire. We have to make sure Hezbollah is not allowed to be in a position to strike again."

[Read the whole thing here.]

From Vital Perspectives:

This just in... It's widely reported that the residents in the area, as well as in Qana specifically, were told repeatedly to leave. The question one has to ask, is why did this happen under the circumstances? Who benefits by the large loss of civilian life? The answer is clearly Hezbollah, which uses human shields, and their sponsors in Syria and Iran. Israel dropped leaflets warning residents that airstrikes were on the way. We have obtained the text of that leaflet which was dropped by the Israelis as well as a scanned image of what one of these leaflets looks like:

[...]

See also CQ: The Qana Funeral

***

Outside the Beltway has more here, including video of Israel's UN ambassador on Meet The Press this morning.

***

Coverage of this topic continues at Qana bombing: Building collapsed eight hours after attack

Contributed by Bill Faith on July 30, 2006 at 10:16 AM in Bill Faith, Islamism Delenda Est | Permalink

Comments

Posted by: Anna

The IDF has video of rockets being launched right by that building just prior to their sending that rocket in. There is no doubt that Hezbollah is hiding behind women and children and that they will do whatever is necessary to make themselves appear the victims. The citizens of Qana were told to leave because there would be bombing there and the only reason I can think of why someone (especially women and children) would stay is because they had no choice. They could very well have been forced to stay there.

What Hezbollah wants is for everyone to forget that it was their bombings and their kidnapping of the Israeli soldiers that started this specific battle. Those children would be alive if Hezbollah has disarmed according to UN treaty when Israel left Lebanon years ago.

Posted by: Anna | Jul 30, 2006 2:33:36 PM

Post a comment

Comments accept simple HTML for formatting and linking.

Comments are moderated and may not appear on the site immediately. Comments in violation of our comment policy will never appear on the site.

TrackBacks

TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451e4ed69e200e5508365f88834

Trackbacks are moderated and do not appear immediately. Trackbacks from posts that do not link to this post will be deleted and will never be visible here.

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Off-target Missile Strike Sparks Outrage:

""I've been under a rock.."" from Old War Dogs
My quite intelligent but very busy 30 year old daughter emailed yesterday: I’ve been living under a rock for a bit, going to school, raising a toddler, working full time.. and I find that I don’t understand the whole Lebanon/Israel [Read More]

Tracked on Jul 30, 2006 10:21:38 AM

"Qana bombing: Building collapsed eight hours after attack" from Old War Dogs
(Please consider this a continuation of Off-target Missile Strike Sparks Outrage)IDF: Qana building fell hours after strike An IDF investigation has found that the building in Qana struck by the Air Force fell around eight hours after being hit by [Read More]

Tracked on Jul 30, 2006 3:12:30 PM