Weeks of bombing leave Lebanon in ruins

After the capture of two of their soldiers by Hezbollah militants on July 12, Israel has justified a bombing campaign which has reduced much of Lebanon's infrastructure to shambles, setting back painstaking and costly reconstruction that had finally put the nation on a prosperous path after decades of civil war and economic stagnation. Bridges, seaports, fuel depots, and the nation's airports and ports, border crossings, and all the major national highways have been attacked, causing more than $2 billion in damage. Since the conflict exploded, Israel has said it is fighting the Hezbollah militia, not Lebanon, to stop retaliatory rocket fire crossing their border. But Israel has repeatedly struck targets that appear to have little to do with Hezbollah and plenty to do with the daily life of the Lebanese–many of whom oppose Hezbollah. Israel has flown 8,700 bombing sorties, destroying 146 bridges and 72 roads. Bombs have devastated the country's brand-new network of superhighways–the centerpiece of the late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's long-term recovery blueprint for Lebanon. Almost every road in the south has been cratered by bombs. Entire villages near the Israeli border have been razed by shells and bombs. Not a single bridge has been left standing over the Litani River, cutting off southern Lebanon from the rest of the country. In the ports, warplanes hit the management buildings in Tripoli and Tyre and the Beirut lighthouse. Attacks have also destroyed television and cellphone transmission towers in different parts of the country. Israel has concentrated its strikes in Shiite areas, in southern Beirut and southern Lebanon, but has also extensively bombed north and central Lebanon, hitting roads and strategic targets, including ports and communications facilities. Lebanon's industry minister, Pierre Gemayel, said that around 23 large factories and 40 small factories have been bombed so far. The damage extends to nearly two-thirds of the industrial sector, he said. According to official tolls, more than 1,000 Lebanese have been killed and around 3,500 wounded in the offensive, which has also forced one million–a quarter of the population–from their homes and left the economy in ruins. Forty-five percent of the casualties and 300,000 of the displaced have been children. Sixty-one Israeli soldiers have also been killed while 36 civilians have died in a barrage of Hezbollah rocket fire from across the border. It's estimated that almost 1,900 Israelis have been wounded. The average number of rockets fired daily by Hezbollah in the first week of the conflict was 90. Recently, it has been 169. Security fears force UN to suspend aid On Aug. 8, the United Nations was forced to halt all attempts to deliver humanitarian aid to the thousands of civilians stranded in southern Lebanon, despite repeated Israeli assurances of secure corridors. The move, echoed by major aid agencies, followed Israeli threats to destroy any vehicle operating south of the Litani River. The road to Syria, one of the few ways out of Lebanon for people trying to flee, has been knocked out repeatedly as Israel maintains a land, sea and air blockade that has left the country almost completely isolated from the outside world. The head of Médecins Sans Frontières' (MSF) mission in Lebanon, Christopher Stokes, described Israeli assurances of protected aid corridors as delusional. "For many days, the concept of humanitarian corridors has been used to mask the reality," he said. "It is impossible to get safe access to the villages in the south." Aid efforts were already severely compromised by the Israeli air force's bombing of the last remaining bridge over the Litani, cutting off the main artery for aid to the southern port of Tyre and hard-hit areas nearby. On Aug. 7 MSF was forced to create a 200-yard-long human chain across the river, passing hand to hand in knee-deep water four tons of medical supplies and gasoline. Israel also threatened to attack UN peacekeepers if they attempted to repair bomb-damaged bridges. UN officials contacted the Israeli army to inform them that a team of Chinese military engineers attached to the UN force in Lebanon intended to repair the bridge on the Beirut to Tyre road to enable the transport of humanitarian supplies. According to the UN, Israeli officials said the engineers would become a target if they attempted to repair the bridge. "We must be able to have movement throughout the country to deliver supplies. At this point we can't do that," said David Shearer, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Lebanon. "The deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure is a violation of international law." "We do not have real access to the people most in need," Stokes said. "By the same token, people who want to flee the affected region or seek help have no guarantees that they can do so safely, contrary to what is suggested by this talk of a humanitarian corridor." "They have also told us that they can provide no security guarantee that our convoy will not be attacked, so if we move it will be at our own risk and peril," Stokes said. The Red Cross claimed that there were up to 100,000 Lebanese trapped in the cut-off areas. Aid agencies and doctors in south Lebanon say there is a growing shortage of medication for chronic diseases, such as diabetes, cancer and AIDS. Unless Israeli-imposed travel restrictions ease, thousands of people receiving treatment will suffer. "Many people remain in the villages near the border, who have been taking treatments for years and now suddenly their supply is cut," said Hakim Khalji, MSF coordinator in Tyre, where aid officials say corpses have rotted in the streets for as many as 10 days. On Aug. 7 the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said the Israeli military had denied permission for aid groups to move food and medicine to besieged villages in southern Lebanon for two days. The president of the ICRC, Jakob Kellenberger, accused Israel of violating the Geneva Conventions by preventing aid convoys from getting into areas targeted by Israeli airstrikes. The official demanded more access to civilians in southern Lebanon. "By letting down leaflets you cannot get rid of your responsibilities under international humanitarian law," Kellenberger said, referring to warnings the Israeli military has issued before airstrikes. A mental hospital in south Lebanon is just days away from running out of the medicine used to treat its 250 schizophrenic patients. "We have very little Epanutin left," said Adela Dajani Labban, director of the private Al Fanar Mental Hospital in Zefta. Epanutin is an anti-convulsion drug that can be used to treat schizophrenia. Staff nurse Hossam Mustafa said doctors had been reducing dosages to patients in an attempt to conserve supplies. "If we do not get more medicine soon we will be faced with a very difficult situation. The patients will become very aggressive." The World Health Organization warned that 60 percent of the hospitals in Lebanon would have to close unless fuel was delivered this week. Israel vows to widen war On Aug. 9 Israel's Security Cabinet overwhelmingly decided to send troops deeper into Lebanon in a major expansion of the ground war. Soon after the Cabinet voted 9-0 with three abstentions, a column of Israeli tanks and armored vehicles crossed into southern Lebanon and took up positions. The Israelis destroyed several houses as they advanced, witnesses said. Israeli planes bombed targets across Lebanon, including the country's largest Palestinian refugee camp, Ein el-Hilweh, killing two people, including an 11-year-old boy, and wounding three others, officials said. The Cabinet vote came shortly after the head of Israel's military northern command, Major General Udi Adam, was replaced by the deputy chief of staff, Major General Moshe Kaplinsky, after complaints from commentators that Adam was too slow and cautious in his military tactics. "The assessment is it will last 30 days," Trade Minister Eli Yishai, a member of the Cabinet, said afterward. "I think it is wrong to make this assessment. I think it will take a lot longer." Brigadier-General Yossi Kuperwasser told a press conference in Jerusalem that Hezbollah was far from defeated. "Crushing Hezbollah is not like ordering pizza. It takes time," he said. More than 10,000 troops are in Lebanon. They are fighting in a four-mile stretch, and have encountered fierce resistance from Hezbollah. "We are now in a process of renewed escalation," a senior Israeli general defense staff officer said. "We will also hit strategic civilian infrastructure." Earlier, Syria accused Israel of having "intentionally" bombed the Christian Lebanese village of Qaa on Aug. 4 near the Syrian border where 28 people, mostly Syrian farm workers, were killed. The men had been shifting boxes of fruit and vegetables at a warehouse in Qaa when the Israelis struck. Syria demanded Israeli compensation for the families of the dead Syrians, and backed Lebanon in its call for compensation for "Israel's massacres at Qana and Qaa and the destruction of infrastructure in Lebanon." On one of the deadliest days of nearly a month of warfare, Israeli bombardment killed at least 61 people on Aug. 7 in strikes on a busy south Beirut neighborhood, the eastern Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon. Earlier, Israeli warplanes bombed houses, bridges and roads in southern and eastern Lebanon. The day's heaviest human toll was exacted when Israeli warplanes flattened a crowded, six-story apartment building in the southern Beirut neighborhood of Shiyah. By midnight, at least 20 people had been found dead. Israel's attack on the Shiyah neighborhood was especially terrifying because it was an area considered safe; refugees from bombings elsewhere had taken shelter in the neighborhood, which is not part of the Hezbollah-dominated suburban band that rings Beirut's southern edge. "Now it's possible to bomb anywhere," said Hassan Tarraf, a 25-year-old chef who lives near the targeted building. "We were considering this a safe area." Elsewhere in southern Lebanon and in the Bekaa Valley, an additional 40 people were reported killed in air raids. UN truce plan under threat as conflict spirals The bitter emotions of the Middle East spilled into the normally restrained chamber of the United Nations Security Council on Aug. 8, as representatives from Lebanon and the League of Arab States expressed dismay at Israel's ongoing military operations, and voiced their deep distrust of a draft cease-fire resolution prepared by the US and France. "I'm not quite sure what purpose this meeting served," Dan Gillerman, the Israeli ambassador to the UN, said immediately after a special session of the Security Council, where he found himself verbally battered in a highly unusual back-and-forth with representatives from Qatar and Lebanon. The poisoned atmosphere in the chamber highlighted the difficulties facing diplomats as they battled to save the Security Council's efforts to adopt a cease-fire resolution. The US and France struggled to answer Arab concerns about the draft, prepared earlier in the week, which asked for a cease-fire without simultaneously requiring that Israel withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon. The Foreign Minister of Qatar, Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani, warned of "civil war" in Lebanon unless changes to the resolution were made, and repeatedly berated Israel for its actions. "What is happening will sow the seeds of hatred and extremism in the area and provide a pretext for those who feel the international community is taking sides and lacks fairness," he said. The tensest exchanges were between Gillerman and Lebanon's envoy, Tarek Mitri. When Israel's ambassador evoked Tyre in Biblical times to emphasize the ties between their two countries, Mitri noted that Israel had "bombarded and pounded" the city without interruption. At a crisis meeting in Beirut the day before, Arab foreign ministers backed the Lebanese government's amendments to the draft resolution, which include the withdrawal of Israeli troops. The current draft does not set a timetable for Israel's withdrawal. The draft also allows Israel to continue "defensive operations" in Lebanon after a cease-fire. "I want a text that will bring about cessation of hostilities," Mitri said. "We don't want a piece of paper that calls for cessation of hostilities while hostilities are exacerbated, aggravated, and continue unabated." "The Israeli ambassador did not convince me that destroying bridges, roads, schools and hospitals is irrelevant," said Amr Moussa, Secretary-General of the League, following the meetings. "Nobody in our region is convinced by the Israeli logic." The Arab League backs a seven-point peace plan put forward by Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, Moussa stressed. That plan calls for an Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon, the expansion of a UN peacekeeping force in the area, the deployment of the Lebanese army to the border and the disarming of Hezbollah guerrillas. The Lebanese proposal would have Israeli troops hand over their current positions in southern Lebanon to the UN observer mission, UNIFIL, as they withdrew. UNIFIL would then hand over control to Lebanese forces within 72 hours and help them deploy. Hezbollah would withdraw to positions north of the Litani River, and Lebanese troops would ensure "total respect of the cessation of hostilities in the area," their draft says. Yahya Mahmassani, the Arab League's representative at the UN, said that under the Lebanese plan, "Hezbollah will not go into that area [once] the Lebanese forces are there." "It is obvious to us that a draft that is not favorable to the Lebanese side should not be adopted," said Vitaly Churkin, Russia's ambassador to the UN, of the US-French proposal. "It makes no sense to adopt a resolution that "will lead to a prolongation of the conflict and of the violence," Churkin warned. Syria also rejected the draft resolution. Its foreign minister, Walid Moallem, normally one of the more moderate voices in Damascus said on a visit to Beirut that he personally was prepared to volunteer to fight with Hezbollah and described the draft as a "recipe for continuation of the war." The US or Israel is unlikely to give much ground on most of the main Lebanese demands. "We will not agree to a situation in which the diplomatic solution will not promise us stability and quiet for many years," Israeli defense minister Amir Peretz told German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, rejecting a compromise. Israel vowed in the absence of agreement to expand its offensive. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned that in any case, she expected fighting to continue once the text of the draft resolution was formally adopted. And though the current draft would allow Israel the sole and apparently contradictory privilege of fighting during a cease-fire, Rice nevertheless said the resolution would provide some clarity this week by showing who obeyed the cease-fire call. "We're going to know who really did want to stop the violence and who didn't," she said. With tears in his eyes at the emergency Arab League meeting in Beirut, Prime Minister Siniora rejected the cease-fire resolution until it contained a provision demanding Israel withdraw from Lebanon. "Children, just because they are Lebanese, they are being killed," Siniora said. "This is state terrorism, and this is unacceptable. To see what crimes Israel is committing is unacceptable, and we should not tolerate it anymore." "[The draft] barely leads to a cease-fire," he said. "We want a permanent and full cease-fire." Soon after the US-sponsored draft was presented, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert assured reservists near the Lebanese border that "we are not stopping," adding that there "will be no military restrictions." Israel's justice minister, Haim Ramon, said that Israel would press ahead with its attacks regardless of any diplomatic progress. US President George W. Bush told reporters at his ranch in Crawford, TX, that he was adamantly opposed to Lebanon's demand to amend the proposal to include an immediate Israeli withdrawal from South Lebanon. "Whatever happens in the UN, we must not create a vacuum into which Hezbollah and its sponsors are able to move more weapons," Bush said, adding, "Sometimes, the world likes to take the easy route to solve a problem. Our view is that it is time to address the root causes of problems, and to create a vacuum... is unacceptable." But as Israeli airstrikes continue to sabotage their country, more and more everyday Lebanese are pledging to fight. In west Beirut, 11-year-old Zahra explained why she believes in the need for resistance. "All children now want to grow up to fight Israel. It's shameful how we are being treated. What have we as children ever done to them? Nobody cares what happens to us, nobody will do anything if we don't defend ourselves." The radicalization has also crossed religious and class lines. Daisy is a 34-year-old Christian who works in a bank in an upscale district of Beirut. "I feel a great rage burning inside me," she said. "We are all the resistance now. [Hezbollah] are not doing this for Syria, they're not doing this for Iran, they are doing this for Lebanon." On Aug. 3 in a televised speech, Hezbollah's leader, sheikh Hassan Nasrallah for the first time offered to stop firing rockets into Israel if it stops its airstrikes. However, he also threatened to launch missiles into Israel's commercial center of Tel Aviv if Israel hits Beirut. "Anytime you decide to stop your campaign against our cities, villages, civilians and infrastructure, we will not fire rockets on any Israeli settlement or city," he said. "The only choice before you is to stop your aggression and turn to negotiations to end this folly." Israeli officials shrugged off the offer, saying Hezbollah was on the defensive and was looking for a breather. Gillerman, Israel's UN ambassador, said that Nasrallah's offer of a truce was "a sign of weakness... and he may be looking for a way out." Blaming Iran Gillerman said the critical test faced by the UN Security Council was not whether it could adopt a resolution but "whether the council and international community can adopt a course of action... which will end the threat that Hezbollah and its sponsors pose to Israel and Lebanon." "The issue in this crisis is not territory but terror," he said, accusing Iran and Syria of training and funding Hezbollah fighters and directing their actions. In the most explicit threat yet from Israel to Iran, Gillerman said in an interview with the BBC that an attack by Hezbollah on Tel Aviv would be tantamount to an "act of war" and Hezbollah would not make such an attack without an explicit order from Iran. The implication of his words was that Israel would retaliate by attacking Tehran. Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israel's foreign ministry, said: "No one wants to see an expansion of the conflict. But there is no doubt that Hezbollah is the long arm of Iran, that the missiles landing in Israel are not Lebanese missiles, that the fortifications we are dealing with in Lebanon were built with somebody else's money not Lebanese. The idea that Hezbollah is a tool of Iranian foreign policy is correct." At the same time, the US ambassador to Iraq accused Iran of having forces in Iraq and said Tehran could use the war between Hezbollah militants and Israel in Lebanon to try and further destabilize the country. "The region is very much interconnected. What happened in Lebanon affects things here," Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters. "Iran... has some forces here. There is the possibility that they might encourage those forces to create increased instability here." Manouchehr Mottaki, Iran's foreign minister, described President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair as "codefendants" in war crimes and claimed they had foreknowledge of Israeli plans to launch a "campaign of aggression" in Lebanon which he claimed was part of a "war on the whole Middle East." "We believe the British and Americans have a share in the atrocities in Lebanon," he said, "and they are the reason why all international efforts to date [to end the fighting] have not been successful." Shmoozing or genuine faith…? The bipartisan pro-Israel lobby in the United States has, in recent years, been strengthened by the fervor of millions of right-wing evangelical Christians, at least some of whom believe that the Middle East conflict is the fulfillment of the Bible's prophecy of Armageddon. Last month the Reverend John Hagee, a Pentecostal television evangelist from Texas, convened a meeting in Washington of 3,500 members of Christians Unified for Israel. The organization is dedicated to building support for Israel, even in states where there are few Jewish voters. Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, a Republican presidential hopeful, attended the rally, as did Senator Rick Santorum, of Pennsylvania, Ken Mehlman, the Republican National Committee chairman, and Daniel Ayalon, the Israeli ambassador. Hagee called the Israeli attacks on Lebanon a "miracle of God" and suggested that a ceasefire would violate "God's foreign policy statement" towards Jews. The evangelist is a leading figure in the so-called Christian-Zionist movement, rooted in a literal interpretation of the Book of Revelations, which predicts a final battle between good and evil in Israel, where two billion people will die before Christ's return ushers in a 1,000-year period of grace. "The end of the world as we know it is rapidly approaching…. Rejoice and be exceeding glad–the best is yet to be," Hagee has written in a book that has sold 700,000 copies. President Bush sent a message to the gathering praising Hagee and his supporters for "spreading the hope of God's love and the universal gift of freedom."