News from the front.
Israel also continued a vast operation in the West Bank town of Nablus on Friday, where troops destroyed almost all the local Palestinian Authority headquarters, sources on both sides said. Ahmed Anab, a 38-year-old resident whose house is adjacent to the local muqataa (government office compound), was killed outside his home from the force of explosives detonated by the Israeli army, a medical source said. A Palestinian security official confirmed that for the third straight day, Israeli forces were working at destroying the muqataa. "Three bulldozers are destroying it night and day and reducing the buildings to dust," he said. "The police building, local interior ministry and preventive security building have been entirely destroyed," he added.
Reporters Without Borders voiced outrage today at the Israeli military’s decision to strike telecommunication installations in Lebanon, thereby depriving millions of Lebanese citizens of TV news and information, especially the broadcasts of the commercial Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC). An LBC technician was killed when installations in Satka, in East Beirut, were attacked. "We are outraged by the death of an LBC technician in these air strikes, which were carried out without taking account of the need to protect media employees and other civilians. Media installations may under no circumstances be treated as military targets," the press freedom organisation said. "After bombing Hezbollah’s TV station Al-Manar, the Israeli authorities are stepping up the destruction of Lebanese media installations and means of communication, and this is absolutely scandalous."
Israeli planes "bravely" bomb installations for LBC-TV--the most pro-US and most right-wing media in Lebanon. And New TV is now off the air--at least here in the US.
Human Rights Watch
Israel has used artillery-fired cluster munitions in populated areas of Lebanon, Human Rights Watch said today. Researchers on the ground in Lebanon confirmed that a cluster munitions attack on the village of Blida on July 19 killed one and wounded at least 12 civilians, including seven children. Human Rights Watch researchers also photographed cluster munitions in the arsenal of Israeli artillery teams on the Israel-Lebanon border.
There's practically a holy consensus right now that the war in the North is a just war and that morality is on our side. The bitter truth must be said: this holy consensus is based on short-range selective memory, an introverted worldview, and double standards.This war is not a just war. Israel is using excessive force without distinguishing between civilian population and enemy, whose sole purpose is extortion. That is not to say that morality and justice are on Hezbollah's side. Most certainly not. But the fact that Hezbollah "started it" when it kidnapped soldiers from across an international border does not even begin to tilt the scales of justice toward our side.