Another Bloody Sunday...

[i_kender]

I avoided watching the news all weekend, having an early night on Friday and spending Saturday quietly relaxing at home before going out on Saturday night with buddleia and spent all day with her on Sunday too. It was wonderful.

However Monday morning arrives and with it headlines I can't ignore. I was so furious this morning I nearly cried at my desk at work.

There can be absolutely no justification for this:

Israeli airstrikes kill more than 60 people including 34 children in strike on two familes hiding in the basement of their building.

“ Family photos - one showing two young children - were scattered in the debris. Mohsen Hachem stared at the images. 'They had to have known there were children in that house,' he said. 'The drones are always overhead, and those children - there were more than 30 - would play outside all day.' ... The strike that destroyed the building was a precision-guided bomb dropped from the air, the same kind of bomb that destroyed a UN position in Khiyam last week, killing four UN observers. "

Did you read that? A "precision-guided bomb"... that means this building was targeted. That means someone did this deliberately. One rescue worker pulled out body after body before collapsing in tears because they were all children.

The worldwide outcry has been so extreme that even the US has now declared that an immediate ceasefire is probably a good idea. And right away, Israel declared that they would halt their air strikes for 48 hours.

And four hours later, they started again.

Comments

[buddleia.livejournal.com]

I did cry. I had to hide in my office for a little while.

[i_kender]

Oh honey *hugs you*

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

As I understand it that building had been packed by Hezbollah with rockets and children. The Israelis knew the rockets were there, Hezbollah knew the Israelis knew, and sheltered the families there. (Some argue that the civilians were there at gunpoint, and are not being allowed to evacuate the area. Some people say the civilians are not evacuating the area because the roads are too dangerous because of Israeli bombs.)

I don't know. I just don't know. When killing children becomes state policy.

Damn. I'm crying again. This is fucking useless this.

[i_kender]

Where did you hear that the building was being used by Hizbollah? This is the first I've heard... I thought that Israel were bombing the village because they claimed that rockets were being fired from there, and that these two families were not able to leave (as you mention) because the roads were unsafe. And also because their group contained small chidren, the elderly and the disabled. I hadn't heard that there were any Hizbollah in their group, or in the building.

Please see if you can find me a link.

And yes, I despair. I can't cry because I'm at work. But I just want to break down. And I'm so angry at the US and UK for failing to demand an immediate ceasefire. Not in my name, not in my fucking name.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

First I heard was this post by a girl I know in Israel:

http://melody-kitty.livejournal.com/127407.html

There is a also commenter who refers to something in the New York Post.

I've given up trying to figure out where the truth lies in this whole business. I imagine there is no truth anywhere. But that's just my fundemental assumption on the nature of war - no hope of ever finding the truth.


I just deleted a bunch of stuff. I'm sick of being attacked by people over this issue, I've been attacked by pro-Israeli people, and anti-Israeli people. So I no longer have much of an opinion. :(

[ricevermicelli.livejournal.com]

It's not clear that any weaponry has been found in the area, and not clear to me whether that unclearness means that the weaponry isn't making the news, the weaponry was moved prior to the (highly publicized) airstrike or the weaponry was never there in the first place.

It is clear that the Isrealis leafleted the area pre-airstrike, giving ample warning of the attack so that civilians could evacuate. And that they announced it in Arabic on a special radio channel, ditto.

It is not clear (to me, very far away) why those civilians didn't leave. I don't know whether they weren't allowed, whether the roads were too bad or dangerous, or whether this was a case of Hezbollah sacrificing the lives of children for international sympathy (something that makes me fucking furious if it is so). Killing children is a very bad state policy, but the question is, whose state policy (if anyone's) was it?

[i_kender]

Hmm. What I heard was that, yes, the village was warned. But that the roads had been bombed to rubble, that vehicles were still being fired upon, and that many people were too poor to leave, or too infirm... this explains why so many of the dead were children.

I still haven't seen any mention of Hizbollah being found in the area, alive or dead.

But frankly, even if they were there, the wholesale bombing and massacre of civilians is, has been, and always will be inexcusable.

(And yes, so would Hizbollah using families and children as human shields, if that turned out to be true... however no evidence of this has been unearthed, while the precision bombing of civilians has widespread corroboration from independant witnesses including human rights groups in the area)

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

And the Geneva conventions on warfare state that it is a war crime to target civilian populations even if they are being used as human shields.

There was interesting talk the other day that if the UK government are aiding america in selling the bombs to Israel that are used to knowingly kill children, which individuals in the UK government that makes guilty of war crimes under the Geneva Convention.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

I think civilians tend to want to stay by their homes, in areas they know, where their belongings and food and water and relatives are. Rather than set off on the road clutching a bare minimum of supplies, to an unknown destination, when there are stories flying around of aircraft shooting up vehicles.

People, tend to stay in their homes. Is just the way people are, I think.

And yes, Killing children. Always bad. Doesn't matter what the circumstances are. If you're killing children, you should be made to stop. And both sides are killing children.

[bad-sheep.livejournal.com]

I think the reason they didn't leave (if they were warned) was because they didn't know if they routes out were any safer than staying sheltered, for what it was worth. Hobson's choice, perhaps?

[i_kender]

Yes. It's a choice nobody should have to make, between almost-certain death and almost-certain death.

[apple-crumble.livejournal.com]

Sickening. Inexcusable. Evil.

I caught the news over the weekend when Israel issued the statement that they weren't interested in a ceasefire until all military objectives had been met including stopping Lebanon from firing rockets into Israel. Erm, wouldn't a ceasefire stop this..

[i_kender]

I actually feel sick to the stomach right now.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

The thing I find interesting is that Israel have now spent what, two weeks bombing the crap out of Lebanon? And it's not slowed Hezbollahs ability to launch strikes at all. They're still regularly launching missiles. So whatever the Israeli objective if, if it is to stop the missiles, it ain't working.

[i_kender]

I can't see how it could possibly work as a deterrant. It's a campaign of fear and death, and if anything can only make the Hizbollah extremists more determined and extreme.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Aye, I'm sure the hizbollah extremists are very very happy that they have the entire state of Israel doing *precisely* what they want them to.

[bad-sheep.livejournal.com]

Gah, it's sickening - read this yesterday bit it's taken a day to become calm enough to comment. I don't know what to say. Some of our students have family out there, so it's pretty close to home.