"May God have mercy on the children. They came here to escape the fighting."
Qana villager, from BBC (link below)
"There is no place on this sad morning for any discussion other than an immediate and unconditional ceasefire as well as an international investigation into the Israeli massacres in Lebanon now."
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, in The Daily Star (Lebanon)
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/...
The main story today is the Israeli attack on Qana, which killed more than 50 people, most of them women and children. This compelled the Lebanese Prime Minister Siniora to demand an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, and apparently to cancel a visit to Lebanon by US Secretary of State Rice (who continues to push her comprehensive and multi-conditional ceasefire). A less reported story is in the Guardian, about human rights groups' charges that Israel may be using cluster bombs in civilian areas, phosphorus bombs, and depleted uranium weaponry.
Official figures on the numbers of Lebanese killed haven't been provided internet readers by any of the mainstream press, international or U.S. for two days. So, I will have to extrapolate from the numbers provided two days ago by Fox (438 Lebanese killed) and the Guardian (382 Lebanese civilians killed). Taking today's Reuter's "at least 542" figure, my math looks like this: 382 times 542 divided by 438 equals 472.70. The Israeli number has remained at 19 for the past several days, although the BBC insists on describing this as "at least 18."
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies accepts donations for Lebanon at www.ifrc.org. The United Nations also has a fundraising effort which you can learn more about at http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
AP/FoxNews
"Israeli Attack on Lebanese Village Kills at Least 56, Sparks Outrage" is the headline on Fox's main survey, which is an AP wire story. The first five paragraphs follow, and a later one about casualty figures.
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 then decided to return 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."
But she disputed Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora canceled her visit.
"I want you to understand something too: I called him and told him that I was not coming today, because I felt very strongly that my work toward a cease-fire is really here, today," she told reporters. A U.S. official later said she had decided to return home Monday morning to work on a U.N. Security Council resolution.
Hours after the Israeli missiles flattened houses on top of sleeping residents in Qana, believed to be a launch site for Hezbollah rockets, Saniora said Lebanon would be open only to discussing an "immediate and unconditional" cease-fire in an apparent snub to the U.S. peace package. He also called for an "international investigation of the Israeli massacres in Lebanon." ...
Some 458 Lebanese were killed in the fighting through Saturday -- before the attacks on Qana. Thirty-three Israeli soldiers have died, and Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel have killed 19 civilians, the Israeli army said.
http://www.foxnews.com/...
Reuters
At least 542 people have been killed in Lebanon in the war, although the health minister estimated the toll at 750 including unrecovered bodies. Fifty-one Israelis have also been killed.
http://today.reuters.com/...
BBC
Lebanon's health minister now says about 750 people - mainly civilians - have been killed by Israeli action in Lebanon since their operations began 19 days ago.
Hezbollah have been firing rockets into Israel and several Katyushas hit the border town of Kiryat Shemona on Sunday, wounding several people, in what residents described as the worst day so far.
A total of 51 Israelis, including at least 18 civilians, have been killed in the conflict, sparked by Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on 12 July.
Witnesses said the early-morning strike hit the three-storey building where families had been sheltering in the basement, crushing it sideways into an enormous crater.
One survivor said the "bombing was so intense that no-one could move".
Elderly, women and children were among those killed in the raid, which wrought destruction over a wide area.
The BBC's Fergal Keane at the scene saw two small boys pulled from the rubble.
Reporters spoke of survivors screaming in grief and anger, as some scrabbled through the debris with bare hands.
"We want this to stop," a villager shouted.
"May God have mercy on the children. They came here to escape the fighting." ...
Israel said the Shia militant group was responsible for the Qana strike, because it used the town to launch rockets.
The BBC's Jim Muir, in Qana, says many did not have the means - or were too frightened - to flee.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...
CNN
If you want to read the Israeli perspective on the missile attack on Qana, read CNN. Below are two of many paragraphs providing that viewpoint. Quotes follow from a second article, which provide CNN's usual low-ball figures on the number of Lebanese killed.
The IDF said that residents had been warned to leave by radio announcements and by air-leaflets because it was a combat area.
"The building itself was not targeted," Israeli government spokeswoman Miri Eisen told CNN. "The building itself was next to the rocket-launcher sites and we are targeting all of those rocket-launcher sites. This was a mistake and we will have a full investigation."
http://www.cnn.com/...
Lebanese Internal Security Forces said Saturday that 421 people have been killed in Lebanon and 1,661 have been wounded.
In Israel, 52 people have been killed, more than half of them soldiers, and more than 1,200 have been wounded, according to Israeli officials.
http://www.cnn.com/...
AFP
The raid on Qana, which left homes in ruins and villagers trapped under the rubble, was the deadliest single attack since Israel launched its devastating war on Hezbollah 19 days ago.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora denounced the attack as a "war crime," demanding an immediate ceasefire in a conflict that has now killed more than 500 people and left a trail of destruction across the country. ...
Rice, on her second trip to the region in less than a week, refrained again from calling for an immediate truce after talks in Israel and a trip to Lebanon was cancelled.
"I think what it is time to do is get to a ceasefire, we actually have to put one in place," she said. "We want a ceasefire as soon as possible, I would have wanted a ceasefire yesterday if possible, but the parties have to agree to a ceasefire and there have to be certain conditions in place."
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reiterated that Israel was in "no rush" to reach a ceasefire. ...
The army, while voicing "regret" for the civilian deaths, pinned the blame on Hezbollah, saying it used the village as a base to launch rockets, and that residents had already been ordered to leave. ...
The village, said by some to be where Jesus turned water into wine, was the site of an Israeli bombing of a UN base in April 1996 that killed 105 people during Israel's "Grapes of Wrath" offensive -- also aimed at wiping out Hezbollah. ...
Israel has lost a total of 51 people since the conflict erupted, many of them soldiers killed in combat.
http://www.afp.com/...
UK Guardian
The Guardian does not report casualty figures in today's stories on the crisis, as far as I can tell. Its stories on the war include a lead editorial that refers to the "human cost" of Israel's war, and how "indiscriminately" it used violence, yet no mention of the exact human cost. Israel's top story on the crisis includes these paragraphs on how Israel has carried out the war:
Israel has been accused of pursuing a scorched-earth policy in the region, using aerial weapons and phosphorus shells in a manner human rights organisations claim is in breach of international law.
As Lebanese medical staff reported that an Israeli air strike had killed a woman and her six children in a house in the southern village of Nmeiriya, western diplomats in Beirut admitted they were 'baffled' by Israel's targeting policy. Ambulances, refugee columns and civilian homes, infrastructure and UN posts have all been hit - and evidence has begun to emerge that civilians may have suffered phosphorus burns.
Footage has also emerged of the increasingly widespread use of cluster munitions in areas with civilian inhabitants. Concern has been further heightened by the delivery to Israel by the US of at least 100 GBU-28 'bunker-buster' bombs containing depleted uranium warheads for use against targets in Lebanon.
Human rights organisations are also examining whether Israel's 'order' for hundreds of thousands of Lebanese residents south of the Litani river to abandon their homes is a breach of international law and UN conventions.
A field researcher from the American based Human Rights Watch (HRW), Lucy Mair, sent pictures to military experts at the organisation's New York office of munitions being transported to Israel's northern border and fired into Lebanon from howitzers. She was shocked to discover they were cluster munitions.
Mair said researchers on the other side of the border documented an attack using the munitions on the village of Blida last week which killed one person and injured 12 and that the explosives - which disperse after impact - are 'inaccurate and unreliable', and should not be used in populated areas.
Mair, who heads HRW's Jerusalem office, said a disturbing picture was emerging of the use of weapons, fired from air and land, which pointed at best to a lack of due care regarding civilian life and at worst to the direct targeting of civilians.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/...