Biblical countries, in the news.

[Shammu]

 Iran, Russia to expand road, transport cooperation
Moscow, July 22, IRNA

Iran-Russia-Cooperation
An Iranian delegation is to head for Russia to participate in an Iran-Russia Transport Working Committee meeting.

Deputy Minister of Roads and Transportation Hamid Behbahani will head the Iranian delegation in the meeting which is slated for July 24-26 in Moscow.

In the meeting, the two sides will discuss avenues for expanding ties in the roads and transport sectors as well as removing obstacles in the way of development of bilateral relations.

They will also discuss ways of promoting the north-south corridor within the framework of their bilateral cooperation.

Iran, Russia to expand road, transport cooperation

[Shammu]

Christians in Cairo join demos to support fellow Arabs
Joseph Mayton
Middle East Times
July 21, 2006

CAIRO --  As the Israeli armed forces continue to pound Lebanon, protests have sprung up in support of the besieged country. In Egypt demonstrations against Israel have been an almost daily occurrence since its first incursion into Gaza more than three weeks ago.

The general mood among protestors was that they wished to express support for their "Muslim brothers."

Christians, too, have protested on behalf of Lebanese victims while shying away from expressing outright support of Hizbullah. In fact, Christians at demonstrations said that it was important not to give the impression that their communities supported Hizbullah's attacks against Israel.

Some Christians said that it was their duty to their fellow Arabs.

"We are here to show that we care about what is happening in Lebanon," said Magda at a demonstration in Cairo. "Yet, I want to make it clear that we are not here to support what Hizbullah has done ... they started the conflict in Lebanon."

She argued that although Israel was an aggressor in the region and that it had wrongly escalated the current conflict, still Israel was not totally to blame.

Magda said that the Christian community should be against the Israeli action but should also help to make sure that the conflict does not spread and engulf the region.

"We are able, as Christians, to see the state of affairs from a more objective perspective because we are not blindly following one side - even though many Christians are being killed in Lebanon," she said.

Bishop Moussa, a Cairo-based Coptic priest, said that Christianity had no real role to play in the conflict but that rather the notion of pan-Arabism was creating an upswell of support for Lebanon and against Israel.

"We are not concerned so much with religion in these circumstances as the West would have people believe," Moussa said, adding, "What we have here is Israeli violence on an entire country over a few soldiers and the actions of a minority group.

"There are thousands of Christians in Lebanon who probably don't support Hizbullah, at least they didn't before Israel started to bomb Beirut," he continued. "Now Israel has given them all the reason to support Hizbullah as the only force in Lebanon capable of keeping Israel at bay."

Moussa said that Christianity does not condone violent action by any side and that if the religious groups were remotely religious and read their sacred texts the situation would have been resolved.

"I am not saying that Christianity is superior to Judaism and Islam, but I would like to point out that Christians have not been at the center of the conflict with Israel for some time and I believe this is because Christians have read their sacred texts."

Still, Moussa said that he supported demonstrations and solidarity with the Lebanese people because they were suffering for something that they did not do.

"If Israel is to begin making friends in this region it needs to start acting like the Western state that American says it is," Moussa said, adding, "If Israelis don't, then the Arab people - Christians and Muslims - will never learn and we will continue to hate Israel."

Both Moussa and Magda agree that Arabs, whatever their religion, have been united once more by a common enemy in Israel.

"It seems Israel is able to bring us together more effectively than we can do by ourselves," Magda said.

Christians in Cairo join demos to support fellow Arabs

[Shammu]

Iraq declares peace plan - without foreign meddling
Paul Schemm
AFP
July 22, 2006

BAGHDAD --  Iraq held the first meeting of a homegrown peace initiative on Saturday, with the country's top leaders vowing to reconcile the warring factions amid protests over US meddling.

Speaker of Iraqi Parliament Mahmoud Al Mashhadani (L)
and country's President Jalal Talabani laugh after a
meeting in Baghdad on July 22 where a new home-made
peace plan was tabled that has been received positively
by some insurgent groups.

"This is an Iraqi initiative for those who are part of the political process," Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki told reporters, while the speaker of parliament urged US-led coalition forces not to interfere.

Maliki said the Supreme Committee for National Reconciliation had already received positive signals from some of the insurgent groups battling security forces and US troops, including one led by a former army officer.

Parliament speaker Mahmoud Mashhadani, a conservative Sunni Islamist, said the committee would work to persuade groups which have opposed the political process to lay down their arms.

"We will contact those who oppose us on certain issues and will try to convince them and tell them the detail of the project to win their consent," he said, standing alongside Maliki and Iraq's President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd.

Soon after the announcement seven Shia construction workers were gunned down in a Sunni neighborhood of west Baghdad.

Maliki's government and the coalition have been struggling to contain a wave of sectarian violence in which rival Shia and Sunni death squads have killed hundreds of civilians around the capital in the past month.

With a month-old security operation apparently making little headway, Iraqi leaders hope the reconciliation committee will draw in those groups prepared to compromise, while isolating violent extremists.

Those who oppose his government's policies are free to do so, the prime minister said, but those who reject the peace process in favor of violence would be "pushed into a corner."

The government announced the reconciliation program on June 25 in response to increasing violence, which has been fueled in part by extremist militant groups aiming to provoke a full-out civil war.

"I don't think Al Qaeda has been successful in its objective, but I admit there are cracks in national unity," said National Security Advisor Ahmed Al Rubaie.

Meanwhile, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) opened a conference on transitional justice and national reconciliation meant to support the government efforts.

But parliament speaker Mashhadani ruffled feathers when he gave a combative opening address in which he blamed many of Iraq's problems on US forces, and called for foreigners to end their interference.

"Just get your hands off Iraq and the Iraqi people and Muslim countries, and everything will be all right," he said, addressing coalition forces.

"What has been done in Iraq is a kind of butchery of the Iraqi people," he said in a long speech that criticized the tactics of the coalition forces in Iraq and US support for Israeli strikes against Lebanon.

Mashhadani bluntly told his audience of UN officials, foreign experts, politicians and civil society representatives that Iraqis had little use for advice on running their country or foreign-sponsored conferences.

"What we need is reconciliation between Iraqis only - there can be no third party," he said.

UN representatives were quick to emphasize that the world body was there to advise and offer examples from other transitional countries, rather than to dictate policy.

An Iraqi politician at the conference, who declined to be named, said that while Mashhadani's sentiments echoed those of most Iraqi people, they did not necessarily help the situation.

"You can't imagine how difficult it is to solve Iraq's problem with people with this mentality leading," he said, saying politicians were reacting to narrow sectarian interests.

In addition to the seven construction workers killed in Baghdad, seven other Iraqis, including six members of the security forces, died in attacks around the country on Saturday.

Two rockets also hit the heavily-fortified Green Zone, the seat of power in the capital, but there were no initial damage reports. In Madain, just south of the capital, the corpses of two civilians were found, one day after they were kidnapped, a police officer said.

Iraq declares peace plan - without foreign meddling

[Shammu]

  Israel Forces Clear Maroun Al-Ras Of Hezbollah Fighters-TV

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Israeli forces have routed Hezbollah fighters in the southern Lebanese village of Maroun al-Ras after the village was taken over by Israeli forces equipped with tanks, according to Israeli commanders, Cable News Network reported Saturday.

Israeli officials have said that the military operation was limited in nature and was launched to target Hezbollah guerillas entrenched in camouflaged bunkers that they were unable to target during recent Israeli air strikes, CNN reported.

According to the commanders, about 10 other Lebanese villages have been identified by Israeli forces that could later be targeted in limited military operations against the Hezbollah, the report said.

According to The Associated Press, Maj. Gen. Benny Gantz also said the Israeli soldiers had found a mosque in Maroun al-Ras that contained stockpiles of weapons, including rockets.

"The forces have completed, more or less, their control of the area of the village Maroun al-Ras, and there have been lots of strikes against terrorists," Gantz told a new conference in Tel Aviv on Saturday night. "It was a difficult fight that continued for not a short time."

Israel Forces Clear Maroun Al-Ras Of Hezbollah Fighters-TV

[Shammu]

Israel seizes Hizbollah stronghold: army

By Lin Noueihed 20 minutes ago

MARJAYOUN, Lebanon (Reuters) - Israel ousted Hizbollah guerrillas from a stronghold just inside Lebanon on Saturday after several days of fierce fighting, the army said, as it bombarded targets across the south of the country.

Ground forces commander Major-General Benny Gantz said Israeli soldiers took the hilltop village of Maroun al-Ras, where six Israeli commandos have been killed this week, inflicting dozens of casualties on Hizbollah.

Israel said it planned no full-scale invasion of Lebanon for now, but warned villagers near the border to leave.

In the town of Marjayoun, about five miles from the border, cars packed with people waving white flags fled north fearing Israel will step up an 11-day-old war which has killed 351 people, mostly civilians.

There was no immediate comment from the Shi'ite Muslim guerrilla group, which had said in an earlier statement its fighters had inflicted casualties on the Israeli side.

An Israeli army spokesman had said troops backed by around a dozen tanks and armored vehicles had been fighting in Maroun al-Ras, about two km (one mile) inside Lebanese territory, and found Hizbollah bunkers and weapons stores.

He said Israel might widen its military action, but was still looking at "limited operations." "We're not talking about massive forces going inside at this point."

Resisting growing calls for a ceasefire, the United States stressed the need to tackle what it sees as the root cause of the conflict -- Hizbollah's armed presence on Israel's border and the role of its allies, Syria and
Iran.

"Resolving the crisis demands confronting the terrorist group that launched the attacks and the nations that support it," U.S President George W. Bush said on Saturday, a day before Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was to head to Israel.

Israeli forces had urged residents of 14 villages in south Lebanon to leave by 4 p.m. (1300 GMT) ahead of more air raids.

TROOP BUILD UP

Israel has built up its forces at the border and called up 3,000 reserves. Defense Minister Amir Peretz has spoken of a possible land offensive to halt rocket attacks that have killed 15 Israeli civilians in the past 11 days.

But Israel is wary of mounting another invasion, only six years after it ended a costly 22-year occupation of the south. Already, 19 soldiers have been killed in the latest conflict.

Israeli air raids hit transmission stations used by several Lebanese television channels and a mobile telephone mast north of Beirut, cutting mobile phone services in northern Lebanon.

The official in charge of the station transmitting LBC programs was killed, the channel said. A nun at a nearby church said two French nationals were also lightly wounded.

Israel's army said it hit a Hizbollah radio and TV transmitter and an antenna for frequencies "used by Hizbollah." Hizbollah's al-Manar television was still broadcasting after the strikes.

Israeli medics and the army said at least 10 Hizbollah rockets hit towns in northern Israel, wounding 10 people.

Across south Lebanon, families piled into cars and trucks -- flying white sheets they hoped would ward off attack -- and clogged roads north after Israel warned residents to flee for safety beyond the Litani river, about 12 miles from the border.

But witnesses said an Israeli air strike hit one of the few remaining crossings over the river early on Saturday.

The war started when Hizbollah captured two soldiers and killed eight in a July 12 raid into Israel, which had already launched an offensive in the Gaza Strip to try to recover another soldier seized by Palestinian militants on June 25.

Washington supports proposals for an expanded international force on the Israel-Lebanon border but details were not fixed, a senior U.S. official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. A 2,000-strong U.N. force monitors the border at present.

Amid growing concern about the plight of civilians in Lebanon, Israel said it would ease humanitarian access.

U.N. relief agencies have called for safe passage to take in food and medical supplies. An estimated half million people have fled their homes.

Foreigners have also flooded out of the country. Ships and aircraft worked through the night scooping more tired and scared people from Lebanon and taking them to Cyprus and Turkey.

Israel seizes Hizbollah stronghold: army

[Shammu]

Saudi FM to discuss Mideast crisis in US, Britain, Russia

11 minutes ago

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (AFP) - Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal will visit Britain and Russia, in addition to the United States, in a bid to defuse the Middle East crisis, the official SPA news agency said.

The visits are part of "the contacts undertaken by the Saudi government ... to defuse the crisis in the Middle East and seek an end to the ongoing Israeli attacks against Lebanon and the Palestinian territories," it said.

Saud, who will be accompanied by Prince Bandar bin Sultan, a former longtime ambassador in Washington who is now secretary general of the Saudi National Security Council, will deliver messages from King Abdullah to the leaders of those countries.

The agency gave no dates, but the White House has announced that Saud and Bandar will meet US President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday. The talks will be held shortly before Rice heads for the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia initially indirectly accused the Lebanese Shiite militant movement Hezbollah of provoking Israel's massive onslaught on Lebanon by capturing two Israeli soldiers, but it has since called for an immediate end to hostilities and implicitly criticized US support for Israel.

Saudi FM to discuss Mideast crisis in US, Britain, Russia

[Shammu]

Israeli seaside town virtually abandoned
Michael Matza and Ned Warwick
July 22, 2006 3:21 PM

The Philadelphia Inquirer

(MCT)

NAHARIYA, Israel - The Hezbollah rocket fire was severe, with more than 100 fired in one day last week into northern Israel, including this Mediterranean seaside town about 15 miles south of the Lebanese border.

A day earlier, a Katyusha strike had killed a man. Now plumes of smoke were rising from two fresh bombardments here.

''There - a-a-and - there,'' said Almog Cohen, 25, an Israeli military spotter on the roof of Nahariya's seven-story city hall. He used binoculars to pick out the hits and radioed their position to his commander.

As it turned out, the new strikes were not lethal. They landed on opposite edges of the town. But they added to the trepidation and loathing in this place, where more than 350 houses have been damaged, some demolished, by rocket fire since hostilities began with the abduction of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid from Lebanon on July 12.

Ordinarily quiet, Nahariya, founded in 1934 by German Jews escaping the Holocaust, and later developed as a beach resort for middle-class Israelis, is now a ghost town.

Many of its 38,000 residents have decamped much farther south into central Israel in an effort to get out of Hezbollah's increasingly deep rocket range.

Those who remain have gone into reinforced bunkers 30 feet below the deserted streets, shuttered shops and empty houses.

Some, like Iris Kogan, 28, who came to Israel from Ukraine 15 years ago and lives in the same garden-apartment complex where Andrei Zelinsky, 37, was killed by Tuesday's Katyusha strike, say the stress of what Israelis are calling ''the war in the north'' is just too much.

Kogan, a law-office secretary; her husband, Uri, a furniture-factory worker; and their daughter, Netanela, 9, intend to leave Israel.

''Yesterday, when it all happened, I heard a bang and I ran toward the shelter. I had to jump over the body of the man. I can't get the sight of the dead man out of my mind. I think of it all the time,'' she said, fidgeting on a folding chair at the municipal shelter nearest to the spot where Zelinsky was killed.

Officials said he was outside the shelter, a few yards from its entrance, and 20 yards from his own home, when the rocket landed and took his life.

''Today I bought tickets to fly to Ukraine. We will leave,'' Kogan said. ''I am not sure we will come back.''

Others, like Hanna Hevroni, 59, a religious-school art teacher who came to Israel from France 41 years ago, say they will never leave. Zelinsky was her neighbor. She was affected by his death. In that way often expressed by Israelis, however, his death only deepened her attachment to the land.

''I passed my youth here. I raised my family here. It's my country,'' she said.

''To tell the truth, I don't like to see us bombing Lebanese cities. We are both people. I am not happy about it at all. But if my enemy hits me, I hit him back. Leave me in peace, and I'll leave you in peace,'' she said.

Israelis living in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and areas south, which so far have been outside Hezbollah's strike zone, have opened their homes to people fleeing the bombardments.

Newspapers are running classified advertisements offering free temporary lodging with sympathetic families.

''We would be happy to host residents who are in need of respite from their troubled neighborhoods,'' read one ad published in Friday's Jerusalem Post.

''We are a family of five in a five-room apartment, but there is always room to fit more,'' read another.

Hevroni said her 21-year-old daughter, Nomi, was ''depressed and nervous all the time'' since the fighting began, so she sent her to live in Tel Aviv with strangers who had placed such an ad last week. Similarly, her 17-year-old son, Yehudah, went farther south, to the Negev Desert town of Dimona.

Nahariyans who have stayed in the town are feeling anxious and claustrophobic. Houses built since the mid-1990s have mandatory, reinforced ''safe rooms,'' so residents go there when air-raid sirens wail.

Others have to make use of the town's more than 160 municipal shelters.

Sweltering in the underground bunkers, where TVs flicker with news updates, rattled residents sprawl on stone floors piled with mattresses and odd bits of bedding. Latrines are filthy. Bags of groceries delivered daily by nervous municipal runners are heaped in the corners.

Some residents doze fitfully. Others sit and stare.

Looking tired and frustrated, Arik Chai, 31, lay sprawled on a mattress surrounded by his family: wife Irra, 25; son Dean, almost 4; and 4-month-old son Edan.

Chai works in maintenance at an industrial park about 20 minutes drive from Nahariya. But the rain of rockets across northern Israel has made it too dangerous to travel, he said, so last Sunday he stopped making the drive.

Now, like the majority of Israelis, he firmly supports his government's decision to hit back fiercely in order to settle accounts with Hezbollah once and for all. But he shrugged and shook his head wearily, saying he had no idea when the fighting would end.

''We're OK,'' said another resident, Ari Cohen. ''You have to write that we are not scared. We just want to finish this thing. Get it done right. Otherwise we'll have the same problem every two years.''

Israeli seaside town virtually abandoned

[Shammu]

Israel Fights Militants in Lebanon's South

By BENJAMIN HARVEY, The Associated Press
Jul 22, 2006 4:30 PM (20 mins ago)
Current rank: # 1,382 of 5,775 articles

ON THE ISRAEL-LEBANON BORDER - Israeli tanks, bulldozers and armored personnel carriers knocked down a fence and barreled over the Lebanese border Saturday as forces seized a village from the Hezbollah guerrilla group.

Early Sunday, Israeli warplanes struck Sidon, targeting a religious building run by a Shiite Muslim cleric close to Hezbollah in their first hit inside the southern port city, currently swollen with refugees from fighting further south.

Also Sunday, a huge explosion reverberated across Beirut, apparently caused by an Israeli air raid on the capital's southern suburbs.

At least four people were wounded in the airstrike that targeted Sidon for the first time since Israel launched its massive military offensive against Lebanon and Hezbollah guerrillas July 12, hospital officials said.

On Saturday, Israeli soldiers battled militants and raided the large village of Maroun al-Ras in several waves before finally taking control, military officials said. Tens of thousands of Lebanese fleeing north packed into Sidon to escape the fighting as the United Nations warned of a growing humanitarian "disaster."

The growing use of ground forces, 11 days into the fighting, signaled Israeli recognition that airstrikes alone were not enough to force Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon. But a ground offensive carries greater risks to Israel, which already has lost 18 soldiers in the recent fighting. It also threatens to exacerbate already trying conditions for Lebanese civilians in the area.

Israeli military officials have said they want to push Hezbollah beyond the Litani River, about 20 miles north of the border, with the Lebanese army deploying in the border zone. An Israeli radio station that broadcasts to southern Lebanon warned residents of 13 villages to flee north by Saturday afternoon. The villages form a corridor about 4 miles wide and 11 miles deep.

With Lebanese fearing an escalation in the battle, international officials worked to end the conflict.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was set to arrive in the Middle East on Sunday, though she ruled out a quick cease-fire as a "false promise."

President Bush said his administration's diplomatic efforts would focus on finding a strategy for confronting Hezbollah and its Syrian and Iranian backers.

"Secretary Rice will make it clear that resolving the crisis demands confronting the terrorist group that launched the attacks and the nations that support it," Bush said in his weekly radio address.

Italy, which has been trying to mediate an end to the fighting, said it would hold a conference Wednesday to work out the basis for a truce agreement. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has proposed a beefed-up U.N. force along the Lebanese border, but Israel has called for the Lebanese army to take control of the area.

Annan said the conflict had displaced at least 700,000 Lebanese so far, and Israel's destruction of bridges and roads has made access to them difficult.

"I'm afraid of a major humanitarian disaster," he told CNN.

U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said it would take more than $100 million to help the displaced. He said he would make an appeal "urging, begging" the international community for contributions.

As part of an effort to avert such a crisis, Israel eased its blockade of Lebanon's ports to allow the first shiploads of aid to arrive. It remained unclear how that aid would get to the isolated towns and villages where the fighting has been centered.

Israel has attacked mostly with airstrikes, but small units have crossed the border in recent days and fought with Hezbollah fighters.

A far larger force of about 2,000 troops entered the area Saturday trying to root out Hezbollah bunkers and destroy hidden rocket launchers.

The troops, backed by tanks and armored vehicles, raced past a U.N. outpost and headed into Maroun al-Ras. Gunfire could be heard coming from the village, and artillery batteries in Israel also fired into the area.

"The forces have completed, more or less, their control of the area of the village, Maroun al-Ras, and made lots of hits against terrorists," said Maj. Gen. Benny Gantz, chief of Israel's ground forces. "It was a difficult fight that continued for not a short time."

Dozens of Hezbollah fighters were injured or killed in the battle, Gantz said. Hezbollah said two of its fighters were killed Saturday, bringing the total number of acknowledged Hezbollah fighters killed to eight. Israel accuses the group of vastly underreporting its casualties.

The village was strategically important because it overlooked an area where Hezbollah had command posts, Gantz said. The forces seized a cache of weapons and rockets in a village mosque, he added. The village is believed to be a launching point for the rocket attacks on northern Israel.

At one point, a half-ton bomb was dropped on a Hezbollah outpost, about 500 yards from the border and near the village. Other positions were bombarded by Israeli gunboats off the coast.

About 32 residents took refuge at the U.N. observers post. Nearly the entire remaining population of the village - which numbered about 2,300 before the crisis broke out - were believed to have fled, Lebanese security officials said.

Some of the invading forces returned to Israel during the day. U.N. peacekeepers and witnesses said Israel also briefly held the nearby village of Marwaheen before pulling back.

About 35,000 fleeing Lebanese filled Sidon as they searched for a place to stay or a way to get farther north.

"I'm afraid a disaster is going to happen with all these refugees. There's no aid, not from other nations, not from Lebanon," Mayor Abdul-Rahman al-Bizri said.

More than 200,000 Lebanese fled to Syria, according to the Syrian Red Crescent.

A steady stream of foreign nationals boarded ships and planes Saturday to take them away. U.S. officials said more than 7,500 Americans had been evacuated from Lebanon by Saturday night.

"Everybody's crying and kissing and wishing you well, and you have to turn and leave. We have the chance to get out, but they don't," said Susan Abu Hamdan, 44, of Northville, Mich., who was visiting her siblings in Beirut.

The Israeli army said it wanted to completely destroy all Hezbollah infrastructure in an area between a half-mile and two miles from the border, but it had no intention of going deeper into Lebanon.

"We really want to knock out Hezbollah in this area," said Capt. Jacob Dallal, an army spokesman. "We want to wipe them out, and we don't intend for them to ever be there again."

A senior Israeli military official confirmed that Israel did not plan to reoccupy southern Lebanon as it did in 1982-2000 to create a buffer zone to protect northern Israel.

Israel's current offensive began July 12 when Hezbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers and killed three others in a cross-border raid.

Israeli airstrikes on Saturday blasted communications and television transmission towers in the central and northern Lebanese mountains, knocking the Lebanese Broadcasting Corp. off the air and killing one person at the station.

The death toll in Lebanon rose to at least 372, Lebanese authorities said.

Over the past 11 days, Hezbollah has launched nearly 1,000 rockets into Israel, killing 15 civilians and sending hundreds of thousands of others fleeing into bunkers. At least 132 rockets landed in Israel on Saturday, wounding 20 people, three seriously, rescue officials said.

A total of 19 Israeli troops have been killed in the fighting so far.

Hezbollah also fired at the army base of Nurit in Israel, wounding one soldier, the army said.

Israel's call for Lebanese to leave much of the area south of the Litani River caused many to fear that a far deeper Israeli ground incursion was being planned, an offensive that would almost certainly lead to far higher casualties.

More than 400,000 people live south of the Litani. Though tens of thousands have left, many are believed still there, trapped by the damaged roads or by fear of being caught in an airstrike.

Israel Fights Militants in Lebanon's South

[Shammu]

Israel troops storm W. Bank city of Tulkarm


Israeli troops, backed by tanks and armored vehicles, pushed into the West Bank city of Tulkarm and its refugee camp Saturday morning, Palestinian witnesses and security sources said.

Witnesses said that at least six tanks were seen taking up positions on the town's main street amid intensive machine gunfire.

Security sources said that Palestinian gunmen threw a grenade at an Israeli army patrol, causing no casualty.

Israeli army sources confirmed that a grenade was thrown at the patrol, causing no injury but slightly damaging an armored vehicle.

The incursion followed a week of tight Israeli closure imposed on the city. During the blockade, local residents could hardly go in and out of the city.

Senior security officials in Tulkarm said the Israeli army informed the Palestinian side that it would blow up any security building belonging to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) if Lebanese Hezbollah elements hid in it.

On Friday, the Israeli army destroyed al-Muqata'a building in the city of Nablus, claiming that two wanted militants, working for Hezbollah, were hiding in the building and they were planning attacks on Israel.

Israel troops storm W. Bank city of Tulkarm

[Shammu]

Palestinian militants launch rockets at Israel

Two Palestinian militant groups said on Saturday that their militants fired a number of homemade rockets at Israeli targets in southern and western Israel.

Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, an armed wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), claimed responsibility for firing two rockets into the Israeli military post of Nahil Ouz at 6:00 a.m. ( 0300 GMT) Saturday morning.

The attack was in response to "the ongoing Israeli aggression in the Palestinian territories and southern Lebanon," the group said in a statement.

In addition, militants from al-Aqsa Brigades, the Fatah's armed wing, said that they launched one rocket into the Israeli military post of Kissufim early in the morning.

Responding to the rocket attacks, the Israeli army fired artillery shells into northern Gaza Strip, wounding a 70-year-old Palestinian, medical sources said.

Palestinian militants launch rockets at Israel

[Shammu]

Main militant groups say no agreement for truce with Israel
SARAH EL DEEB, Associated Press Writer
July 22, 2006 4:39 PM

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - The main militant Palestinian groups disputed a claim Saturday that they had reached agreement for a cease-fire.

Palestinian officials had earlier said the groups agreed to halt the firing of rockets into Israel at midnight if Israel made no new raids into the Gaza Strip.

The midnight deadline passed with no new violence.

But the three militant groups - Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, Islamic Jihad and the Hamas military wing - denied that a cease-fire had been agreed upon, saying that their rocket attacks were a response to Israeli aggression.

The Israeli military said it was aware of the internal Palestinian cease-fire contacts and would wait to see what happens.

The Palestinian officials said the agreement was reached in Gaza City following meetings sponsored by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, the officials said.

Several Palestinian militant groups attended, including Haniyeh's Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the officials said on condition of anonymously because the unilateral cease-fire agreement was agreement was reached at a closed meeting.

The Israeli offiensive in the Gaza Strip that began June 28, three days after militants raided an Israeli army post, killing two soldiers and capturing another.

More than 100 Palestinians, many of them gunmen, have been killed in attacks by Israeli warplanes, tanks and artillery. Israeli aircraft have destroyed the main power station and attacked key government office buildings.

At the same time, the militants have fired many homemade rockets at southern Israel.

Nabil Shaath, an aide to Abbas, said Abbas and the militant groups met over the past few days and decided that a cease-fire would have to be adopted by the militants and Israeli forces.

''A cease-fire is a cease-fire. It has to be accepted by the two parties, and it has to lead to a resolution of all the outstanding issues'' in Gaza, Shaath said in an interview.

No fighting between Israeli ground forces and militants was reported in Gaza on Saturday, but Israel fired shells at open fields in the east, with no casualties reported.

In fighting in Gaza on Friday, four people were killed - a Hamas activist and three relatives - in an explosion at his home in Gaza City, hospital officials said. Israel said it fired a tank shell at the balcony of the house as the activist was preparing to fire an anti-tank missile at its forces.

Also Friday, Israeli forces pulled out of the Mughazi refugee camp in central Gaza after a two-day sweep.

Main militant groups say no agreement for truce with Israel

[Shammu]

‘We Gave Israel No Green Light’
Barbara Ferguson, Arab News —
 

WASHINGTON, 23 July 2006 — With Israel massing soldiers and tanks on its Lebanese border in the wake of an 11-day aerial bombardment, there are fears an Israeli invasion will move this war into an ever-bloodier phase.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced plans yesterday to embark today to the Middle East on an emergency diplomatic mission to open talks aimed at bringing a “sustainable end” to the violence.

This is the first US diplomatic effort on the ground since the Israeli onslaught against Lebanon began. In another sign that diplomatic efforts have shifted to a higher gear, the White House said Rice would join President George Bush today to discuss the crisis with Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal, Prince Bandar ibn Sultan, chief of the Saudi National Security Council, and Saudi Ambassador to Washington Prince Turki ibn Faisal.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the idea was “to provide the president and Rice a chance to continue to strategize with a key partner in the region on a diplomatic solution.” Immediately following meeting with the Saudis, Rice will travel to the region, stopping in Israel and the Palestinian territories to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Rice will then travel to Rome, where she will meet with members of “the Lebanon core group.” She will not, however, stopover in Egypt where she was scheduled to meet with her counterparts from Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt.

“Representatives of the core group, which includes Lebanon, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, the European Union, Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan the United Nations and the World Bank, will work to develop a plan for a sustainable resolution to the violence between Israel and Hezbollah,” said David Welch, the US State Department’s assistant secretary for Near East Affairs, who met with Arab and Israeli journalists Friday afternoon.

“Discussions will focus on political issues, security concerns, humanitarian needs, and support for the economic reconstruction of Lebanon, he said. “We’ve received a good number of acceptances already.”

The plans emerged following two days of talks in New York with United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and envoys he sent to the region this week. Annan called Thursday for an immediate cease-fire. On Friday Rice rejected Annan’s and international calls for a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah extremists, saying a quick end to the fighting would only give Lebanese and Israeli civilians the “false promise” of a lasting peace. Rice said the Bush administration is not interested in “quick fixes” and said the world is witnessing “the birth pangs of a new Middle East” in the current fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. “We do seek an end to the current violence, and we seek it urgently. More than that, we also seek to address the root causes of that violence so that a real and endurable peace can be established,” Rice said at a State Department briefing.

“We are not delaying here,” Welch told Mideast reporters. “If we can put in place conditions tomorrow for a cease-fire, obviously we would do so. But we believe that it’s going to take some time — it doesn’t necessarily have to take a lot of time, and the less time it takes the better — we can put together elements for a more stable situation than we see right now.” But the acrimonious briefing Welch had with Arab journalists Friday reflected the tensions many in the Mideast feel about America’s support for Israel’s bombings of Lebanon, and the resulting deaths of Lebanese civilians.

Welch said the US wanted to “encourage a solution...that will protect both Israel and Lebanon.”

An Arab then journalist asked: “The UN condemned Israel’s excessive use of force while the US remained tight-lipped...”

“The secretary of state just addressed the issues of humanitarian interest on both sides of the border. We are not ignoring it,” said Welch. “The words of the US carry great weight; we don’t want to declare something unless it will have an effect.”

“Even if the price is wiping out the whole country?” said the reporter. “That’s a dramatic statement; we don’t favor wiping out any country. We don’t believe there is any acceptable loss of civilian life,” said Welch.

The roundtable of reporters erupted in protest. Welch rejected charges that America supported Israel’s attack.

“We gave Israel no green light,” he said.

Asked if Israel will go to Rome, Welch said: “Israel will not attend core group meeting, we believe Israel is fully capable of making its views known to the core group; it has relationships with almost all of them.”

The US reluctance to seek a speedy cease-fire stems from Bush’s view that Israel’s fight against Hezbollah is part of the broader war on terror in the Middle East, and his belief in the need for a democratic transformation in the region.

The administration’s rejections for a cease-fire sparked fresh criticism from US liberals, who accuse the Bush White House of mishandling the crisis.

Senator Edward Kennedy, D-Ma., called the administration’s refusal to seek an immediate halt to the fighting “a disaster” that could lead to further escalation of the violence.

‘We Gave Israel No Green Light’

[Shammu]

Kristof, One of Few to Criticize Extent of Israel's Bombing Campaign, Returns With 2nd Column

By E&P Staff

Published: July 22, 2006 10:45 PM ET

NEW YORK Nicholas Krisof, one of the few major mainstream (or even blog) columnists to criticize the extent of Israel's bombing campaign against Lebanon, returned with a second column on this theme for The New York Times on Sunday.

He opened by recalling how friends of Israel had supported the 1982 invasion of Lebanon on much the same grounds heard today, and that turned into a disaster for the long-term secruity of Israel -- for one thing, it spawned Hezbollah. .

"Today again, Israel believes that it is improving its long-term security by attacking Lebanon. And once again, I believe, that will prove counterproductive," Kristof writes.

"Israel is likely to kill enough Lebanese to outrage the world, increase anti-Israeli and anti-American attitudes, nurture a new generation of anti-Israeli guerrillas, and help hard-liners throughout the region and beyond. ...

"More broadly, one reason this bombardment — like the invasion in 1982 — is against Israel’s own long-term interest has to do with the way terrorism is likely to change over the next couple of decades.

"In the past, terror attacks spilled blood and spread fear, but they did not challenge the survival of Israel itself. At some point, though, militant groups will recruit teams of scientists and give them a couple of years and a $300,000 research budget, and the result will be attacks with nerve gas, anthrax, or 'dirty bombs' that render areas uninhabitable for years.

"All this suggests that the only way for Israel to achieve security is to reach a final peace agreement, involving the establishment of a Palestinian state (because states can be deterred more easily than independent groups like Hamas). Such an agreement is not feasible now, but it might be five or 15 years from now. Israel’s self-interest lies in doing everything it can to make such a deal more likely — not in using force in ways that strengthen militants and make an agreement less likely."

Kristof closed by pointing to the positive examples of Britain (in recent dealings with the IRA) and Spain (the Basques).

"That admirable restraint should be the model for Israel, with the aim of making a comprehensive peace agreement more likely — in 2010 or 2020 if not in 2007. The record of Spain and Britain suggests that restraint and conciliation can seem maddeningly ineffective — but they are still the last, best hope for peace. "

Kristof, One of Few to Criticize Extent of Israel's Bombing Campaign, Returns With 2nd Column

[Shammu]

Method in madness: Why Israel’s laying waste to Lebanon
BY ERIC S. MARGOLIS

23 July 2006


ISRAEL’S relentless destruction of Lebanon continues while the rest of the world watches impassively. Half a million Lebanese civilians are by now internal refugees and many more have been ordered by Israel’s military to flee their homes in southern Lebanon.

Israel says it will re-create its former notorious ‘security zone’ north to the Litani River. In other words, a return to the miseries of Israel’s previous 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon.

But a new security zone may only be the beginning. Israel cannot defeat Hezbollah’s tough, well-dispersed fighters by bombing or shelling. It must send in infantry and fight them hand to hand. This could well mean a campaign that covers all Lebanon right up to Syria’s borders.

Hezbollah’s battle-hardened fighters have many times proven they are a match for Israel’s vaunted soldiers in close combat, or even their superiors when Israel cannot intervene with air power and heavy armour.

But loathe as Israel may be to take serious casualties, the new Olmert government seems determined to prove to voters and the world it is even tougher on Arabs than Ariel Sharon.

Equally important, the incapacitation of former PM Sharon has greatly strengthened the hand of Israel’s ultra hawkish military-intelligence establishment, which is determined to get revenge on Hezbollah for having shattered the very useful myth of Israel’s military invincibility and run it out of Lebanon in 2000.

Israel’s laying waste to Palestine and Lebanon is the most egregious violation of international laws since Russia’s savage destruction of tiny Chechnya and Serbia’s ethnic terrorism in Kosovo — a crime that brought well-justified Nato intervention.

Switzerland, the Conventions guardian, recently took the unprecedented step of warning Israel it was violating international law by its brutal behaviour in Palestine. But Swiss protests, and subsequent criticism from world leaders and the UN did nothing to halt Israel’s rampage in Palestine or Lebanon.

That was because the Bush Administration made clear to the world it had given Israel a golden carte blanche to punish Lebanon, eradicate Hezbollah, and likely use the current crisis as a pretext for major action against Syria and the ultimate target of the Israel-Washington axis, Iran.

The crisis also showed just how much the Bush administration has become ‘Sharonised,’ meaning having totally adopted the world view, diplomacy, philosophy and tactics of Israel’s hardline rightists to the point where the two nation’s polices are indistinguishable. Many new Bin Ladens will be paying close attention.

The seizure of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah that provoked the current crisis could have been easily resolved by the usual ritual bombing followed by secret talks. In 2004, Shaikh Hassan Nasrallah negotiated the release of hundreds of Lebanese hostages and Palestinian prisoners held in Guantanamo-like Israeli secret prisons.

Nasrallah’s objective this time was likely to shame his fellow Arabs into helping the tormented Palestinians and boosting ally Iran’s standing as a defender of Muslim rights.

But Israel and the US chose to turn this minor skirmish into a war. Israel has long sought to get the US to attack Iran and destroy its nuclear infrastructure, just as it played a key role in engineering the US destruction of its other main rival, Iraq.

Pro-war factions in Washington and occupied Jerusalem are now pushing for an assault on Syria, which Israel has long believed is so fragile it will splinter after a few hard blows. The road to Teheran lies through Damascus. Though bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington is hoping a combined US-Israeli air campaign can wreck Iran and set it back a decade — just what Israel says it is doing in Lebanon. President George Bush and his Republican Party’s political fortunes are dwindling fast. US mid-term elections are only months away. Bush needs a new war to boost his popularity, and Israel wants war while Bush is still in office.

It is unlikely, though not impossible (particularly if John McCain wins) that the US will have another such intellectually limited president who styles himself a ‘Christian Zionist’ and calls Ariel Sharon a mentor and ‘man of peace.’ Bush just declared a new crusade against Hezbollah, Syria and Iran ‘a new front in the war on terrorism.’ Israel’s mighty propaganda machine is in high gear promoting the claim that Hezbollah’s provocation was ordered by the new ‘axis of hate,’ Damascus and Teheran.

So Israel may be stoking the fires in Lebanon to draw America into war against Syria and Iran that would leave it dominant in the Mideast and its nuclear monopoly unchallenged. Vice-President Dick Cheney, America’s real president, has made clear his desire to go bomb Iran back to the Stone Age.

This is all part of ‘war on terrorism,’ says Washington. But isn’t terrorism defined by the US as the killing of civilians for political objectives? If the destruction of Lebanon does not fit this description, what does?

Method in madness: Why Israel’s laying waste to Lebanon

[Shammu]

A race against the clock
By Yoel Marcus

War breeds leaders, but it also kills them off. It all depends on how things turn out. For the moment, the decision that Ehud Olmert and Amir Peretz, under the spell of Dan Halutz, made to go to war against Hezbollah has catapulted them onto the stage of "A Star is Born." Over 80 percent of the public supports Operation Change in Direction, and over 70 percent approve of Olmert and Peretz as the leaders of the attack on Hezbollah-stan.

At the same time, a mutual love affair has blossomed between the home front and Israel's leaders. In contrast to the "drink some water" panic that seized the nation when the Scuds fell in 1991, the home front has been keeping its cool under the barrage of missiles that began on the northern border and moved on to Haifa. The home front continues to have faith in the government, mainly because of the consensus that Israel's actions are justified. The leaders reciprocate by praising the home front and laying the flattery on thick: Your stamina is what gives us the strength to go on. The trouble with these love affairs between the home front and the government is that they tend to be short-lived. Again, it depends on how things turn out.

The support expressed by America and many other countries, including a number of Arab nations, fortifies Israel and bolsters the justness of its cause. This broad backing for a military maneuver is hardly the sort of thing that happens to Israel every day. The reversal of the old refrain about the whole world being against us in certainly music to our ears, even if we know it is not forever.

On the other hand, it is no secret that going into Lebanon is easier than getting out. It took us 18 years to leave Lebanon after an operation that Ariel Sharon assured opposition leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres would take all of 48 hours. We can only hope that the government is weighing all the dangers involved in sending massive ground forces into Lebanon before it reaches a decision.

The air force claims that no ground force could do what its sophisticated technologies have been able to do. And anyone who says that no war has ever been won by air operations alone is wrong, in their opinion. The Gulf War was won without sending ground troops into Iraq.

So when can we say that the goals of the operation have been met? When an agreement is imposed that creates a buffer zone, manned by an international force and Lebanese troops, along the international border and keeps Hezbollah from setting foot south of the Litani River. While Hezbollah as a terror organization cannot be physically wiped out, because the Shiites are a part of the Lebanese people, it can be neutralized as a military opponent.

Unlike Operation Peace for Galilee, Israel has no plans to replace governments or install presidents or kings. Our sole objective is not to have troops who take orders from Iran and Syria grooming their mustaches on our border. From every possible angle, this is a defensive campaign. Israel's air strikes in Lebanon are justified, because Lebanon is responsible for allowing an armed force to sit on its international border and carry out attacks against Israel.

It is not clear how much the architects of Operation Change in Direction knew when they sat together and contemplated Israel's moves behind closed doors. Did they have advance knowledge of the quantity and quality of high-trajectory missiles that Hezbollah had stashed away? Did they know that Hezbollah would have the audacity to fire dozens, if not hundreds, of every kind of missile and rocket at Israeli towns and cities, day after day? Did they anticipate that dozens of Israelis would be killed and hundreds wounded? That the attacks would sow fear and destruction, leading tens of thousands of people to flee their homes? That plans were in the offing to fire missiles at Tel Aviv? A government spokesperson says that Hezbollah retaliation was taken into account. Maybe it was, and maybe it wasn't. But again, the end result is what counts.

In the meantime, Hezbollah is being surprisingly bold. America and the G8 may support Israel and cook up a ceasefire agreement, but Hezbollah as a militant organization is not going to disappear. A decisive victory is not in the cards. Even if the air force makes mincemeat out of them, they will not surrender. If Hassan Nasrallah is bumped off, a new idol will take his place.

Operations like this do not accomplish everything in one fell swoop. The important thing is that the beating Israel gives them sinks in and traumatizes them to the point where they will not be back on their feet anytime soon. But whatever we do, it had better be soon. Before the planners of the operation lose their faith in the home front. Before America says stop. As of now, it is a race against the clock.

A race against the clock