Israeli strike in south Lebanon kills 13 (AP)

[allemand]

GHAZIYEH, Lebanon - Israeli airstrikes hit near a funeral procession in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, sending some of the 1,500 mourners running in panic and killing at least 13 people in nearby buildings, witnesses, hospital officials and the town's mayor said.

Missiles slammed into a building in Ghaziyeh, a Shiite town southeast of the port city of Sidon, about five minutes after the procession passed. One person was killed and five wounded in that attack, rescuers and witnesses said.

Thirty minutes later, Israeli warplanes staged four more bombing runs, destroying two buildings, said Ghaziyeh Mayor Mohammed Ghaddar. Twelve more people were killed and 18 wounded in those strikes, according to tally from three area hospitals. (...)

Fifteen people died in Ghaziyeh on Monday, when Israeli airstrikes flattened three buildings there.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060808/ap_on_re_mi_ea/lebanon_israel_874

Death toll in IAF strike on Ghaziyeh rises to 14 (Haaretz)
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/ShTickers.html

In other news:

BBC: Aftermath of Beirut missile strike

In the residential suburb of Chyah in Beirut workmen have been clearing up after the Israeli missile attack on Monday night.

The missile fell on a block of flats, killing at least 15 people and wounding an estimated 40. (...)

This is a densely populated residential district. Businesses in the street include a supermarket, a hairdressing salon, a fishmonger's, a greengrocer's and a mobile phone shop. (...)

Many families displaced by the Israel bombardment of south Beirut nearby came here because, until Monday evening, they believed it to be safe.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5256450.stm

[endarkenment]

1. 5,4,3,2,1

Just to be fair.

[cali]

2. For fuck's sake:

A funeral procession? What could be sicker than that?

[allemand]

3. Firing a missile into a five-story residential apartment block in a

crowded district that had not been attacked before and was therefore considered "safe", perhaps?

:grr:

[mom cat]

4. Like the US, Israel is losing whatever moral authority is ever had.

War crimes have a way of doing that.

[manic expression]

5. Unbelievable

This is worse than murder.

[allemand]

6. Update: at least 31 killed, 60 wounded in Beirut missile strike

Support for Hezbollah strengthens with every bombed Beirut building
From Daniel McGrory in Beirut

AYYAD AMMAR moved among the rescuers clawing through the ruins of a Beirut apartment block yesterday morning, holding up a photograph of his 14-year-old grandson and asking if anyone had seen the boy.
Ahmed Kanj had gone to play computer war games in the internet café at the foot of the seven-storey building minutes before an Israeli missile struck the building.

A fireman told the old man finally that he had found the teenager’s broken body at daybreak. Mr Ammar bowed his head and began to weep as the crowd around him swore vengeance against Israel for the massacre on Hajjaj Street. The walking wounded and families searching for missing relatives began chanting the name of Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, even though most who live here support Amal, a rival Shia group.

Diaa el-Husseini, 34, a market trader, who lived in the adjoining tower block, said: “We thought we were safe here so we stayed. We are not fighters. We are families who only want a peaceful life, but Israel wants to terrorise us all into leaving the southern suburbs of Beirut. Today we all feel part of the Hezbollah resistance.”

If Israel thought that by slowly strangling the life out of the Lebanese capital, by blockading it from land, sea and air, it would turn Christians against their Muslim neighbours it appears to have miscalculated. The tragedy on Hajjaj Street, which killed at least 31 and wounded 60, was Beirut’s single biggest loss of life since the war began, bringing the total to more than 1,000, and merely hardened the public mood. Even those in the Christian half of the capital, who were beginning to call for a ceasefire at any price, spoke yesterday of their disgust at what Israeli warplanes were doing to their city. George Serrin, 42, a businessman, has no love for Sheikh Nasrallah and his militia, but said: “Of course I care for my family’s safety and want this war over now. But I am sickened at the needless ruination done to my city, our city.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,251-2304923,00.html

[Endangered Specie]

7. Maybe next the IDF will bomb a hospital or nursery...

or have they dont that too already?

[leftchick]

8. beautiful baby girl Murdered in the strike! *Graphic*

A Lebanese morgue worker and a nurse cover the body of a dead l girl at a hospital morgue in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2006, after a building collapsed in the town of Ghaziyeh following Israeli airstrikes. Israeli airstrikes hit near a funeral procession in south Lebanon on Tuesday, sending some of the 1,500 mourners running in panic and killing at least 13 people in nearby buildings, witnesses, hospital officials and the town's mayor said. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

[allemand]

9. Robert Fisk on why the building in Beirut was struck

Robert Fisk: What do you say to a man whose family is buried under the rubble?
Published: 09 August 2006

There were bulldozers turning over the tons of rubble, a cloud of dust and smoke a mile high over the smashed slums of Beirut's southern suburbs and a tall man in a grey T-shirt - a Brooklyn taxi driver, no less - standing on the verge of tears, staring at what may well be the grave of his grandfather, his uncle and aunt. Half the family home had been torn away and the entire block of civilian apartments next door had been smashed to the ground a few hours earlier by the two missiles that exploded in Asaad al-Assad Street.

What do you say to a man whose family is buried under the rubble? The last corpse had been a man whose face appeared etched in dust before the muck was removed and he turned out to be paper-thin - so perfectly had the falling concrete crushed him. Mohamed al-Husseini had left New York for a holiday with his young wife and infant child - they were safe in the centre of Beirut - because he wanted to see his family home and talk to the relatives he grew up with.
(...)

And why was the building struck? The Israelis have slaughtered hundreds of civilians, attacking convoys of refugees they themselves ordered to leave. But Saadieh, Ali Rmeiti's sister-in-law, has a story which matches those of two other survivors. Before the missiles exploded, she said, an Israeli drone flew over the Shiyyah district, a pilotless reconnaissance aircraft which sends live pictures back to Tel Aviv. "Um Kamel", as the Lebanese call them, whined around for a time and then, without warning, someone drove down Assaad al-Assad street on a motorcycle and fired into the sky with a rifle opposite the Rmeiti home.

Then he left, some youth who wanted to prove his foolish manhood. You can't destroy drones with a rifle, as any Hizbollah member knows. But not long afterwards, the two missiles came streaking down on the homes of the innocent.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1217826.ece

[High Plains]

10. If that account is correct, it is the perfect emblem of Israel's

disproportionality in the use of force. You reap what you sow, folks.

[AliceWonderland]

11. Sigh... n/t

[breakaleg]

12. Thanks to Fisk for showing us the human side of this in Lebanon.