Lebanese Man Loses 15 Family Members

[Omaha Steve]

Full story: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20060809/D8JCS3BG3.html

Lebanese Man Loses 15 Family Members
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Aug 9, 7:06 AM (ET)

By ZEINA KARAM


BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Ali Rmeity lies broken and bandaged on a hospital bed, wincing in pain. Three of his children and his parents are dead - but he doesn't know all that yet. Doctors fear telling the 45-year-old now would be a bigger blow than he can sustain.

Rmeity was at home with his wife and four children shortly after nightfall Monday when Israeli missiles slammed into their apartment building in the predominantly Shiite southern Beirut suburb of Chiah.


Injured Lebanese boy Hussein Rmeity, 9, suffering from head trauma and brain contusion rests in the intensive care unit of Mount Lebanon hospital in Hazmiyeh, Lebanon, near Beirut as his father Ali looks on Tuesday Aug. 8, 2006. The Rmeitys' were rescued from the rubble of their collapsed apartment building following an Israeli strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut shortly after nightfall Monday that killed at least 15 people, police said. Ali Rmeity lost his two daughters and one son with his parents, three brothers, two sisters and their three children, according to hospital officials and family members. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian)


At least 41 people were killed - including 15 from Rmeity's family - making it the deadliest single strike of the four-week-old Israeli offensive in Lebanon. Workers continued to retrieve bodies from under the slabs of concrete Wednesday.

"I had been feeling tired, so I went into the bedroom and lay down on the bed. Five minutes later the bombs fell and I found myself crying for help under the rubble," Rmeity said Tuesday. "My wife, who was on the balcony, was thrown in the air. They found her somewhere, I don't know where."

[laylah]

1. .

:cry: Such unnecessary carnage :mad: But then again, what is "necessary" carnage? :sarcasm:

Jenn

[AlamoDemoc]

2. K&R

While we elect, they too buried their dead.

[question everything]

3. How many are Hezbollah "fighters?"

Have you noticed that all we hear is "Lebanese dead." There is never a breakdown of how many - of the men, at least - are Hezbollah.

Talk about propaganda.

[High Plains]

4. There is no indication there were Hezbollah fighters there.

Hezbollah isn't regularly releasing casualty figures, but if I recall correctly, they are claiming some dozens of fighters have been killed. Israel claims hundreds of Hezbollah fighters have been killed.

Interestingly, Israel, with it's precision-guided munitions, seems to be killing far more civilians than Hezbollah fighters. Meanwhile, Hezbollah appears to be killing more Israeli soldiers than civilians. Go figger.

Now, what was that about propaganda?

[LostinVA]

5. What, your propoganda?

[951-Riverside]

7. LostinVA don't be afraid speak your mind

*cracks knuckles*

[PA Democrat]

6. These "Lebanese dead" included 3 of the man's children, his wife

and his elderly parents. They were in an apartment building in Beirut. I have seen no reports of Hezbollah rockets being fired from Beirut or Hezbollah fighters engaging with IDF in Beirut. Where is the "propaganda" in this story?

[KaptBunnyPants]

12. Well the children would have become Hezbollah...

The man probably was Hezbollah, his parents probably were ex-Hezbollah, and his wife can be thought of munitions factory for Hezbollah. Don't you see, there are no innocent victims when Israel marches to victory!

[MrPrax]

8. What?

Israel doesn't 'break them down' so why would you get annoyed that the Media isn't?

“We will turn back the clock in Lebanon by 20 years.” - General Dan Haltz, Israel’s Chief of Staff.

But upon a simple search, we find:

South Lebanon Closed; Strikes Kill 19

"...Some of the fiercest ground fighting raged around the village of Bint Jbail, a Hezbollah stronghold that Israeli has tried to capture for weeks. Three Israel soldiers were killed there Tuesday, the military said, claiming 35 Hezbollah guerrillas died in the fighting. Hezbollah would not confirm any deaths.
Forbes

Widely circulated AP story fresh off the new service? This is the type of thing I see all the time :shrug:

Need an update...Here's ABC news with an updated AP listing:

Right there in the first paragraph:

At Least 642 Lebanese, 97 Israelis Killed

Since Fighting Began

Aug. 8 - At least 642 have been killed -- including 558 civilians confirmed dead by the Health Ministry, 29 Lebanese soldiers and at least 55 Hezbollah guerrillas. The Lebanese government's Higher Relief Council said 973 Lebanese had been killed in the conflict. As of Sunday Israeli security officials said they had confirmed the deaths of 165 Hezbollah fighters and estimated that 200 others had been killed.

(then scrolling way down)


"...IN ISRAEL: 97
...Ninety-seven have been killed, including 61 soldiers, 36 civilians, according to authorities."
KABC7

There seems to be some confusion over listing which is what, no?
But I think one thing can be agreed on, is that the dead are listed by citizenship...just like the Israeli military dead who are added routinely to the civillian death toll by reporting agencies?

Seems most of the news services including AP are doing what you asked ... lowballing the civillian death toll in Lebanon and subtracting out whatever Israel claims is a Hezbollah fighter?

[breakaleg]

10. That's because they are reporting "civilian" casualties...

Just because Israel doesn't make a distinction between Hezbollah fighters, Hezbollah political members and people who not support Hezbollah due to the fact they are the only ones trying to expect Israel from once again taking over their country, doesn't mean the people of Lebanon are all Hezbollah.

I supposed all those children that were killed were Hezbollah also? That charge has certainly been made before in this forum.

[Tom Joad]

15. The Israeli government has made clear that all in South Lebanon are legit

targets.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5219360.stm

Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon said....

Mr Ramon - a close confidant of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert - said "everyone understands that a victory for Hezbollah is a victory for world terror".

He said that in order to prevent casualties among Israeli soldiers battling Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon, villages should be flattened by the Israeli air force before ground troops moved in.


He added that Israel had given the civilians of southern Lebanon ample time to quit the area and therefore anyone still remaining there could be considered a Hezbollah supporter.

"All those now in south Lebanon are terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah," Mr Ramon said.

[CAcyclist]

17. Unprintable Israel

I consider this genocide.

[Occulus]

9. Observation:

We're always being told by our media that nations in this part of the world have 'bad everything'. Not outright saying it, mind you, just giving us an overall impression.

However, there's one fly in that ointment: that could be any American hospital in the photo- including the ethnicity of both doctor and patient.

Makes ya think a bit.

[CornField]

11. We are taught

We are taught from the time we are infants that when disaster strikes... when the unbelievable happens... when the entire world has gone crazy... that we should come together with our family. Those in war zones remember those lessons and they come together - husbands, wives, children, parents, cousins, uncles, nieces, nephews, aunts, grandparents. Unfortunately, war isn't a family value nor does it respect the family unit. Large gatherings are seen as a threat and they are targeted from miles away.

And, when the bombs fall and the people fall, after the rubble is cleared away to expose the defunct family unit, the people are initially outraged. Quickly, however, defenses crop up as we shake our heads to remove the truth from our minds. Surely these were fighters! Surely these civilians were somehow connected to those who wish harm! Surely the bad people were using these civilians as shields! This type of thing always happens during a war!

----------

Once upon a time in the land of hushabye,
Around about the wondrous days of yore,
I came across a sort of box
Bound up with chains and locked with locks
And labelled "Kindly do not touch. It's war."

Decree was issued round about
All with a flourish and a shout
And a gaily coloured mascot tripping lightly on before,
"Don't fiddle with this deadly box or break the chains or pick the locks
And please, don't ever play about with war."

Well, the children understood.
Children happen to be good
They were just as good around the time of yore.
They didn't try to pick the locks, or break into that deadly box
They never tried to play about with war

Mommies didn't either -
Sisters, aunts, grannies neither -
Cause they were quiet and sweet and pretty in those wondrous days of yore
Well... very much the same as now, and not the ones to blame somehow
For opening up that deadly box of war

But someone did...
Someone battered in the lid,
And spilled the insides out across the floor.
A sort of bouncy, bumpy ball with guns and flags and all the tears and horror and the death that goes with war.

It bounced right out
And went bashing all about
And bumping into everything in store.
And what was sad and most unfair is that it didnt seem to care who much it bumped
Or why, or what, or for.

It bumped the children mainly
And I'll tell you this quite plainly
It bumps them every day, and more and more, and leaves them dead and burned and dying
Thousands of them sick and crying.
Cause when it bumps, its really very sore.

Now theres a way to stop the ball.
It isn't difficult at all.
All it takes is wisdom. I'm absolutely sure that we could get it back into the box,
And bind the chains and lock the locks.
But no one seems to want to save the children any more.

Well, that's the way it all appears,
Cause its been bouncing round for years and years.
In spite of all the wisdom wizzed since those wondrous days of yore.
And the time they came across the box,
Bound up with chains and locked with locks,
And labelled "Kindly do not touch. It's war."

[Tom Joad]

13. We are told that Arabs are taught to hate Israel only from their textbooks

Yet what is their daily experience?
No sugar-coating of this atrocity of our time, the complete destruction of Lebanon, can ever change what Arabs see with their own eyes. If every school in the Arab world were to only use Israeli-approved textbooks in their schools, there will be no change in their distrust of the Israeli state.

I think the best way to change this distrust and anomosity is to modify Israel's behavior. It needs to act as something other than a threat, a colonizier, willing to ethnically cleanse areas wherever it desires.

[unda cova brutha]

14. * must be happy about this

he is probally jackking off over the news.

[Tom Joad]

16. Kerry and Kennedy also fully support Israeli military actions.

No voters live in Lebanon anyway.

[JackNewtown]

18. Also no "pro-Lebanon" lobby nt