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In
depth I
The war on Lebanon
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Civilians in danger
Source:
Arab Association for Human Rights
On the basis of the investigation undertaken by the Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA), it emerges that temporary military installations from which missiles were fired into Lebanon during the 2006 war were indeed positioned in very close proximity to the Arab locales that suffered the gravest attacks during the war. This is in addition to permanent military installations in existence prior to the war. In some cases, the military installations were established inside the Arab locales. January 2008 (doc Word).[see more]
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Hezbollah’s capture of two soldiers in a raid across the border between Israel and Lebanon were considered by Israel as "unspeakable provocations". The immediate Israeli military "reaction" involved an intense bombing campaign, targeting civilian infrastructure and the innocent population.
The 34 days of war –from 12 July to 14 August 2006- killed over 1,500 people, mostly Lebanese civilians, severely damaged Lebanese infrastructure, and displaced about 900,000 Lebanese and 300,000 Israelis. Even after the ceasefire, 256,000 Lebanese remained internally displaced, and much of South Lebanon remained uninhabitable due to unexploded cluster bombs.
During the campaign, Israel's Air Force flew more than 12,000 combat missions. The Navy fired 2,500 shells, and the Army fired over 100,000 shells, destroying large parts of the Lebanese civilian infrastructure. 400 miles of roads, 73 bridges and 31 targets such as Beirut International Airport, ports, water and sewage treatment plants, electrical facilities, 25 fuel stations, 900 commercial structures, up to 350 schools and two hospitals were destroyed, as well as some 15,000 homes. Some 130,000 more homes were damaged.
During the campaign, Hezbollah fired between 3,970 and 4,228 rockets, which landed in all major cities of northern Israel, including Haifa, Nazareth, and Tiberias.
However, the number of civilian deaths in each side of the conflict are to be considered: 1,187 Lebanese, one third of whom were children under 13 years of age, and 44 Israelis.
On 11 August 2006 the United Nations Security Council unanimously approved UN Resolution 1701 in an effort to end the hostilities. The resolution, which was approved by both Lebanese and Israeli governments the following days, also called for the disarming of Hezbollah, for Israel to withdraw, and for the deployment of Lebanese soldiers and an enlarged United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) force in southern Lebanon.
This special coverage offers commentaries, analysis, human rights information, campaigns, and voices from civil society in Lebanon and the Middle East.
Versión
en español
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News |
| Up-to-date current affairs information. |
Thu Jul 12 2007
Israel/Hizbullah war casualties await justice
Fri Oct 27 2006
Lebanese civil society acts against cluster munitions
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In-depth
reports |
| Detailed
reports on key issues |
Internally Displaced Persons
For many, a bureaucratic term used to describe the often desperate situation that affects around 25 million people worldwide.
Disarmament
Every day, millions of men, women and children are living in fear of armed violence.
Israeli-Palestinian conflict
More than fifty years on, a problem still awaiting a solution.
Civil and political rights
Now more than ever are strong actions needed to defend the rights of all human beings, as proclaimed in a long list of international treaties.
International Criminal Court
The globalization of justice strengthens, despite US efforts to undermine it.
Iraq: the war and occupation
An in-depth report with special emphasis on information from alternative media and civil society opinion and analysis.
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NGOs |
| NGO web sites |
Arab NGO Network for Development - ANND
An organization consisting of Arab NGOs and national networks active in the fields of social development, human rights, gender, and the environment.
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Up-to-date information |
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Updates from Lebanon |
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Evidences of war crimes |
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Statements |
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Relevant documents |
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Articles |
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Converging upon war
Source: ZNet
Robert Blecher
"WAR," proclaimed the three-inch headline in Ma'ariv, Israel's leading daily, the day after Hizballah launched its cross-border attack on an Israeli army convoy on July 12. With the onset of Israel's massive bombing campaign in Lebanon that evening, its aerial and ground incursions into Gaza were transformed into the southern front of a two-front conflict. But are the two fronts, in Lebanon and Gaza, part of a single war? Speaking in such terms risks misidentifying what really links Israeli actions on its northern and southern borders. 19 July 2006.
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The Gaza/Lebanon crises: escalating occupation & danger of new border fighting
Source: Transnational Institute
Phyllis Bennis
The new escalation in south Lebanon followed clashes at the Israel-Lebanon border that led to the capture of two Israeli soldiers, apparently inside Israeli territory. If, as it appears (it did not take place in the disputed Sheba'a Farms area) this attack was Hezbollah's initiative in crossing Israel's border, Hezbollah was in violation of international law. Hezbollah claims their attack was designed to help the Palestinians negotiate a prisoner release. But the consequences are already extraordinarily dangerous. In response, Israel has showed its continued willingness to target civilians. Israeli warplanes attacked two bridges over the Litani River deep in southern Lebanon, killing two civilians; that was followed by an incursion with tanks, gunboats and planes across the Lebanese border. If the fighting continues, it raises the even more dangerous possibility that Syria could get involved either on the ground in Lebanon or if Israel attacks Syria directly. Such moves could threaten a significant broadening of a potential new war.
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Letting Lebanon burn
Source: Middle East Report Online
Israel is raining destruction upon Lebanon in a purely defensive operation, according to the White House and most of Congress. Even some CNN anchors, habituated to mechanical reporting of “Middle East violence,” sound slightly incredulous. With over 300 Lebanese dead and easily 500,000 displaced, with the Beirut airport, bridges and power plants disabled, the enormous assault is more than a “disproportionate response” to Hizballah’s July 12 seizure of two soldiers and killing of three others on Israeli soil. It is more than the “excessive use of force” that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan decries. 21 July 2006.
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Context of Israeli wars in Lebanon, Palestine: back to roots
Source: Counter Currents
Nicola Nasser
The ongoing Israeli wars on Arabs in Palestine and Lebanon are just the latest rounds of the cycle of violence that has raged in and around Palestine since 1917, and are vivid and bloody evidence that imposition of political realities by military means won’t last and that “Whoever takes by the sword, by the sword will be taken." 21 July 2006.
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Little dissent as Israelis support war
Source: BBC News
The withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon in 2000 was brought about in part by increasing public pressure to pull out. But, just six years on, Israelis stand almost unanimously behind the decision to wage a new war across the country's northern border. 23 July 2006.
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Israel's "new Middle East"
Source: Electronic Lebanon
Beirut is burning, hundreds of Lebanese die, hundreds of thousands lose all they ever owned and become refugees, and all the world is doing is rescuing the "foreign passport" residents of what was just two weeks ago "the Paris of the Middle East". Lebanon must die now, because "Israel has the right to defend itself", so goes the U.S. mantra, used to block any international attempt to impose a cease fire. 27 July 2006.
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Israel's cruel offensive
Source: Electronic Lebanon
James Abourezk
Israel has bombed the milk factory in Beirut, the grain silos in Tripoli, hospitals, all the bridges in the country, the highways leading in and out of Lebanon, as well those leading in and out of the villages they are bombing. Israel has dropped leaflets on villages in the south telling them to evacuate, then they bomb the vehicles people are using to flee the villages. It's high-tech ethnic cleansing, as Israel has destroyed people's homes and they have nothing to return to. 30 July, 2006.
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Lebanon for beginners
Source: Electronic Lebanon
Laurie King
For many Americans, the names "Lebanon" and "Beirut" have long been synonymous with violence, chaos, terrorism, hostage-taking, and anti-US organizations, ideologies, and activities. These place names are often bywords for a total breakdown of social, political, and legal order. Indeed, the noun "Lebanization" has been applied to numerous situations of internecine ethnic conflicts played out in urban settings. Countering such conventional perceptions, this introduction to recent Lebanese history argues that even during the worst phases of Lebanon's multidimensional wars (usually fought in and over Beirut) order and patterns were evident in the structures and levels of confrontation: local, national, regional, and international. July 2006.
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The draft UN resolution
Source: Guardian Unlimited
This is the draft concluded between the US, France and Britain on resolving the Lebanon crisis which has yet to be agreed by the Security Council. 6 August 2006.
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The Palestinian struggle for self-determination, the massacre of Lebanon and Israel’s expansionist ideology
Source: International Gender and Trade Network
Mariama Williams
That Europe owes a psychological and physical debt to the Jewish people is undeniable. That Europe has been trying for sometime now to come to grip with this debt and wipe the slate as clean as is possible is also undeniable. That Israel and the Jewish people have been steadfast in ensuring the repayment of this debt by any means necessary is also undeniable. That the repayment of the debt has been contracted in terms of words, hard currency, bloodshed and land is also irrefutable. However, what is not so well discussed is that the largest part of the down payment of that debt has been on the backs of and with the blood of a people not a party to the original and historic deeds—the Palestinian people. August 2006.
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What can Israel achieve?
Source: Transnational Institute
Immanuel Wallerstein
The State of Israel was established in 1948. Ever since, there has been continuous violence between Jews and Arabs in Israel, and between Israel and its neighbors. Sometimes, the violence was low-level and even latent. And every once in a while, the violence escalated into open warfare, as now. Whenever full- scale violence broke out, there was an immediate debate about what started it, as though that mattered. We are now in the midst of warfare between Israel and Palestine in Gaza and between Israel and Lebanon. And the world is engaged in its usual futile debate about how to reduce the open state of warfare to low-level violence. 1 August 2006.
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The end of Lebanon?
Source: Electronic Lebanon
Ran HaCohen
The UN Security Council resolution draft on Lebanon reflects a new stage of Western colonialism in the Middle East, and perhaps a historic precedent: for the first time, the UN Security Council - should the resolution draft be endorsed - breaches the fundamental principle of the right of people under occupation to resist, and in fact legitimizes the violent partition of the sovereign state of Lebanon. 10 August 2006.
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UN Security Council Resolution 1701: A critical analysis
Source: Alarab Online
Sharif Hikmat Nashashibi
There are several problems with the resolution, which Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres has openly said is "favourable to Israel" and "justifies the stance Israel has adopted since the start." Following its passage on 11 August 2006, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor added that "we have the diplomatic advantage." 16 August 2006.
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Fighting in Lebanon stops, problems remain
Source: Third World Network Features
Martin Khor
The Middle East crisis seemed to have eased a bit, when fighting in Lebanon stopped several days after the UN Security Council resolution. But the Israeli blockade of Lebanon continues, and disagreements emerged on the nature and role of the UN peacekeeping force. Meanwhile, the plight of the Palestinians has worsened. August 2006.
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Effects of the war on Lebanese agriculture
Source: Via Campesina
In Lebanon, there are around 600.000 farmers, some of them are farmers owning small lands, and others work on lands they do not own. The Sydicate of Lebanese Farm Workers is in contacts with around 30.000 farmers. 21 August 2006.
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Hizballah: a Primer
Source: Middle East Report Online
Lara Deeb
Hizballah, the Lebanese Shi‘i movement whose militia is fighting the Israeli army in south Lebanon, has been cast misleadingly in much media coverage of the ongoing war. Much more than a militia, the movement is also a political party that is a powerful actor in Lebanese politics and a provider of important social services. Not a creature of Iranian and Syrian sponsorship, Hizballah arose to battle Israel’s occupation of south Lebanon from 1982-2000 and, more broadly, to advocate for Lebanon’s historically disenfranchised Shi‘i Muslim community. While it has many political opponents in Lebanon, Hizballah is very much of Lebanon. 31 July 2006.
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Lebanon: war without a plan
Source: Counter Currents
Uri Avnery
When the Israeli government decided, in the space of a few hours, to start the Second Lebanon War, it did not have any plan. When the Chief-of-Staff urged the cabinet to start the war, he did not submit any plan. This was disclosed recently by a military investigation committee. That is shocking. December 2006.
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Lebanon destroyed, destabilised, desperate for change
Source: Inter Press Service
Dahr Jamail
Before July 12 this year when the war broke out, many people in this nation of four million situated north of Israel believed they were finally shaking away the last of the dust from the 15-year civil war 1975-90 which decimated the country. December 2006.
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Western Middle East policy undermines genuine civil society
Source: Arabic Media Internet Network
Emad Omar and Jason Erb
With the recent upsurge in violent conflict throughout the Middle East, it appears that civil society's ability to protect human rights and deliver basic services is increasingly inadequate. As strife, instability and conflict increases, there is a feeling among many people in the region of deep frustration, as conflict flares, dies down and flares up again. March 2007.
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