Legal Activists of Color: A Bridge Too Far: Israeli Air Raids Destroy Humanitarian Supply Lines North of Beirut

"...Public opinion is 100 percent against Israel from this area," said Camille Chamoun...

...One hospital in the heart of Beirut will stop taking new patients while another in the south - full of war wounded - expects to close soon....

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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/05/world/middleeast/05mideast.html?ref=middleeast

Published: August 5, 2006

The New YorkTiimes

Israeli Air Raids Destroy Bridges North of Beirut

By JOHN KIFNER and STEVEN ERLANGER

Published: August 5, 2006

HALAT, Lebanon, Aug. 4 - Israeli airstrikes destroyed four bridges along Lebanon's main north-south highway in the Christian heartland north of Beirut on Friday, and killed more than 30 people in other areas far from Hezbollah-controlled territory.

A crowd gathered Friday near the bodies of 28 farm workers killed when Israeli missiles hit a warehouse at Qaa, near the Syrian border.

With the Beirut-Damascus road already cut at several points, the attacks seemed aimed at arms routes from Syria. But because those same routes bring supplies and aid into the country, the strikes tightened Lebanon's sense of siege...

[...Loud explosions resounded in Beirut's suburbs early Saturday as Israeli warplanes renewed their onslaught, according to the Associated Press...

...An Israeli soldier was killed and another wounded by mortars during a sweep of Taibeh in eastern Lebanon early Saturday, and eight naval commandos were wounded in Tyre, the Israeli military said.]

Here in Halat, at the steep gorge cut by the Fidar River running down the mountains to the Mediterranean, dozens of Maronite Catholic residents gathered to stare in stunned silence at a roughly 200-yard stretch of four-lane highway flattened into rubble. The walls of the bridge's support rose like cliffs at either end.

"Where are the Katyushas of the Hezbollah here?" asked Joseph Abihana, who said he had been awakened by four blasts. "We are used to being a safe area here, but now there is no safety. I blame the Israelis."

An eight-truck United Nations convoy carrying tons of supplies was stuck north of the blown-out bridge. Other aid convoys from Beirut were unable to travel south.

"The whole road is gone," said Astrid van Genderan Stort, a United Nations official here. "It's really a major setback because we used this highway to move staff and supplies into the country."

In the Bekaa Valley, hard against the Syrian border, an airstrike killed at least 28 seasonal farm workers, most of them Syrian Kurds, loading fruit and vegetables into a truck.

Ali Yaghi, the head of the rescue service in the tiny village of Qaa, told reporters that others might be buried in the rubble. Israel has frequently fired upon vehicles it suspected of carrying fighters or weapons, but has also hit vehicles with water drilling rigs, convoys of medical supplies and minivans of fleeing civilians.

The airstrikes began in the early-morning hours, hitting familiar targets that were already largely flattened in the Hezbollah strongholds, Haret Hreik and Bir Abed, just south of Beirut in the sprawling slum known as Dahieh. The airstrikes spread for the first time to the little port and fishing village of Ouzai near the Beirut airport.

In Ouzai, pieces of boat hulls, engines and shrapnel were scattered throughout the field, and were flung several blocks away, injuring one person. Nearby, a youth center financially supported by Hezbollah was decimated in the attacks that rattled nerves and signaled a widening of bombing beyond Haret Hreik, where most of the airstrikes have occurred.

Decades ago, the neighborhood was lined with luxurious beaches and resorts. But during the civil war, it was populated by refugees who built shanty towns and houses that have remained there ever since.

More than 400 fishing boats and trawlers, most of them moored in a dock, others stored in a nearby field, were destroyed in the bombings, residents said.

"The planes came from above, and then we heard ships shooting, too," said Jihad al-Hoss, who lived across the road. "They hit 30 or 35 rounds into the area."

At least five people were killed in the attacks in northern Lebanon, security officials said, while the Lebanese Army - essentially a noncombatant force in this conflict - said one of its soldiers had been killed in the bombardment of the southern suburbs...

...The Israeli Army said two soldiers and an officer were killed Friday when they were struck by an antitank rocket.

...A road between Lebanon and Syria was hit today by Israeli strikes.

Throughout the night, dozens of air raids shook villages in the vicinities of Tyre and Nabatiye behind the front lines.

[On Saturday morning, Reuters reported, Israeli jets hit a refugee camp south of Tyre, wounding a civilian, security sources said...

[...The Israelis also continued airstrikes on the second front of the conflict, in Gaza. Strikes early on Saturday killed four Palestinians and wounded five more in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, The Associated Press reported. The first strike killed a woman and two of her children, ages 16 and 15, the director of the local hospital said...

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..A spokesman, Ahmad Fawzi, portrayed Mr. Annan as "deeply, deeply concerned that it is taking so long" to come up with a resolution...

...The bombings in Lebanon was yet another crippling blow to Lebanon's infrastructure, painstakingly rebuilt over the last decade after years of civil war. Lebanese officials say 71 bridges have been destroyed - including elaborate overpasses on the Damascus road - and they estimate the damage at $2 billion and rising. Nearly a quarter of the population of four million has been displaced, with more than 100,000 finding temporary shelter in schools.

Fuel supplies for power plants is running low, and there are fears that the electricity could be shut down. In the central Hamra district in the capital, the normally clogged traffic is nonexistent, except at the rare gas station, which is likely to be jammed.

The war came home to the Christian region on Friday, as different in this religiously divided land as night and day from the poor and pious Shiite Muslim strongholds of Hezbollah. Several of the bridges hit on Friday were near the major resort area around Junieh, site of the Casino Du Liban, famous for its floor shows.

Because of the steep mountain terrain, it will be extremely difficult to bring in any supplies.

While many Christians have long distrusted Hezbollah and other Muslims and Druse and have criticized the seizure of two Israeli soldiers on July 12, the damage Israel has inflicted on Lebanon appears to be shifting sentiments.

"Public opinion is 100 percent against Israel from this area," said Camille Chamoun, scion of one of three major Christian families who mounted militias against Muslim and Palestinian forces in the civil war and whose faction was aligned with Israel in their 1982 invasion.

"This is just an excuse to hit more of our infrastructure," said Manal Azzi, 26, a health worker who lives next to the destroyed bridge here.

"I'm here speaking as a Christian," she said. "Israel is our main invader and has been for the last 50 years. Right now we're getting more civilian casualties, so we'll have another war in 10, 15 years. They talk about a new Middle East. To serve who? Israel and the United States. Israel is itself a terrorist state backed up by the United States."

A little farther south, the highway was cut in half by an explosion that struck a small truck and a Mercedes sedan in the southbound lane, knocking out the telecommunications lines linking about 300,000 subscribers in the north and the rest of the country.

"We were very surprised. It's a new escalation," said Dr. Youssef Abdul, the general director of the Ministry of Telecommunications. "Let me tell you, this is a Christian area. We will resist by repairing. We are very surprised."

Kamil Fakeh, a refugee from the hard-hit southern village of Sreifa, appeared stunned. "They want to destroy Hezbollah, but they are destroying Lebanon," he said.

John Kifner reported from Halat, Lebanon, for this article, and Steven Erlanger from Jerusalem. Hassan M. Fattah contributed reporting from Ouzai, Lebanon, and Warren Hoge from the United Nations.

also see - http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5412.shtml

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Market Garden

http://www.wordridden.com/post/14

...Waffen SS General Wilhelm Bittrich granted a British request not only for a cease-fire to evacuate their wounded, but he also agreed to accept the seriously wounded men that the British could not properly care for into his own already overburdened hospitals...

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Bittrich

...Unlike many other SS officers of similar rank, Bittrich conducted himself with honor throughout his career and was not charged with any crimes following his capture in 1945...

...During the fighting the general had made an arrangement permitting the enemy to run a field hospital situated behind the German lines...

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Market_Garden

For his part, Montgomery called Market Garden "90% successful" and said:

In my prejudiced view, if the operation had been properly backed from its inception, and given the aircraft, ground forces, and administrative resources necessary for the job, it would have succeeded in spite of my mistakes, or the adverse weather, or the presence of the 2nd SS Panzer Corps in the Arnhem area. I remain Market Garden's unrepentant advocate.

Dutch Prince Bernhard responded directly to this to Cornelius Ryan:

My country can never again afford the luxury of another Montgomery success.

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http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/15204318.htm?source=rss&channel=thestate_news

TheState.com

Posted on Sat, Aug. 05, 2006

Blockade tightens as Israel cuts off Lebanon's last major supply link to the world

By ZEINA KARAM

The Associated Press

BEIRUT, Lebanon - One hospital in the heart of Beirut will stop taking new patients while another in the south - full of war wounded - expects to close soon.

Shortages of medicines and generator fuel are acute across this battered country and supplies of milk, rice and sugar are low. Now, with the Israeli bombing of the last highway to the outside world, more shortages are sure to come.

"This is Lebanon's umbilical cord," Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Program said of the four key bridges destroyed along Beirut's main access road to the north - the last major resupply link to Syria. "This (road) has been the only way for us to bring in aid. We really need to find other ways to bring relief in."

"It is a real catastrophe," said Dr. Ghassan Hammoud, who runs a 320-bed hospital in the southern port city of Sidon that he says might have to shut down within 10 days.

The Hammoud Hospital, he said, is filled with wounded from the fighting in southern Lebanon and is already operating on dwindling medical supplies and acute fuel shortages.

"I expect the situation to get much worse, after what happened today," Hammoud said.

Significantly broadening their bombing campaign, Israeli airstrikes Friday destroyed four bridges on the main north-south coastal highway linking Beirut to Syria. An Israeli naval blockade - along with earlier strikes against the road to the eastern border and the capital's international airport - have closed off other access points.

Dr. George Tomey, acting president of the American University of Beirut, said the university's medical center will stop receiving new patients as of Monday, except for emergency cases.

"We have reached a very critical stage," he said of shrinking medical and gasoline supplies. Many hospital staff were too scared to report to work, he said, while others could not get to work because of gasoline shortages.

"As of Monday, if the situation remains like this, we're going to close most of the hospital and keep only the operating rooms and emergency units functioning. Only critical patients will be admitted," he said.

Tomey, who has been at the university for 42 years and lived through Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war, said the situation is the worst he's seen.

"It's very sad. We have never had to close the hospital, not even during the worst days of the civil war," he said.

President Emile Lahoud accused Israel of waging a "war of starvation" against Lebanese civilians.

"It is an aggression that has exceeded Israel's declared objectives. Israel has now decided to destroy Lebanon," he said in a statement.

Israel's naval blockade has kept fuel tankers from reaching Lebanon, leading to gasoline shortages. Across the country, long lines of cars form at gas stations where drivers are only allowed to buy a maximum of 2ˆ gallons of gas.

Essential medicines, including blood pressure and diabetes medications, are in short supply and grocery stores have run out of essentials such as milk, diapers, baby food and canned goods. They also report shrinking supplies of basic staples like rice and sugar.

"Milk is out of the question, forget it. I'm running out of lots of other foodstuffs too. If you need anything take it now because I fear next week there won't be much left," said grocer Fuad Yammine.

Electricity cuts are getting worse, with some areas getting only two hours of electricity a day. Candles and batteries have become a rare commodity in supermarkets and stores.

Hammoud said his hospital was receiving just six hours of electricity a day and he has only a week's worth of fuel for the backup generator. "We are rationing medicines, we're already canceling or postponing non-urgent operations, taking only the critical cases," he said.

He has received a small amount of medical supplies from organizations such as Doctors without Borders, but it's not enough, he said.

Hammoud worries about chronic cases at his hospital, such as those on life support or kidney dialysis machines.

"I don't know what will happen to those patients if we have to shut down. They will be finished," he said.

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LEBANON: Mental hospital nearly out of medicine

IRIN - Aug 03 11:13 AM

ZEFTA, 3 Aug 2006 (IRIN) - A mental hospital in south Lebanon is just days away from running out of the medicine used to treat its 250 schizophrenic patients, its director said on Thursday.

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also of interest -

Young Jews stage "die-in" in Boston to protest Israeli war

Marjorie Dove
3 August 2006

http://www.electronicintifada.net/lebanon/

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http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0804-03.htm

common dreams

Israeli Soldier Incarcerated for Refusing to Fight

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http://www.electronicintifada.net/lebanon/

Human Rights/Development: Oil Spill Reaches Syrian Coastline ( 4 August 2006)

Human Rights/Development: Oil-spill clean-up delayed by conflict ( 4 August 2006)

New York Times

INTERNATIONAL / MIDDLE EAST | July 29, 2006
Environment: Casualties of War: Lebanon's Trees, Air and Sea
By HASSAN M. FATTAH
As Israel continues its bombing campaign, environmentalists are warning of widespread and lasting damage.

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t r u t h o u t | 08.04

John Conyers | The Constitution in Crisis
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/080406R.shtml

Congressman John Conyers released the final version of his report today, the
"Constitution in Crisis." The report, which is some 350 pages in length and is
supported by more than 1,400 footnotes, compiles the accumulated evidence that
the Bush administration has thumbed its nose at our nation's laws, and the
Constitution itself.