July 25, 2006

According to Human Rights Watch, Israel is now dropping cluster bombs on Lebanese villages, and have already killed and wounded men, women and children. Meanwhile, the Lebanese Minister of Health says wounded children are suffering from the impact of white phosphorus. The Lebanese president repeated the claim yesterday. As Israel pushes further into Lebanon, it continues to target civilians, in one incident blowing up a house and killing the family inside. A Times reporter has told ABC news that he has witnessed the deliberate targeting of civilians.

We have to bear in mind precisely how much the information that gets out into the mass media is conditioned by Israeli censorship. The Associated Press describes the immense power of the Israeli military censors, and in particular their ability to block the release of information such as Hezbollah missile strikes on strategic targets etc. If the Israeli troops are finding more difficulty finding Hezbollah than they expected, they may be about to face more woes. The Washingtong Times reports that Muqtada al-Sadr's troops are readying themselves to enter Lebanon and fight the Israelis. Naturally, one takes anything from an ideological tool of the Reverend Sun Moon with a pinch of salt, but it wouldn't be surprising if this was true. The ground invasion and annexation of southern Lebanon continues, and the IDF is preparing for a ground assault on the much ravaged Tyre.

By the way, remember those leaflets ordering residents of South Lebanon to flee or face certain death? Well, the Israelis have gone high-tech. They have bombarded Lebanese civilians with text messages and voicemail saying that they must leave or be killed: "The voice reading the message signed off: 'the state of Israel'."

An old radio station formerly operated by the 'South Lebanon Army', a pro-Israeli militia with serious atrocities to answer for, is up and running again too. Many of the SLAs former members are living Israel, but the worst offenders fled to Germany where they are being protected. I wonder how long it will be before that 'army' is reconstituted? For its part, the radio station wonders: "Why do those people blame Israel for defending itself against terrorism?"

The official figures for fatalities in Lebanon now stand at 391, certainly an underestimate given the total ruin of the infrastructure and the limited ability to gather and store the bodies of the dead. An estimated 900,000 have been displaced - that's a quarter of the population.

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The Israeli destruction of Gaza continues, with some murmurs of outrage from the UN. Six Palestinians were killed in northern Gaza, and more have been wounded elsewhere. As per previous propaganda warnings, the IDF has said that the attacks were aimed at caches of rockets secreted beneath sofas.

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The Guardian reports a new poll which shows that only 22% of British people believe Israel's action is "proportionate" to the threats it allegedly faces. The nature of the question in the poll, of course, reflects the nature of media reporting in which the only legitimate question about Israel's action is its "proportionality". Nevertheless, the poll gives a snapshot of a whole range of views showing discontent with British foreign policy - in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in terms of the relationship with the US government. This is part of a slow-burning crisis for the government, which affects not only most aspects of foreign policy, but also domestic policy.

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Finally, Hezbollah speaks to the nation.