Israel -- 2006 War

Makkonnen

The Quizatz Haderach
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w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m
Last update - 14:20 12/09/2006
IDF commander: We fired more than a million cluster bombs in Lebanon
By Meron Rappaport

"What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs," the head of an IDF rocket unit in Lebanon said regarding the use of cluster bombs and phosphorous shells during the war.

Quoting his battalion commander, the rocket unit head stated that the IDF fired around 1,800 cluster bombs, containing over 1.2 million cluster bomblets.

In addition, soldiers in IDF artillery units testified that the army used phosphorous shells during the war, widely forbidden by international law. According to their claims, the vast majority of said explosive ordinance was fired in the final 10 days of the war.

The rocket unit commander stated that Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) platforms were heavily used in spite of the fact that they were known to be highly inaccurate.

MLRS is a track or tire carried mobile rocket launching platform, capable of firing a very high volume of mostly unguided munitions. The basic rocket fired by the platform is unguided and imprecise, with a range of about 32 kilometers. The rockets are designed to burst into sub-munitions at a planned altitude in order to blanket enemy army and personnel on the ground with smaller explosive rounds.

The use of such weaponry is controversial mainly due to its inaccuracy and ability to wreak great havoc against indeterminate targets over large areas of territory, with a margin of error of as much as 1,200 meters from the intended target to the area hit.

The cluster rounds which don't detonate on impact, believed by the United Nations to be around 40% of those fired by the IDF in Lebanon, remain on the ground as unexploded munitions, effectively littering the landscape with thousands of land mines which will continue to claim victims long after the war has ended.

Because of their high level of failure to detonate, it is believed that there are around 500,000 unexploded munitions on the ground in Lebanon. To date 12 Lebanese civilians have been killed by these mines since the end of the war.

According to the commander, in order to compensate for the inaccuracy of the rockets and the inability to strike individual targets precisely, units would "flood" the battlefield with munitions, accounting for the littered and explosive landscape of post-war Lebanon.

When his reserve duty came to a close, the commander in question sent a letter to Defense Minister Amir Peretz outlining the use of cluster munitions, a letter which has remained unanswered.

'Excessive injury and unnecessary suffering'

It has come to light that IDF soldiers fired phosphorous rounds in order to cause fires in Lebanon. An artillery commander has admitted to seeing trucks loaded with phosphorous rounds on their way to artillery crews in the north of Israel.

A direct hit from a phosphorous shell typically causes severe burns and a slow, painful death.

International law forbids the use of weapons that cause "excessive injury and unnecessary suffering", and many experts are of the opinion that phosphorous rounds fall directly in that category.

The International Red Cross has determined that international law forbids the use of phosphorous and other types of flammable rounds against personnel, both civilian and military.

IDF: No violation of international law
In response, the IDF Spokesman's Office stated that "International law does not include a sweeping prohibition of the use of cluster bombs. The convention on conventional weaponry does not declare a prohibition on [phosphorous weapons], rather, on principles regulating the use of such weapons.

"For understandable operational reasons, the IDF does not respond to [accounts of] details of weaponry in its possession.

"The IDF makes use only of methods and weaponry which are permissible under international law. Artillery fire in general, including MLRS fire, were used in response solely to firing on the state of Israel."

The Defense Minister's office said it had not received messages regarding cluster bomb fire.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtVty.jhtml?itemNo=761781



Maybe some people around here think Haaretz and IDF Commanders are anti-semitic
 

idoit4theluv

Support BGOL
Registered
Re: Israeli Commander "What we did was insane...we covered entire towns in cluster bombs"

Thanks once again for the info bro................
 

Makkonnen

The Quizatz Haderach
BGOL Investor
Re: Israeli Commander "What we did was insane...we covered entire towns in cluster bombs"

African Herbsman said:
When do the tribunals start?
Some shit is already going down in Spain and the Israeli Govt is warning politicians and other personnel against saying anything because they expect war crimes prosecutions.
 

QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator
Hizbollah rocket attacks on Israelis 'war crimes'

<font size="5"><center>Hizbollah rocket attacks on Israelis 'war crimes'</font size></center>


new_indy_logo3.gif

By Patrick Cockburn in Beirut
Published: 14 September 2006

Amnesty International has accused Lebanon's Hizbollah movement of committing war crimes by deliberately targeting Israeli civilians with its rockets.

The 4,000 rockets it fired into northern Israel during the war in Lebanon killed 43 civilians, seriously wounded 33 and forced hundreds of thousands of others to live in shelters.

The Amnesty report is the latest review of the 34-day war, for which the winners and losers are still trying to justify their conduct and avoid blame. At least 1,000 Lebanese civilians died and whole villages were pulverised by Israeli bombs.

The Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, fighting for his political life after failing to eliminate Hizbollah, has played down Israeli losses. He bluntly told the Knesset foreign affairs and defence committee: "Half Lebanon is destroyed. Is that a loss?"

Amnesty says Hizbollah fired "some 900 inherently inaccurate Katyusha rockets into urban areas" and packed them with ball bearings lethal at 300 metres. This was out of a total of 3,970 rockets fired.Israel's inability to suppress the rocket fire was seen as a serious failure.

Irene Khan, Amnesty International's secretary general, said: "The scale of Hizbollah's attacks on Israeli cities, towns and villages, the indiscriminate nature of the weapons used, and statements from the leadership confirming their intent to target civilians, make it all too clear that Hizbollah violated the laws of war."

Hizbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said that shelling northern Israel was in reprisal for the shelling of Lebanese civilians. Israel says 12,000 buildings were damaged by Katyusha fire, but Amnesty says serious damage was much less.

In general terms Israel lost the war, which has left Hizbollah stronger and more confident. In Palestinian towns of the West Bank, Hizbollah DVDs showing Israeli tanks being destroyed are a hot seller.

Hassan Nasrallah defined victory as Hizbollah avoiding defeat. Israel's prolonged bombing campaign, far from turning Lebanon against Hizbollah, won it support.

Now that peace has returned, Hizbollah may not have quite so easy a time as Lebanese politics returns to its old sectarian divisions. Many Christians and Sunni blame Hizbollah for the war.

Hassan Nasrallah attacked Tony Blair's visit to Beirut this week, and said that if Mr Blair was invited it was "a national disaster". In an interview on al-Jazeera television, he said Mr Blair was "an associate in the murdering".

Israel's military superiority has not changed. There is no Arab power which can challenge it, and it has had unprecedented support from the US and Britain. Even so, its inability to defeat Hizbollah has reduced its military deterrent. This may tempt it into another round in Lebanon, a war in which it would hope to avoid any further mistakes.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1578722.ece
 

Makkonnen

The Quizatz Haderach
BGOL Investor
Re: Hizbollah rocket attacks on Israelis 'war crimes'

would you please merge my thread with this or vice versa
 

sammistad

Potential Star
Registered
Re: Hizbollah rocket attacks on Israelis 'war crimes'

I never thought I would live to see the day when a nation does not have the right to defend itself from those who wish them dead. The country of Israel was just trying to defend itself from an organization that is created just for the purpose of their destruction. The country of Israel had every right to try to destroy Hezbolllah. I cannot beleive that Israel is actually scared of the bullshit war crimes tribunal that cannnot even captute the military elite that actaully caused lot of atrocity in the Balkans and the Hutus who caused a lot of atrocty in Rwanda.

Israel as well as its military elite have nothing to fear from those people espacially the UN war crimes tribunal. That court is as ineffectve as the UN itself.
 

sammistad

Potential Star
Registered
Re: Hizbollah rocket attacks on Israelis 'war crimes'

For the benefit of peace in the Middle East. For the benefit of Israel and the sovereign state of Lebanon Hezbollah must be disarmmed and disbanded never to reassemble. The nation of Lebanon must make sure that Hezbollah never ever do anything in order for them to get support from the people of Lebanon or anyone else in the Arab world or the Middle East.
 

QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator
Re: Arab world deeply split over Hezbollah

<font size="5"><center>Iran in position to worsen Shiite, Sunni discord</font size></center>

The State
By MARGARET COKER
Cox Newspapers

TEHRAN, Iran — They have been called “liars” and denounced as “the worst creatures under heaven.”

In the Middle East, one might assume that these epithets of hatred and hostility are meant for Israel.

The target of the abuse, however, has been Iran.

The venom characterizes an ancient rivalry: Arab Sunni Muslims vs. the Shiites of Iran — a rivalry that encapsulates sectarian differences as well as secular, national identity.

But now, the rise once again of Iran onto the world stage is changing the balance of the Sunni-Shiite divide.

Iran’s flaunting of its nuclear ambitions, criticism of the West and call for the death of the state of Israel is winning the admiration of Shiite minorities across the Sunni-dominated Middle East.

That Iranian Shiites aren’t Arabs and speak Farsi, not Arabic, doesn’t seem to matter. That they have traditionally hated one another doesn’t seem to matter.

In Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon, the rising strength of Iranian-allied players has prompted warnings from influential Arabs of an expanding “Shiite crescent.”

While some traditional, Sunni-led, U.S. allies have stoked fears of a regional sectarian war, many observers see problems more prosaic: a threat to the influence that America and its allies hold in an oil-rich area vital to global stability.

“There is no religious war within Islam either now or in the making. There is a struggle for political power and hegemony,” said Malcolm Rifkind, the former British foreign minister.

“The Iranian state is seeking to become the regional power in the Middle East ... (and) the unambiguous language used (by Arab regimes shows) that it is going to be a bare-knuckled fight.”

Since the United States launched the war on terror after the 9/11 attacks, Iran’s role as a diplomatic, political and military broker has grown dramatically in the same countries where the White House has tried to establish its own brand of order. Shiite militants are on the rise in Iraq. And Iran has close ties to the Shiite Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, making Israel very nervous.

Arab disquiet about Iran’s rise has roots deeper than the modern political geography of the Middle East. It reaches to the very heart of national identity and the deep divide that has always existed between Iranians and Arabs through their separate languages, cultures and Islamic traditions.

Today, there are approximately 1.3 billion Muslims in the world. About 85 percent are Sunnis, while Shiites make up nearly all the rest.

The sects matter on a square-inch level, as the American military can well attest.

In the city of Baghdad for example, American troops have to be aware that there are Shiites in the west of the city, less-than-friendly Sunnis in the south and east, and a mix of the two in the northeastern neighborhoods.

But the divide becomes more complex when it comes to understanding countries’ foreign policies.

Syria is a good example.

President Bashar Assad runs a secular regime, which led a crackdown on Muslim fundamentalists in 1982 that killed thousands. For that reason, Sunni Muslim extremist groups such as al-Qaida despise Assad’s regime.

On the other hand, the United States accuses Assad’s regime of supporting terrorism because it backs Hezbollah and Palestinian militants. Syrian guards’ rapid response during last week’s attack on the American embassy won rare U.S. praise.

ROOTS OF ISLAMIC SECTS

The theological division between Sunnis and Shiites stems from a power struggle after the death of the prophet Muhammad in 632. One group of Muslims elected Abu Bakr, a close companion of the prophet, as the next leader. However, another group believed that the prophet’s son-in-law, Ali, should become the leader.

The groups fought vicious battles about the issue of succession, and as time passed the former became known as Sunnis, from the Arabic word for tradition, and the latter, Shiites, meaning “followers of Ali.”

Despite now-distinct religious traditions, most Shiites and Sunnis are far more alike than different. All recognize the same Five Pillars of Islam — the religious obligations to profess the faith, pray, give to charity, fast and go on pilgrimage to Mecca.

The rhetoric directed at Shiites has come from disparate corners of the Sunni world.

King Abdullah of Jordan, a close U.S. ally, has warned that the emergence of a Shiite-controlled Iraq could signal a new “crescent” of dominant Shiite movements or governments from Iran to Lebanon that could destabilize the region.

Osama bin Laden, a Sunni, and his terrorist cohorts have cursed Shiites as heretics, calling them “the most evil creatures under the heavens.” Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq who was killed in a U.S. air strike in June, decreed that Shiites should be targeted for death, even ahead of “infidels” like the Americans.

Within the realm of politics, however, regional rivalries generally exist for reasons stemming from Shiites’ historic role as the minority.

Outside of modern Iran, Shiites have been economically disadvantaged in places like Lebanon and politically disenfranchised in Iraq under the Sunni-dominated regime of Saddam Hussein. This history has produced stark ethnic and tribal disputes, such as those reflected in a June 4, 2003, conversation between President Bush and Iraqi envoy Paul Bremer.

“Will they be able to run a free country?” Bremer recalled Bush asking, referring to Iraq’s newly tapped Shiite leaders.

“Some of the Sunni leaders doubt it. They say all Shiites are liars,” Bremer told him, as recounted in Middle East scholar Fouad Ajami’s new book on Iraq, “The Foreigner’s Gift.”

IRAN’S ANCIENT GLORY

As home to the majority of the world’s Shiites, Iran takes such slights to heart — just as many of the world’s other Shiites adopt Iran’s political and military side of political disputes as their own.

And many Iranians view what is playing out now as a return to Persia’s natural right as a world power.

“We were home to some of the first civilizations. We are home of ancient culture. The nation has been waiting for its leaders to announce itself again on the world stage,” said Mohammad Atrianfar, editor of Iran’s leading opposition newspaper, Shargh.

Tehran is playing power politics with a strong hand. Iran, with 68 million people, is rich with oil and has the largest economy in the region. It has the technological know-how to produce a nuclear program and the political cards to stabilize or terrorize its neighbors.

And Arab nations are worried about the Iranian giant.

The Bush administration is intent on trying to balance power in Iraq between the majority Shiites and the Sunnis, Kurds and other minorities — not only to form a workable government, but to soothe concerns in the region over Shiite dominance.

Predominantly Sunni countries — and U.S. allies — like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan are doing what they can — either through monetary donations or military help — to keep Lebanon’s people and political leaders within their orbit and away from “others,” as Saudi officials have referred to Iran, the patron of the Shiite militia Hezbollah.

Analysts say Arab regimes, particularly in countries like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, which have sizable Shiite minorities, also will use the threat of a rising Iran to buttress their own rule and curb domestic opposition by warning of the dangers of sectarian violence and Shiite hegemony.

“Clearly, throughout the (Persian) Gulf and beyond, there is an effort on the part of Arab regimes to use this specter of a Shiite crescent for their own purposes,” said Stephen Cook, a Middle East expert at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/nation/15538854.htm
 

QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator
Re: Arab world deeply split over Hezbollah

<font size="5"><center>Lebanese Christian rips Hezbollah </font size></center>

Chicago Sun-Times
BY HUSSEIN DAKROUB
September 25, 2006


BEIRUT, Lebanon -- An anti-Syrian Christian leader dismissed Hezbollah's claims of victory in its war with Israel as tens of thousands of his supporters rallied Sunday in a show of strength that highlighted Lebanon's divisions.

The rally north of Beirut came just two days after a massive gathering by the rival Shiite Muslim Hezbollah that attracted hundreds of thousands. The two sides have been at sharp odds over the future of the Lebanese government since this summer's Israeli-Hezbollah war.

Samir Geagea, a notorious former leader of a Christian militia, scoffed at Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah's declaration that his guerrillas achieved ''a victory'' against Israel.

''I don't feel victory because the majority of the Lebanese people do not feel victory. Rather, they feel that a major catastrophe had befallen them and made their present and future uncertain,'' he said.

Hezbollah's fight with Israel sent its support soaring among Shiites. But a large sector -- particularly among Christians and Sunni Muslims -- opposes Hezbollah and resents it for provoking the monthlong fight by capturing two Israeli soldiers on July 12.

Billions of dollars in damage

The war killed hundreds of Lebanese civilians and left part of the country's infrastructure in ruins, causing billions of dollars in damage to the economy.

Geagea, who served more than a decade in prison on multiple counts of murder dating to the 1975-90 civil war, backs the Western-leaning government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora. His party is a member of the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority in Lebanon.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-leb25.html
 
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