Day 19: Qana Massacre 2

Everything that I had been planning to write about over the past few days about what is going on in Lebanon has simply become insignificant at this moment. I am watching live images from Aljazeera and Alarabiya from the 2nd massacre of the Lebanese town of Qana. A shelter which families used to hide from Israel's killing machine has now been directly hit by the Israeli Occupying Forces. There are not as many shelters in Lebanon as there are in Israel of course, but even the few that do exist have now become targets of Israeli forces. The death toll is horrifying. Nearly 58 people are dead under the rubble, 21 of them are children, the rest are women and old men. The 1st Qana massacre occurred in April 1996 when a "Fijian UNIFIL compound in the village was shelled by Israeli artillery. Around 800 Lebanese civilians had taken refuge there to escape the fighting, of whom 106 were killed and around 116 others injured."

Members of the rescue team are working with their bare hands. They do not have the necessary equipment to save lives. They are emotionally distraught. When they speak to the reporters, these men are crying. They are reporting another massacre by Israel. One of them said it is "utterly indescribable." Reporters are incessantly asking them if the people they are removing from the rubble are Hizbollah fighters. The answer is consistent: the victims of this massacre are children and women and a few old men, none of whom are Hizbollah fighters. There are no rocket launchers here. There is a shelter here. A shelter which is protected by international law against targeting during wars. Shelters that Hizbollah did not attack in Israel because even this non-state power recognized that such an act is a crime against humanity.

Forget the New Middle East. Forget Condi's failed visit. Forget the failure of the Rome conference. Forget the news about Israel targeting UN observers. Forget about the US's rejection of a Security Council resolution condemning Israel's attack on UN offices and the murder of four observers. Forget the shameful position of Arab puppet leaders.

They are talking about diplomacy. We're talking about human life. We're talking about an apartheid rogue state that knows no bounds. A racist "democracy" controlled by a murderous military.

The news now is that the rescue efforts have been paused because there is a risk that the rest of the building may collapse on them and whoever else might be still breathing under the rubble. The rescue teams are carrying the bodies of children and their mothers. The rescue team is now reporting that a possible gaseous substance is causing nausea among those working on the scene. An eyewitness has just said that this town was bracing for this as the Israeli forces shelled them all night. The attack on this shelter apparently occurred around 1 AM Lebanon time, and the reporters were only able to bring this footage starting at 9AM.

I cannot record a video of this at the moment because it will be too hard to upload it. Here are some of the pictures I just took of the life footage mostly from Aljazeera and some from Almanar. Either Blogger is not working or its my slow dial-up Internet that is not allowing me to post any of the photos I took. I'll try to add them later.

Update: Condolezza Rice has canceled her visit to Beirut this morning. Lebanese PM Fouad Senioura in a live press conference has called for an immediate unconditional ceasefire.

[technorati tags: Lebanon, war, Israel, Qana, massacre, Hizbollah]