Lies, lies, lies...that the hezbollah supporters cling to...Ooooops! The truth finally coming out! Lebanese Leader Scales Back Death Toll By SAM F. GHATTAS, AP BEIRUT, Lebanon (Aug. 7) - Lebanon's prime minister said Monday that one person had been killed in an Israeli air raid on the southern village of Houla, lowering the death toll from 40. Meanwhile, in northern Israel, scores of Hezbollah rockets wounded five people, rescue workers said. Both sides appeared to take advantage of the days before a cease-fire resolution, formulated by the U.S. and France, is put to a vote in the U.N. Security Council. Prime Minister Fuad Saniora repeatedly broke into tears as he disclosed the latest attack during opening remarks at a meeting of Arab League foreign ministers in Beirut. He appealed to fellow Arab states to help a nation "stunned" by a nearly four-week Israeli onslaught that has devastated Lebanon's infrastructure and left hundreds of civilians dead. Saniora said the attack occurred in the southern village of Houla, where heavy ground fighting between Hezbollah guerrillas and Israel has been raging in recent days. The Israeli army said it is checking the claims about Houla but repeated that residents in villages in southern Lebanon had been warned to leave. There was no confirmation of the death toll from security officials, but witnesses said the airstrike flattened five homes in a tribal compound. U.N. peacekeepers at a post near Houla reported Hezbollah fired rockets toward Israel twice Monday from positions near the UNIFIL base. "An hour ago, there was a horrific massacre in the village of Houla in which more than 40 martyrs were victims of deliberate bombing," he said. Saniora had to halt his remarks several times to choke back tears and wipe his eyes, and the ministers broke into supportive applause. ...(O, boo hoo) "If these horrific actions are not state terrorism, then what is state terrorism?" he asked, adding that Israel's attacks have set back Lebanon by "decades." Local TV stations had reported about 40 people were buried under the rubble of houses targeted by Israeli airstrikes. Israel's attacks on Lebanon have killed at least 651 people, including 524 civilians, 29 Lebanese soldiers and at least 53 Hezbollah guerrillas. Hezbollah fired its deadliest rocket barrage Sunday on Israel, killing 12 Israeli reservists and three civilians. That brought the Israeli death toll to 94, including 46 soldiers, the 12 reservists and 36 civilians. Brian PalmerFormer CNN journalist Brian Palmer shares gripping photos of his work in war zones around the world. Go to AOL Black Voices In other Israeli air raids across southern Lebanon, seven people were killed when a missile hit a house in Qassmieh on the coast north of the port city of Tyre, civil defense official Youssef Khairallah said. An Israeli airstrike on an apartment complex in Tyre killed five people, witnesses and rescue workers said. A woman and her daughter were killed near a Lebanese army checkpoint between the villages of Harouf and Dweir, security officials said. Four other people were killed in a raid on that destroyed a house in Kfar Tebnit. Air raids on the town of Ghaziyeh also destroyed several buildings, killing at least one person and wounding 14, hospital officials said. A building collapsed in the village of Ghassaniyeh, and at least one body was pulled from the rubble. Witnesses and civil defense workers said six more people were buried, but that could not be confirmed. Five air raids struck the market town of Nabatiyeh, targeting two office buildings, a house and one of the offices of Shiite Muslim Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah. No casualties were reported there or in raids on the villages of Jibsheet and Toul. Attacks also were carried out in Naqoura on the border and Ras al-Biyada, about halfway between Naqoura and Tyre. About 30 Israeli commandos landed by helicopter on a hill overlooking Ras al-Biyada, where they battled Hezbollah militants, Lebanese security officials said. Israeli officials would not confirm the operation. Meanwhile, one Israeli soldier was killed and four were slightly wounded in Bint Jbail, the army said. It said five Hezbollah gunmen were killed. A new barrage of 83 rockets hit northern Israel on Monday morning, slightly wounding five Israelis, according to rescue services. Ministers have called for a meeting of Israel's Security Cabinet later Monday to discuss whether to broaden the offensive. One minister, speaking on condition of anonymity because he did not want to be seen as criticizing the military, said the army needed to send all available ground forces into Lebanon immediately to push Hezbollah and its rocket launchers out of the area south of the Litani River, about 18 miles from the border. Hezbollah claimed to have killed four Israeli soldiers in Houla. The Israeli army said only three were wounded. The U.N. plan would call for an immediate halt in the fighting, followed by a second resolution in a week or two to authorize an international military force and creation of a buffer zone in south Lebanon. It also says the two Israeli soldiers whose capture July 12 by Hezbollah guerrillas triggered the war should be released unconditionally. Saniora and the Arab foreign ministers pressed for changes in the plan. He has proposed a speeded-up deployment of Lebanese troops with the support of U.N. forces in order to ensure that thousands of Israeli soldiers leave the south with any cease-fire, a Saniora aide said. Washington and Paris were expected to circulate a new draft of the first resolution at the United Nations on Monday, taking into account some of the amendments proposed by Qatar, the only Arab nation on the Security Council, and other members, diplomats said. Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon the U.S.-French draft was good for Israel -- but the country still had military goals and would continue its attacks on Hezbollah. While Hezbollah has not rejected the plan outright, its two main allies -- Syria and Iran -- other demands. Lebanon's parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, also said the plan was unacceptable because it does not deal with Beirut's other key demands -- a release of prisoners held by Israel and moves to resolve a dispute over a piece of border territory. In other violence, Israeli warplanes hit roads in the Bekaa Valley, a northeastern region of Lebanon that is a symbol of Hezbollah power. At least four explosions were heard around the city of Baalbek, about 60 miles north of Israel's border, witnesses said. The Israeli military confirmed it had hit several targets in the area. Warplanes also struck a large factory for construction materials just south of Baalbek. Jet fighters attacked the Rashaya region farther south on the corridor linking southern regions with the Bekaa Valley, witnesses said. A road near the Beirut border post at Masnaa on the Beirut-Damascus highway, a frequent target of attack, was hit again Monday. Israel's Haaretz daily, quoting an unidentified general, reported that attacks might be stepped up on Lebanese infrastructure and symbols of the government in response to Hezbollah's escalating rocket attacks. Israeli warplanes have repeatedly blasted Palestinian government buildings during a monthlong offensive in Gaza that began shortly before the fighting with Hezbollah. Hezbollah has fired more than 3,000 rockets at Israel since the fighting began, Israeli officials said. The 12 Israeli reservists were killed by a rocket that struck near the entrance to the communal farm of Kfar Giladi on the Lebanese border, hospital officials said. Dozens of other rockets hit Israel, including some that reached Haifa -- the third-largest city -- killing three civilians. Hezbollah militants battled Israeli forces trying to push deeper into southern Lebanon, engaging Israeli infantrymen attempting to advance on the border villages of Aita al-Shaab, Rub Thalatheen and Dibel, the guerrillas' TV station said. Some 10,000 Israeli soldiers are fighting several hundred Hezbollah gunmen in south Lebanon, trying to track and destroy rocket launchers and push the guerrilla group out of the area. http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/lebanese-leader-scales-back-death-toll/20060728045409990004
www.foxnews.com More... Israeli Airstrikes Target Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon Monday, August 07, 2006 BEIRUT, Lebanon — Israel intensified airstrikes and border raids on Hezbollah guerrillas Monday, as Lebanon's prime minister retracted a claim that 40 people were killed in an Israeli air attack on the Lebanese border village of Houla. Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said only one person died in the Houla airstrike after tearfully telling a meeting of Arab leaders that more than 40 people died in the bombing. Saniora's initial statement and retraction came as Israeli commandos fought Hezbollah guerrillas in Tyre on a mission to destroy rocket launchers, and diplomats around the globe revved up their push for a cease-fire. Saniora has proposed speeding up the deployment of Lebanese troops in the south to assure a halt to fighting, but said Israeli troops have to pull out of Lebanese territory as part of a cease-fire, an aide reported. Saniora got strong backing from Arab nations, whose foreign ministers gathered in Beirut and calling for changes in a U.S.-French cease-fire plan to include Lebanon's proposals. Al Jazeera reported only one death in the village of Houla....(Ha) Witnesses said the airstrike flattened five multi-story homes in a tribal compound. The village lies near the heart of ground fighting, and rescue workers may have been unable to retrieve many of the bodies to get a firm count. U.N. peacekeepers said Hezbollah guerrillas fired rockets from near the village earlier Monday. But at least 28 other Lebanese were confirmed dead by rescue and security officials in bombardment elsewhere — the highest one-day Lebanese death toll in days, amid what appeared to be a stepped up Israeli onslaught after Hezbollah rockets killed 15 people in northern Israel on Sunday. An Israeli soldier died Monday in ground fighting in the south, the military said. Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said Monday he has ordered the army to step up the offensive against Hezbollah rocket launching sites. Peretz told the top parliamentary committee on security affairs that in the absence of a diplomatic agreement, he has instructed the army to "take control" of launching sites "wherever they are to minimize the fire of Katyusha rockets and take the Israeli people out of the shelters." Speaking at the opening of the Arab ministers gathering in Beirut, Saniora choked back tears and had to stop to wipe his eyes as he spoke of "deliberate" Israeli bombing in Houla. Visit FOXNews.com's Mideast Center for more in-depth coverage. "If these horrific actions are not state terrorism, then what is state terrorism?" Saniora pleaded. The Israel army said it is checking the claims about Houla, but repeated that residents in villages in southern Lebanon had been warned to leave. The U.S.-French proposal uses language that says two Israeli soldiers held by Hezbollah should be released unconditionally. The soldiers' capture July 12 triggered the war and the massive Israeli retaliation — and Hezbollah has so far rejected an unconditional release of the two. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called the U.N. draft "the first step, not the only step," at a news conference in Washington. Israel has not officially commented, except to say the draft is important. ...OMG there is MORE! ....Where will the Hezbollah supporters draw the line on the deceit? LOL! ...Hooorah! Reuters withdraws all photos by freelancer LONDON (Reuters) - Reuters withdrew all 920 photographs by a freelance Lebanese photographer from its database on Monday after an urgent review of his work showed he had altered two images from the conflict between Israel and the armed group Hizbollah. Global Picture Editor Tom Szlukovenyi called the measure precautionary but said the fact that two of the images by photographer Adnan Hajj had been manipulated undermined trust in his entire body of work. "There is no graver breach of Reuters standards for our photographers than the deliberate manipulation of an image," Szlukovenyi said in a statement. "Reuters has zero tolerance for any doctoring of pictures and constantly reminds its photographers, both staff and freelance, of this strict and unalterable policy." The news and information agency announced the decision in an advisory note to its photo service subscribers. The note also said Reuters had tightened editing procedures for photographs from the conflict and apologized for the case. Removing the images from the Reuters database excludes them from future sale. Reuters ended its relationship with Hajj on Sunday after it found that a photograph he had taken of the aftermath of an Israeli air strike on suburban Beirut had been manipulated using Photoshop software to show more and darker smoke rising from buildings. An immediate enquiry began into Hajj's other work. It established on Monday that a photograph of an Israeli F-16 fighter over Nabatiyeh, southern Lebanon and dated Aug 2, had also been doctored to increase the number of flares dropped by the plane from one to three. "Manipulating photographs in this way is entirely unacceptable and contrary to all the principles consistently held by Reuters throughout its long and distinguished history. It undermines not only our reputation but also the good name of all our photographers," Szlukovenyi said. "This doesn't mean that every one of his 920 photographs in our database was altered. We know that not to be the case from the majority of images we have looked at so far but we need to act swiftly and in a precautionary manner." The two altered photographs were among 43 that Hajj filed directly to the Reuters Global Pictures Desk since the start of the conflict on July 12 rather than through an editor in Beirut, as was the case with the great majority of his images. Filing drills have been tightened in Lebanon and only senior staff will now edit pictures from the Middle East on the Global Pictures Desk, with the final check undertaken by the Editor-in-Charge, Reuters said. Hajj worked for Reuters as a non-staff contributing photographer from 1993 until 2003 and again since April 2005. Most of his work was in sports photography, much of it outside Lebanon. Hajj was not in Beirut on Monday and was not responding to calls. He told Reuters on Sunday that the image of the Israeli air strike on Beirut had dust marks which he had wanted to remove. Questions about the accuracy of the photograph arose after it appeared on news Web sites on Saturday. Several blogs, including a number which accuse the media of distorted coverage of the Middle East conflict, said the photograph had been doctored.
what are you so happy about? does anyone here support hizbollah? there is a major battle with real deaths raging and you're just trying to win internet arguments on this board.
Yes, please do... you will see my argument/opinion backed by reasoning to which a meritable exchange by those who oppose my view are negligible and in some cases downright non-existent...
The Reuters photo doctoring is reprehensible. This war is being fought as much in the media as it is in the trenches. With Reuters (specifically, Adnan Hajj) faking photos to make it look worse that they really are (pictures of smoke over Beirut, the Qana incident), he's helping the terrorists' cause (Hizbullah). Hopefully another religious nut in Seattle doesn't go kill a Jew after seeing that jackass's (Hajj) pictures.
People miss the point here too often. Where is the international outrage at Hizbollah? Mild at most...and due in part to these fake numbers being reported, fake photos being printed, etc. making Israel out to be the big bully. Sorry, but last I looked Israel was/is responding to kidnappings and rocket fire attacks on their soil. They have a right to that, and do not need fake news reports making them look like Hitler or Saddam. And yes, it is something to be happy about when the officials can say "less deaths than previously reported." Some people can't hear good news I guess.
Actually the Rocket fire is a response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Hezbelloh has already stated it will end the Rocket fire when Israel ends it's offensive. In fact, when Israel ceased bombing, the rocket fire did cease. I see Israel as the clear aggressor in this case. You can put it this way, if two people are in a bar, and one of them pushes the other...he's the aggressor. But when the guy who got pushed then comes back and pummels the "aggressor" into a bloody pulp, and then kicks him some more, and then stomps on his head, and then decides that the guy might one day want revenge....so he decides to cut his head off....well, you get the point....at some point, you have a new aggressor.
Are you saying Roxran that **gulp** Al-Jazeera actually reported the truth? Gwayneco falls in faint...
There is no doubt that the number of people killed is a lot bigger than that claimed so far. . This is how it works. Lebanese, even if Hezbollah supporters are people just like Americans. The same species with the same physiological reactions. (I know, , hard to believe!) Recently we have seen a lot of Americans, primarily older ,die of heat related causes or when we had Katrina or just fleeing Rita from the Houston Area.. The Israelis have bombed power supplies, even hospitals, cut off air conditioning and forced hundreds of thousands of elderly, sick and children to run around in the heat fleeing their invasion. Some of these vulnerable folks die during these forced evacuations simply from heat stress or llack of medical care, or fans, a/c or shelter as they squat in their bombed neighborhoods. Playing the game where the only deaths caused by the Israeli bombing are those whose bodies are actually recovered from the bombed rubble is nice when trying to limit the carnage for propaganda purposes, but not the whole story.
Israel is doing what it must to defend against the diabolical Islamic Facists known as Hezbollah. They are doing the right thing by attacking the infrastructure and making distinct disection of precise attacks to save as much civilans as possible. I applaud the actions of israel, and wish they would be more aggressive than the strategic restraint they have shown...However I'm with Israel in the righteous fight. I only pray that the poor affected Israeli civilans can withstand the unweiding, and non-selective strikes by Hezbollah. The whole story involves the focus of lending support to all civilians affected and especially so by those from Israel since any actions by hezbollah have no selectivity or warnings at all...
