- 11 Israeli soldiers were killed by Hezbollah rockets on Sunday while 18 more Lebanese civilians died at the hands of the IDF.
Meanwhile:
Lebanon's parliament speaker Nabih Berri said his country rejected the U.S.-French draft Security Council resolution because it would let Israeli forces stay on Lebanese soil.
Berri, a Shi'ite politician who has been the main channel between Hizbollah and Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, said the draft ignored the Beirut government's seven-point plan calling for a ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces and the return of all displaced civilians among other things.
"All of Lebanon rejects any resolution that is outside these seven points," Berri told a news conference.
U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice said that agreeing on a resolution would not end all fighting in southern Lebanon.
"I would hope that you would see very early on an end to large-scale violence," she said, but did not rule out "skirmishes for some time to come."
Skirmishes. Sounds like two guys fighting over a game of pool. No, Condi, there won't be skirmishes. There wil be battles. People will be killed.
At the same time: 'An air strike killed one Palestinian in the strip on Sunday, bringing to at least 167 the number of Palestinians killed in the campaign, more than half of them civilians.'
- Find the hypocrisy in this statement:
"We're trying to deal with a problem that has been festering and brewing in Lebanon now for years and years and years," Rice said. "And so it's not going to be solved by one resolution in the Security Council.
- Haifa's mayor to CNN reporter: 'We are doing the dirty work of the western world.'
- The Lebanese government wants revisions to the draft UN resolution. Specifically, it wants Israeli troops out of southern Lebanon and an immediate end to the fighting.
The draft resolution calls for a "full cessation of hostilities," based on "the immediate cessation by Hizbollah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations," leaving Israel able to conduct military operations it sees as defensive.
It also asks Israel and Lebanon to approve the major elements of an eventual peace settlement, which would include creating a buffer zone in south Lebanon free of any military forces except Lebanese and U.N.-mandated troops.
Mahmoud stopped short of saying Lebanon rejected the draft, telling Reuters: "It is not implementable."
- Reuters has dropped a freelance photographer after he admitted doctoring a photo of smoke rising over Beirut - a claim that was spawned by some right-wing blogs that are now busy examining every photo they can find showing the carnage in Lebanon.
The photograph by Adnan Hajj, which was published on news Web sites on Saturday, showed thick black smoke rising above buildings in the Lebanese capital after an Israeli air raid in the war with the Shi'ite Islamic group Hizbollah, now in its fourth week.
[...]
"The photographer has denied deliberately attempting to manipulate the image, saying that he was trying to remove dust marks and that he made mistakes due to the bad lighting conditions he was working under," said Moira Whittle, the head of public relations for Reuters.
"This represents a serious breach of Reuters' standards and we shall not be accepting or using pictures taken by him," Whittle said in a statement issued in London.
Reuters and other media organizations say they have reviewed all of the Qana massacre photos as well and still insist they are authentic. The Qana photos have also been under attack by right-wing bloggers since the incident happened.
more to come...
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