Beirut Unrest Kills 10 as Hezbollah Pressures Siniora (Update3)
May 9 (Bloomberg) — Gun battles raged across western and southern Beirut, leaving 10 people dead, as fighters from the Shiite group Hezbollah pressed their party's challenge to Lebanon's pro-Western government.
Masked bands of Shiite gunmen were shown by television networks as they roamed neighborhoods dominated by Sunni Muslims, who largely back Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's administration.
The army was deployed in parts of the capital to control the unrest. In addition to the deaths in Beirut in three days of violence, five civilians were hurt as fighting erupted in the Bekaa Valley, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.
“What's going on defies logic,'' Army Brigadier Saleh Haj Suleiman said today in a phone interview from Beirut. “The army is in control of Beirut, but there is sporadic gunfire and wherever there are clashes the army intervenes to try and calm the situation down.''
The crisis may intensify regional rivalries. Siniora's government is financially and militarily supported by the U.S., which considers Hezbollah a terrorist organization. Hezbollah is backed by Iran and Syria.
U.S. Republican presidential contender John McCain said today that the Bush administration should work immediately with the United Nations and Lebanon's neighbors to defuse the tensions. The Arizona senator said at a press conference in Columbia, South Carolina, that pressure should be brought on Syria, which he said is trying to “gain control of Lebanon.''
Hezbollah has been trying to oust the Siniora government for 18 months, since the militant Islamic group's lawmakers walked out of the cabinet after demanding veto powers over decisions. This week's unrest has been the most violent, as the political standoff spilled over into sectarian conflict.
The government dismissed reports by Lebanese news organizations favorable to Hezbollah or other opposition groups that Siniora's government was about to collapse.
“There is no resignation, no one in this government is resigning,'' Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh said today in a phone interview from Beirut.
Tags: beirut, news
I Love Israel!
I Think Israel is doing the good thing those peaple are not human. US forces are with the israels and those can do any thing without any replay from near by small contries. If hamas or hizballah attack back becuse there countries can’t they are terrorist !!
Here is an interesting article from the Arab media.http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=11654Of course they picture the Arabs as victims only but most facts in the article are true nevertheless.
Good, maybe this time they will follow through and end this once and for all. The middle east has proven it cannot organize itself into peaceful nations, maybe Israel will force do it for them.
Yes a lot were voluntary or at least induced by fellow Arabs. From your own link Rumours spread that the Husaynis were planning to bring in bands of fallahin to take over the towns (Gelber, p. 76). Some Palestinian Arab leaders set a bad example by sending their own families abroad (Gelber, pp. 76-77). The Arab Liberation Army embarked on a systematic evacuation of non-combatants from several frontier villages in order to turn them into military strongholds (Gelber, p. 79).permalinkparentafterthestorm (2 children) [+]afterthestorm 4 points 8 months ago [-]You are willfully misportraying history. Please stop. Here is verbatim the section on the causes of the exodus: Historians have given different reasons and assigned different responsibilities for the Palestinian exodus. The answers to these questions could have important consequences for the future of these refugees and their descendants, as well as to other Arabs and Jews in Israel. The following theories have been proposed: That ‘Arab leaders’ endorsed, encouraged or planned the refugee flight was the official line taken by the governments of Israel, assigning the main responsibility for the exodus to calls made by local and foreign Arab leaders. The ‘transfer principle’ theory, proposed by the Israeli New Historians (mainly Benny Morris), contends that the displacement of the population was a consequence of a common line of thought in Zionist politics that emphasized the transfer of Palestinian Arabs as a precondition to the establishment of a Jewish state. The ‘master plan’ theory, proposed by Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi, claims that the Palestinian exodus was planned and organised in advance by Jewish authorities. The ‘two-stage explanation’ is a theory brought forth by Yoav Gelber, which distinguishes between two phases of the exodus. Before the Arab invasion, it explains the exodus as a result of the crumbling Arab social structure, and after the invasion as a result of actions by the Israeli army during the campaign in the Galilee and Negev. According to Bernard Lewis, it is possible that all of the explanations are partially true of the exodus in general and perhaps even singularly “true of different places.”[24]permalinkparentscylla (1 child) [+]scylla 0 points 8 months ago [-]How are you contradicting what I’m saying? There were Israeli massacres but you can’t ignore reasons 1 and 4 either. Nor should you ignore the contrast between how Israel treated it’s Arab citizens after 1948 and the corresponding situation of the Jews in Arab countries.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_Arab_lands
Arabs and many of their sympathizers in the West say that it is not the fact of Israel’s existance that Arabs are fighting, but the “occupation.” So the Israelis ended the occupation of Gaza, and the Palestinians still attacked Israel — across the international border. And the Israelis withdrew from every meter of Lebanon — and Hezbollah terrorists continued to attack Israel — across the international border. Both of these actions are acts of war. Israel has every right to defend itself. Those people who claim that somehow, Israel, out of every nation in the world, does not have the right to defend its borders, are acting out of hostility to the very idea of a Jewish state.
I am going with Gaddafi - nuff said really!
People, Israel with the backing of America is pulling the whole world into another world war. This government with their policies and extensive use of force against people who are only equipped with rocks and small weapons causing the international outcry. Palestinians and Lebanese people are human and after years of living under occupation they were left with no other choice but to start an arm struggle. Justice loving people of the world, regardless of religion, ethnicity and nationality should join to put an end to this apartheid regime . Jews are our brothers/sisters but Zionism is not. People who leave their homeland to go and live in Israel are as guilty as the regime itself.
Israel has a right to exist as a remnant of Jewish culture. The problem is that its right damn smack in the middle of a culture that hates Jews. When people hate you, it makes you likely to return the favor. There is a cycle of blood and violence in the middle east, because no one is taking the other side’s point of view and thinking for a second. Israel actually wants Lebanese land because it is part of the traditional kingdom of David. http://www.bible.ca/maps/maps-united-kingdom.gif
“Voluntary”?! Sure it was… if you can believe that nearly a million Arabs all of a sudden decided to leave their homes on a whim at exactly the same time. Go look up “Deir Yassin Massacre” to see why they left. They feared for their lives, and rightly so.
It is very sad that my last comment gets buried even if it has no political agenda and no side taking in this discussion.Just because I corrected someone for the Israeli casulty statistics (he said none, I gave the real stats), It was buried because the corrected facts may damage the his arguments.Do not expect intelligent discussion here. the loudest voices are of the politically aligned narrow minded bigots, not people with something intelligent to say.
I didn’t refer to the plan for dividing Israel and Palestine (although the UN acts under the direction of the US), but rather that Israel is a fake state because the US provides it with political, financial and military aid in order to wipe out the Palistinian nation.Here’s another question: Can Israel exist without the US?