This week …

News Highlights:

  • Lebanon calls for changes in the draft UN resolution, including the immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from all Lebanese territory.
  • More than 1000 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 99 Israelis, including 63 soldiers have died so far in the conflict.
  • Lebanon will send 15,000 troops to the south when Israel begins to withdraw.
  • Human Rights Watch says Israel’s military appears to have deliberately bombed civilians in Lebanon and some of its air strikes constitute war crimes.
  • 5000 people march in Tel Aviv to protest Israel’s operation in Lebanon; tens of thousands march in London, criticizing Tony Blair for following George Bush and refusing to call for an immediate ceasefire.
  • Aug 7th – Israeli attacks in Gaza leave two Palestinians dead, including a 13-year-old boy; Israeli troops arrest two Palestinian MPs, including the speaker of the parliament.

Feature:

An interview with two Lebanese Canadian women just returned from south Lebanon. The two, Ibtisam Ghaddar and her daughter Miriam, spoke movingly of the horrors they had seen in the village in which they had been staying. Ibtisam talked about the Israeli air strike that same day which hit near a funeral procession and killed at least 14 civilians. Mourners had been burying another 15 relatives killed the day before. Miriam explained that despite all this, the defiant spirit of the Lebanese people was very high and that the Israeli invasion had unified people.

Focus on Zionism:

An Aug. 5th, 2006 press release from the Israeli Cmte. for a Middle East Free from Atomic, Biological and Chemical Weapons in which they call on the Israeli government to not use the depleted uranium bunker-buster bombs they recently got from the U.S

Here is an audio file of this show: