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This dispatch can also be read online at:
www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/001129.html
There has been a significant increase in attacks on Israel in recent days.
* Yesterday, a senior Israeli officer was killed and another seriously wounded by a sniper unit of the Lebanese army after an IDF engineering team was trimming trees along Israel’s side of the border. The evidence suggests that the attack on Israel was pre-planned and pre-meditated on the basis of information provided by Israel to UNIFIL and then passed on to the Lebanese army.
* The Lebanese army has increasingly been infiltrated by Hizbullah, according to experts. Hizbullah allies in the Lebanese army are believed to be behind the attack.
*While the United Nations peacekeeping contingent, UNIFIL, has acknowledged that the Israelis were on Israeli territory when they were shot at without provocation, some media – notably the Reuters news agency – went out of their way yesterday to wrongly suggest that Israel had opened fire first, and that Israeli troops had crossed the border. There has been outrage in Israel at some of the international media coverage yesterday which completely misreported events to Israel’s detriment.
* The New York Times also misreported the events yesterday, even though it was completely clear from the outset that Israel was telling the truth and the Lebanese army and Hizbullah were lying. The Times merely told its readers: “Each side blamed the other for the flare-up, trading accusations of violating the United Nations Security Council resolution that underpins the four-year cease-fire.”
* Today, finally, on its website, The New York Times ran a headline that many of us thought we’d never see: U.N. Supports Israeli Account of Border Clash
www.nytimes.com/2010/08/05/world/middleeast/05mideast.html
* Israel has set its border fence with Lebanon many meters inside Israel precisely so that Israeli soldiers can work on it, and cut down bushes growing against it as they were trying to do yesterday, without crossing into Lebanese territory.
* Last night, U.S. President Obama, acknowledging that Israel was attacked without provocation, sent his personal condolences to the family of the dead Israeli.
* The guns the Lebanese army used yesterday may well have been American. Since 2006, Washington has given nearly $500 million in military aid to Lebanese security forces and has allocated $100 million for 2011, making Lebanon the second-largest recipient of American military aid per capita in the world, according to The Los Angeles Times.
* You can see an aerial photograph of the location of the incident along the Lebanese border if you scroll down here: www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/001129.html
* Here is a list of other recent attacks on northern Israel from Lebanon:
www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/terrorism-%20obstacle%20to%20peace/terrorism%20from%20lebanon-%20hizbullah/
* Yesterday’s incident is, for example, similar to this one:
www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Communiques/2004/IDF+NCO+killed+and+another+severely+injured+in+ant.htm
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… AND ISRAEL ATTACKED FROM THE SOUTH AND WEST TOO
* At least five rockets were fired on Monday at the Israeli Red Sea resort town of Eilat, three of them landing in open areas and the sea, but two others striking the Jordanian port city of Aqaba. One of the rockets, believed to be a GRAD-type, exploded near the Intercontinental hotel, killing a Jordanian taxi driver and injuring four other people and destroying two cars. The attack is believed to have been launched from the Egyptian-controlled Sinai Peninsula and is similar to one last April when a number of rockets fell on Eilat and Aqaba.
* There has been an increase in rocket fire from Gaza at civilians in southern Israel over the past week.
* One rocket landed inside Ashkelon, a major Israeli city south of Tel Aviv on Friday.
* On Saturday a rocket hit the child hydrotherapy rehabilitation center adjoining Sderot’s Sapir Academic College.
All those who believe European journalists’ claims that Hamas rockets are homemade and harmless should view this one minute video of the aftermath of Saturday’s attack and imagine what would have happened had the children been inside. Please scroll down here to see it: www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/001129.html
* Israel is demanding an international investigation into the unprovoked attacks on it.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this evening: “Firing missiles on civilians is a war crime, and unprovoked attacks on soldiers are blatant acts of aggression. Israel expects the international community to condemn such attacks in the strongest possible terms. ” (You can also scroll down here to see a short video of his remarks: www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/001129.html )
