Haaretz reports the highest combined civilian/military single-day death toll since the war’s inception. So much for Olmert’s statement yesterday that the IDF has “dismantled” Hezbollah’s military capacity:
A barrage of Hezbollah rockets slammed into northern Israel on Thursday, killing at least eight Israelis. Four people were killed when a rocket crashed directly into a house near the northern town of Ma’alot, and another four were killed when a rocket exploded near their vehicle in Acre…
Shimon Zaribi, 44, and Albert ben Abu, 41, both of Acre, were killed in the rocket attack on their hometown. Sinati Sinati, Amir Naeem and Mohammed Fouad, all 17-year-old residents of the village of Tarshiha, were killed in the attack near Ma’alot.
Also Thursday, four Israel Defense Forces soldiers were killed and two others were seriously wounded Thursday in heavy fighting with Hezbollah guerrillas in south Lebanon…
A total of 160 rockets were fired by late afternoon Thursday, 130 of which fell between the hours of 4 P.M. and 5 P.M. Hardest hit were the towns of Nahariya, Ma’alot and Kiryat Shmona. Rockets also landed in Haifa, the Golan Heights, Rosh Pina and Safed.
More than 2,050 rockets have been fired at Israel from Lebanon during the current conflict, killing 27 civilians…
Eight rockets hit the Ma’alot area before dawn Thursday in the first nighttime Hezbollah rockets attack on Israel. Three rockets scored direct hits on homes in the northern town, causing severe damage.
And here is the typically clueless Israeli government response of the day to the mayhem:
“The Israeli government, along with the Israeli people are fully determined to break this Hezbollah threat and to restore quiet to Israel’s north. We will seek and pursue Hezbollah without relenting and we will put an end to these murderous attacks,” said David Baker, an official in the PMO.
To which I have one question as a response: What are you going to do differently than what you’ve been doing to achieve a goal you haven’t managed to achieve in over two weeks of fighting?
To add to this, the catalogue of suffering on the other side:
Israel’s three-week-old offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon has killed more than 900 people and wounded 3,000, with a third of the casualties children under 12, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said Thursday.
Siniora, in a video message to a summit of leaders of the Muslim world, added that a quarter of the population, or one million people, had been displaced.
You can change the word “soldiers” to “Israelis” or “Lebanese” and find these lyrics from Where Have All the Flowers Gone perfectly apt for this conflict:
Where have all the soldiers gone,
Long time passing,
Where have all the soldiers gone,
Long time ago,
Where have all the soldiers gone,
Gone to graveyards everyone,
When will they ever learn…
