Phony Reuters / Hezbollah “massacre,” phony Reuters / Hezbollah “martyrs”
From Reuters / Hezbollah on the scene in Lebanon:
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon’s prime minister, choking back tears, demanded a “quick and decisive ceasefire” on Monday after an Israeli air raid that he said killed more than 40 civilians sheltering from fighting in a southern village.
As diplomatic efforts to end the 27-day-old war between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas stalled, air raids elsewhere in the south and the Bekaa valley killed at least 24 Lebanese and Israel said it may expand its ground offensive.
“An hour ago, a horrific massacre took place in Houla village as a result of the intentional Israeli bombardment that resulted in more than 40 martyrs,” Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora told an Arab foreign ministers meeting in Beirut.
His eyes brimming with tears as he spoke about the suffering of civilians, Siniora demanded a quick ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon. He also called for a prisoner exchange and for Israel to show where it planted landmines.
Israel is pressing ahead with its offensive while world powers struggle to agree a U.N. resolution to end the fighting. Hizbollah says it will fight on until Israel stops bombing Lebanon and pulls out its forces. Residents of Houla said they feared up to 60 people, including many children, had been killed. They said most of the people were shepherds who had refused to flee the fighting.
Hizbollah guerrillas had earlier in the day attacked Israeli forces near the village, wounding five soldiers.
Speaking before news of the Houla raid, Lebanese Health Minister Mohammad Khalifeh said the war had killed 925 people, mostly civilians, with 75 missing, presumed dead. About one-third of the dead were children under the age of 13, he told Reuters. Ninety-four Israelis have also been killed.
Here’s what we really know about the “massacre” and the “martyrs”: (a) Israel doesn’t target true “civilians” so if anything bad happened at all, it was inadvertant; (b) Hezbollah constantly allows or places women and kids at its firing positions, and in harm’s way, so it would not be at all surprising if people at those positions, whoever they were, got killed; (c) Israel had soldiers on the ground in the village, so it would appear likely that they had pretty decent reconaissance on their targets; (d) Reuters continues in its arrogance to act as a mere stenographer in these matters, advancing the action line of the enemy, without regard for the truth; and (e) Reuters, in all its efforts to champion the enemy’s cause, doesn’t hold a candle to the incredibly popular al Jazeera, which will broadcast Hezbollah’s propaganda and the non-stop blood and guts of babies 24/7/365.
There is no victory but victory, because the battle for the MSM can never happen until then. However, it is a good, if small, bit of progress, that many people will now react to seeing any story by Reuters by asking: “What if it were true?”
UPDATE
We just asked, “What if it were true?’ It wasn’t. The Reuters story was wildly wrong. A new Reuters story now reads this way in the second paragraph:
Choking back tears in an emotional speech to an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Beirut, Siniora said more than 40 civilians were killed in an air raid in a southern village. But he later revised the toll to one.
“He later revised the toll to one.” How then did Reuters get the reactions from the residents of that village, Houla, who said they feared that up to 60 people had been killed, and identified them as children and shepherds? Did they get that information from their Hezbollah handlers and allies? You may believe any story from Reuters / Hezbollah at your peril.
August 8th, 2006 at 11:57 am
[...] What a shock! Dinocrat has a great review of the whole thing - and what wasn’t noted by the weepy Prime Minister is the fact that the Hezbos had launched an attack from this village just a few minutes before it was attacked by Israel. [...]
August 14th, 2006 at 3:05 pm
[...] 06:43 PDT Writing on the attack that Lebanese PM Siniora initially said it killed 40 people and later revised it downwards to one, Dinocrat asks: “How then did Reuters get the reactions from the residents of that village, Houla, who said they feared that up to 60 people had been killed, and identified them as children and shepherds? Did they get that information from their Hezbollah handlers and allies?” [...]
February 22nd, 2007 at 6:35 am
When Seniora was addressing the world and spoke about the massacre, he did not speak about Houla but about the Qana Massacre which killed more than 47 people. Playing on words and creating stories does not make people who followed the war on a day to day basis, change their minds about the cruelty caused by the israeli bombardment of innocent Lebanese civillians. The world these days is no longer blind by the atrocities that israel is doing. Israel was and is still been built on terror. Nothing that can be said or done will erase what we saw in the July agression on Lebanon, and how regardless of all the destruction that occured, a lesson was learnt by many, that try hard as you can…YOU CAN NEVER KILL THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE…