Situation Report - Lebanon and Gaza

I visited the ancient city of Jericho this weekend and I've been writing an post about that as well as a concert I went to last night... but today's news is a little more pressing so I'm going to give an update on that first.

This morning, Hezbollah, a Lebanese military organization and political party launched an attack against Israeli positions around the border with Lebanon. Supposedly, these positions were both within Israel and within the territory that has been occupied by Israel since the 1960's and 1980's and have now been populated with illegal Jewish settlements.

There are conflicting reports that between 5 and 8 Israeli soldiers have been killed and that 2 have been captured. Apparently the capture has been confirmed by the Government and in response, Israel destroyed more infrastructure and civilian property and killed more Lebanese soldiers and civilians.

Apart from the round of boisterous applause in the cafeteria at the news coming from Al-Jazeera TV of the Hezbollah attack, everything remains quiet here in the Central West Bank. We are, in many ways, detached from what happens in the north (Lebanon) and the south (Gaza) by more than just geography and the reality that is Israel. There is apparent here, in the more well-off portion of Palestine, a sor of resignation that can bother some of us - but that comes from the wearing out of a population 40 years under occupation.

So worry about this news coming out of Lebanon. Israel has invaded a sovereign nation and has reportedly called up 6000 reservists to maintain its attack on Gaza as well. The last time Israel invaded Lebanon, thousands of people were killed there including the massacres of civilians in Sabra and Shatilla. But don't worry about me right now - all is normal in the Ramallah area.

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Before I get back to the less political realities of life here (as if anything can really be called "non-political" here!) I also wanted to mention something about the attack last night in Gaza. I'll quote from the CBC website...

"The 225-kg bomb leveled a residential building at about 2:30 a.m. local time, as Israel launched an offensive in the central Gaza Strip." and "The overnight bombing killed at least six people, but not the intended target."

Apparently they were looking to kill a reputed "Hamas bomb-maker" (even though Hamas hasn't sent a suicide bomber into Israel in over a year). What do they do?....

drop a 225 kg bomb... at 2:30am... on a residential building...

Is that terrorism?