On This Day

26 July

KILLING LEBANESE TO MESSAGE THE UN
On this day in 1982, Israeli bombing of central Beirut began precisely at 2:42 and 3:38pm. Israeli daily Davaar noted that this was bombing with "a touch of humour with a slight hint." It noted that the timing "was not accidental” following UN condemnation of Israel’s latest invasion of Lebanon and referred to UN Resolutions 242 and 338. Israel used cluster bombs and white phosphorus shells widely in Lebanon, killing possibly 20,000 Palestinians and Lebanese.

 

قتْل اللبنانيين كرسالة للأمم المتحدة

26 يوليو

في مثل هذا اليوم من عام 1982 ، بدأ القصف الإسرائيلي لوسط بيروت في تمام الساعة 2:42 و 3:38 مساءً. واشارت صحيفة دافار الاسرائيلية اليومية الى ان هذا كان قصف "بلمسة من الفكاهة و تلميح طفيف". وأشار إلى أن التوقيت "ليس من قبيل الصدفة" بعد إدانة الأمم المتحدة لغزو إسرائيل الأخير للبنان وأشارت إلى قراري الأمم المتحدة 242 و 338. استخدمت إسرائيل القنابل العنقودية وقذائف الفسفور الأبيض على نطاق واسع في لبنان ، مما أسفر عن مقتل 20000 فلسطيني ولبناني.

 

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• • 
    On one occasion, on August 4, the IDF attempted a ground attack, but withdrew after 19 Israeli soldiers were killed. The IDF then returned to safer tactics, keeping to bombing and shelling from land and sea, against which there was no defense, in accordance with familiar military doctrine. The population of the beleaguered city was deprived of food, water, medicines, electricity, fuel, as Israel tightened the noose. Since the city was defenseless, the IDF was able to display its lighthearted abandon, as on July 26, when bombing began precisely at 2:42 and 3:38 PM, “a touch of humor with a slight hint,” the Labor press reported cheerily, noting that the timing, referring to UN Resolutions 242 and 338, “was not accidental.”
    Fateful Triangle, p419 Noam Chomsky (Pluto, 1999)

One BBC, correspondent wrote that

“The PLO...can rightfully claim to have  fought a tremendous battle against overwhelming military opposition..." while Israeli weekly Haolem Haze reported that “the PLO fighters fought bravely in Beirut confronted with the Israeli machine of destruction. They continued to fight, in spite of the fact that they had no military chance, just as was the case for the Jewish fighters 40 years ago in the Warsaw ghetto".

• According to US magazine Newsweek

  The Palestinians leave here as victors in their own minds and in the eyes of the Arab world. As all of their lead
  have said, they fought off one of the most powerful armies in the world. I have no doubt, having seen the intensity of the bombing and shelling of West Beirut, that the Israelis wanted to get into West Beirut to kill or drag the PLO fighters off into captivity. Despite what Ariel Sharon the Israeli defense minister might say, I do not think Israel spent billions of dollars, sacrificed hundreds of its young men and blackened its name in the civilized world just so that Yaser Arafat and George Habash and their men could fly off as heroes to the capitals of the Arab world.

• The guerillas now spreading out across the Arab world did what all the combined Arab armies have never been able to do:they denied Israel its victory. For the first time after an Israeli-Arab war, the ending is not recorded in pictures of long lines of Arab troops marching off to captivity and humiliation with their arms over their heads. The world is seeing triumphant soldiers carrying their arms and their flags to new battles. For the first time an Arab-Israeli war has produced a cadre of veterans who know what it is like to face the full strength of the Israeli army, navy and air force—and to stop them dead in their tracks.
  Chomsky  p535-6

• Stanley L. Cohen reports in Al Jazeera: