Blogtown, PDX

Monday, March 3, 2008

News Reading the News, So You Don’t Have To: Major Shit Happening/About to Happen in the Mideast

Posted by The Unpaid Intern on Mon, Mar 3 at 10:37 AM

*Saudi and Kuwait embassies in Beirut have told their nationals to leave Lebanon.

*American warships have been deployed to Lebanon’s coast.

*100 dead Palestinians since Wednesday.

Many of the dead are Hamas militants, but scores of Palestinian civilians have been taken out… there’s been a few casualties among the Israeli soldiers…one dead Israeli civilian.

SUMMARY

It was started by an Israeli air strike in the Gaza strip on Wednesday, supposedly to stop a group of Hamas militants from infiltrating Israel and kidnapping a soldier (??). The attack killed five. Palestinians/Hamas in Gaza have been shooting rockets into Israel ever since.

LATEST

**Three American ships have been deployed to the eastern Mediterranean in a “show of support” for Prime Minister Siniora (of Lebanon), who is pro-Western and is stuck in a political deadlock with Hezbollah in choosing the country’s next president (They’ve been deadlocked for the last 4 months).

*Hezbollah is Shiite and is associated with Syria and Iran.
*The Sunnis that control Lebanon and Saudia Arabia are big allies of ours.

People are also saying the warships have been moved off the Lebanese coast to deflect attention from the Israeli offensive going on in the Gaza strip. other people are saying the ships are there to support the offensive, in case there is action from Hezbollah in support of the Palestinians.

Keep an eye out for it…

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Comments

'It was started by an Israeli air strike in the Gaza strip on Wednesday ... '

... in response to thousands of Hamas rocket attacks on Ashkelon and southern Israeli towns.

Posted by dk | March 3, 2008 1:14 PM

I dont think they were firing rockets on Ashkelon before the air strike on Wed.

The NYT writes...

The increase in violence started Wednesday when five members of the Qassam Brigades were killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza. Israeli military officials said that the squad had intended to carry out a special operation against Israel, possibly involving infiltrating the border and capturing a soldier.

Militants in Gaza responded by firing barrages of rockets at Sderot, killing an Israeli civilian, the first such fatality in months. On Thursday they started launching longer-range, manufactured Katyusha-style rockets at Ashkelon, a city of 120,000 people about 10 miles north of the Gaza Strip.

Israeli officials described the firing of the longer-range rockets as a serious escalation of the conflict, and they mounted a ground and air campaign in northern Gaza that left more than 60 Palestinians dead on Saturday.

Posted by newsintern | March 3, 2008 1:21 PM

AP: Israel evacuated its troops and settlers from Gaza in late 2005.
Hamas militants have since fired rockets into Israel from the
territory that was abandoned.

Posted by dk | March 3, 2008 1:47 PM

Ariel! You have awoken from your coma! Was it painful? Did you have bad dreams?

Anyways, happy belated birthday you war criminal cocksucking butcher!

Posted by Wassalam alaikum | March 4, 2008 12:43 PM

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