Israel's Attack on Lebanon and Hezbollah

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After an IAF air strike on Kafr Qana, in which at least 50 Lebanese - including children - were killed, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora demanded an immediate and unconditional cease fire, Israel Radio reported
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Protesters angry over an IAF air strike in Qana that killed up to 50 refugees broke into the main UN building in the Lebanese capital Sunday, burning UN and American flags.

Around 500 protesters massed outside the building, which was empty on the weekend day. Some pushed through police barricade, smashed windows and broke inside the building.

Outside, demonstrators chanted slogans against Israel and the United States and denounced Arab governments for not doing enough to stop Israel's 19-day bombardment of Lebanon.
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Jordan's King Abdullah II voiced his strongest criticism of his Israeli peace partner on Sunday, saying an attack on a southern Lebanese village was "criminal aggression" which targeted innocent civilians.

At least 60 people were killed Sunday in an Israeli air strike on Qana - the deadliest attack in 19 days of fighting. The IDF said it targeted the village because the militant Hizbullah has repeatedly launched rockets from the area on Israel.

Abdullah condemned "the ugly crime perpetrated by Israeli forces in Qana, which led to the killing of innocent civilians, including a large number of children and women," said a statement released by the king's press office.

"This criminal aggression constitutes a blatant violation of the law and all international conventions," the king said.
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US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday she is "deeply saddened by the terrible loss of innocent life" after an attack on a village in southern Lebanon but did not call for an immediate cease-fire in the fighting between Israel and Hizbullah.

Rice said she called Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora to say she would postpone a visit to Beirut on Sunday, and that she had work to do in Jerusalem to end the fighting.

"We are also pushing for an urgent end to the current hostilities, but the views of the parties on how to achieve this are different," she said.
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Hizbullah vowed to revenge the attack on Qana on Sunday afternoon.

"The slaughter in Qana will not pass without reaction," a Hizbullah spokesman said on Al-Manar television.
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Britain's foreign secretary said an IAF strike on southern Lebanon Sunday that killed some 50 civilians was a tragedy and a setback for any peace deal.

"We need to go back and pick up the pieces," Britain's Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett told Sky News in an interview Sunday, promising to continue working with all players in finding a solution to end the violence.

Beckett, however, stopped short of calling for a cease-fire.

"We have repeatedly called on the Israelis to act proportionately," Beckett said.
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Following the deadly IAF strike on Qana, Gideon Meir, a senior Foreign Ministry official, said on Sunday that Hizbullah was using their own civilian population as human shields.

Meir said that Israel deeply regretted the loss of any civilian life, especially that of innocent children.

"This is not the code of conduct of the Israeli army," added Meir.
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France on Sunday condemned an early morning IAf strike on the southern Lebanese town of Qana that left as many as 60 dead, calling it an unjustifiable act and demanding an immediate cease-fire.

President Jacques Chirac learned "with dismay of the act of violence that cost the lives of numerous innocent victims, notably woman and children, in Qana overnight," his office said in a statement.

"France condemns this unjustifiable action, which shows more than ever the need to move toward an immediate cease-fire, without which other such dramas can only be repeated," it said.
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Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that the area was a focal point for the firing of Katyusha rockets on Kiryat Shmona and Afula. He said that from the outset of the conflict "hundreds of rockets have been fired from the Qana area."

Olmert stressed that there was no IDF policy of targeting innocent civilians, as opposed to Hizbullah that has launched rockets "with the aim of murdering innocent civilians in northern Israel."

A high-ranking IAF officer said that the IDF warned the residents of Qana to evacuate the village in anticipation of the airstrikes on Katyusha launchers.