Home > ’No Hezbollah Rockets Fired from Qana’
Wars and conflicts International
Dahr Jamail
Red Cross workers and residents of Qana, where
Israeli bombing killed at least 60 civilians, have told IPS that no
Hezbollah rockets were launched from the city before the Israeli air
strike.
The Israeli military has said it bombed the building in which several
people had taken shelter, more than half of them children, because the
Army had faced rocket fire from Qana. The Israeli military has said that
Hezbollah was therefore responsible for the deaths.
"There were no Hezbollah rockets fired from here," 32-year-old Ali Abdel
told IPS. "Anyone in this village will tell you this, because it is the
truth."
Abdel had taken shelter in a nearby house when the shelter was bombed at
1 am. When the bombings finally let up in the morning, he went back to
the bombed shelter to search for relatives.
He found his 70-year-old father and 64-year-old mother both dead inside.
"They bombed it, and afterwards I heard the screams of women, children,
and a few men — they were crying for help. But then one minute after
the first bomb, another bomb struck, and after this there was nothing
but silence, and the sound of more bombs around the village."
Masen Hashen, a 30-year-old construction worker from Qana who lost
several family members in the air strike on the shelter, said there were
no Hezbollah rockets fired from his village. "Because if they had done
that now, or in the past, all of us would have left. Because we know we
would be bombed."
Qana had been a shelter because no rockets were being fired from there,
survivors said. "When Hezbollah fires their rockets, everyone runs away
because they know an Israeli bombardment will come soon," Abdel said.
"That is why everyone stayed in the shelter and nearby homes, because we
all thought we’d be all right since there were no Hezbollah fighters in
Qana."
Lebanese Red Cross workers in the nearby coastal city of Tyre told IPS
that there was no basis for Israeli claims that Hezbollah had launched
rockets from Qana.
"We found no evidence of Hezbollah fighters in Qana," Kassem Shaulan, a
28-year-old medic and training manager for the Red Cross in Tyre told
IPS at their headquarters. "When we rescue people or recover bodies from
villages, we usually see rocket launchers or Hezbollah fighters if they
are there, but in Qana I can say that the village was 100 percent clear
of either of those."
Another Red Cross worker, 32-year-old Mohammad Zatar, told IPS that "we
can tell when Hezbollah has been firing rockets from certain areas,
because all of the people run away, on foot if they have to."
While IPS was interviewing people in Qana at the site of the shelter
Monday, Israeli warplanes roared overhead. Vibrations from nearby
bombing rattled many buildings. At least three villages in southern
Lebanon were attacked in Israeli air strikes Monday.
Following the international outcry over the air strike, Israel declared
a 48-hour cessation of air strikes in order to carry out a military
probe into the Qana killings.
Despite the false Israeli statement that it was halting its air strikes,
Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon told Army Radio that the stoppage
"does not signify in any way the end to the war."
Israel has rejected mounting international pressure to end the
20-day-old war against Hezbollah. The United Nations has indefinitely
postponed a meeting on a new peacekeeping force for southern Lebanon.
While defending the Israeli air strike on the civilians in Qana,
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations Dan Gillerman told the UN
Security Council that Qana was "a hub for Hezbollah", and said that
Israel had urged villagers to leave.
Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres said in reply to questions in
New York Monday that the bombing was "totally, totally its (Hezbollah’s)
fault." (FIN/2006)