LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN

Bible Of the Day
Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians 4/1-5
4:1 So let a man think of us as Christ’s servants, and stewards of God’s mysteries. 4:2 Here, moreover, it is required of stewards, that they be found faithful. 4:3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you, or by man’s judgment. Yes, I don’t judge my own self. 4:4 For I know nothing against myself. Yet I am not justified by this, but he who judges me is the Lord. 4:5 Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each man will get his praise from God.

Sfeir Stresses Importance of Lebanese Unity in Protecting Lebanon
Prime Minister Saad Hariri's advisor Mohammed Shatah quoted Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir as saying that Lebanese unity is very important in confronting external threats. "It is important that all Lebanese adopt the same stance in order to protect the country and prevent it from once again becoming a target for assaults and wars whose price will be paid in blood by its sons, institutions, and land," Shatah quoted Sfeir as saying. Furthermore, Sfeir emphasized the importance of protecting Lebanon "so that it remains a nation for all the Lebanese, especially its youth who are migrating." Shatah added that the Patriarch said, "The main issue is to keep Lebanon a country of institutions, and maintaining it as a nation where everyone can live freely" in a country of coexistence, independence, and prosperity.

Nasrallah Vows to Get Hizbullah Cell Members out of Prison, Says Verdicts Unfair
Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah vowed to get all 26 members of the so-called Hizbullah Cell out of prison after an Egyptian court sentenced them to varying terms for working for Hizbullah to carry out attacks in Egypt. A Cairo court on Wednesday handed down jail terms of up to 15 years to 26 defendants it convicted of plotting attacks against ships in the Suez Canal and on tourist sites, among other charges. Most were detained between late 2008 and January 2009. Nasrallah called the verdicts "political verdicts." "The verdicts issued today against the Mujahideen who were giving support to the Mujahideen in the Gaza Strip are political rulings," Nasrallah said in interview with the Kuwaiti television al-Rai.
"The sentences were unfair against those honorable fighters," he said. Nasrallah vowed to get the prisoners out, saying the status with Egypt will not block efforts to resolve the issue. "The situation with Egypt is not deadlocked," he said. "We will certainly not let our brothers in prison," Nasrallah promised, adding that he will address the issue through legal and diplomatic channels. In a trial which reflected Egypt's tense ties with Hizbullah, the 22 accused who were in the dock received jail terms of between six months and 15 years, after calls from prosecutors for the death penalty.
Three of the four defendants on the run, including the alleged Lebanese head of the Hizbullah cell, Mohammed Qabalan, were handed life sentences. The fourth received a lesser prison term, lawyers said. The defendants had said in a hand-written letter obtained by AFP that they never planned attacks in Egypt but had tried to help the Gaza Strip's Palestinian Islamist Hamas rulers who have close ties with Hizbullah. Nasrallah admitted after the arrests were publicized in April that he sent a senior commander, Mohammed Youssef Mansour, better known as Sami Shehab, to Egypt to support Palestinian militants in Gaza. But Judge Adel Abdul Salam Gomaa rejected the defense case, ruling that the defendants were not simply acting in support of Hamas but had planned to carry out attacks on Egyptian soil. "Is targeting ships in the canal support for the Palestinian cause? Is preparing explosives and targeting tourist resorts support for the Palestinians?" the judge asked.
"Hizbullah's members rant that they came to Egypt to support the Palestinian cause and they dare to posture against what Egypt has given for the Palestinian people and cause," he said.
During the trial, prosecutors put on show explosives, including suicide belts that they said police had seized from the defendants. Lawyers for Mansour acknowledged he had proposed to carry out attacks against Israeli targets in Egypt in retaliation for the February 2008 assassination in Damascus of Hizbullah military commander Imad Mughniyeh. But the plan had been rejected by Hizbullah leadership in Lebanon. The defense lawyers said that Mansour had instead admitted to training recruits to carry out attacks but only inside Israel and the Palestinian territories. Mansour himself told AFP during a trial break that he and the other defendants had been tortured into confessing, an accusation denied by police.
After the verdict, defense lawyer Abdelmoneim Abdel Maqsoud challenged the legitimacy of the court, a special tribunal set up under Egypt's three-decade-old state of emergency.
"This is a political trial that was taken to a court that offered no guarantee of justice," he said. The trial reignited a war of words between Egypt, Hizbullah and its Iranian backers.
Egypt, which has no formal diplomatic ties with Iran, accuses Tehran of backing the alleged plot, while Iran and Hizbullah charge that Egypt contrived the case against the men.
During the devastating Israel-Hamas war of December 2008-January 2009, Cairo responded angrily to a speech by Nasrallah urging Egyptians to protest and army officers to resign over its refusal to permanently open its border with Gaza.(Naharnet-AFP) Beirut, 29 Apr 10, 08:03

Ktirmaya Residents Kill Murderer of 2 Grandparents and their 2 Grandchildren
Residents of the Mount Lebanon village of Ktirmaya on Thursday killed the murder suspect of two grandparents and their two young grandchildren. The state-run National News Agency identified the killer as Mohammed Salim Mosallam who allegedly shot to death Youssef Abu Merhi, 75, and his wife Kawthar, 70, along with their grandchildren Zeina, 7, and Amneh, 9. It said Mosallam was rushed to hospital by police after angry residents cruelly beat him up. But the locals chased the killer to Siblin hospital and killed him. Then they dragged his body out, tied it to a car and drove to Ktirmaya's main square. There, the residents stripped the killer of his clothing, tied a metal wire around his neck and hung him on a pole. The bullet-riddled bodies were discovered Wednesday by the two girls' mother, Rana Youssef Abu Merhi, as she returned home from work. The bodies were lying on the floor of Youssef Abu Merhi's house in Ktirmaya in the Iqlim al-Kharroub province of Mount Lebanon. Rana, a teacher at a nearby school, is divorced from the father, Mohammed Mustafa al-Rawwas, who is said to be living abroad. Interior Minister Ziad Baroud said earlier Thursday that DNA testing was being conducted on a man arrested overnight as a suspect in the killings.

Hezbollah declares right to defend itself
By Dalila Mahdawi
Daily Star staff
Thursday, April 29, 2010
BEIRUT: Hizbullah Wednesday reacted to US claims it was stockpiling Scud missiles by saying it had a right to defend itself, as a senior UN official said tensions were expected to “dissipate” soon.
“The resistance has the right to use all legitimate means to build its capacity to defend Lebanon,” Hizbullah MP Hassan Fadlallah told AFP. He added that US arms were “annihilating” civilians in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon, and were the chief “cause of all suffering in the region.” Last week, Israeli President Shimon Peres accused Syria of furnishing Hizbullah with Scud missiles. The charges were repeated late on Tuesday by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who said the military capabilities of the Shiite group undermined stability in the region. “Syria and Iran are providing Hizbullah with rockets and missiles of ever-increasing capability,” Gates said at a press conference with his Israeli counterpart Ehud Barak. “We’re at a point now where Hizbullah has far more rockets and missiles than most governments in the world,” Gates said, adding that Washington was monitoring the situation “very carefully.”
Gates did not, however, explicitly accuse Syria of supplying Hizbullah with Scud missiles. Barak also voiced concern over Syrian support for Hizbullah but did not repeat the claim that Damascus was supplying the group with Scuds. “We do not intend to provoke any kind of a major collision in Lebanon or vis-a-vis Syria,” he said.
The Scud charges have been denied by Syria, which says Tel Aviv fabricated the story to justify a possible military strike in the future. Lebanese Armed Forces chief General Jean Kahwaji has also dismissed the claims, noting the outdated 30-meter Scuds would be too hard for Hizbullah to conceal and too cumbersome to launch.
The charges showed the US was “waging a diplomatic and political battle” to help its ally Israel maintain superior military capabilities, Fadlallah said. “The US is asking us to accept Israel’s alleged superiority to ensure Israel remains capable of launching attacks at its will, while we are stripped of the ability to face these aggressions,” he told AFP. “We have no interest in acceding to these attempts to concretize Israeli superiority.” The US, rather than Hizbullah, was “the principle factor destabilizing the region, undermining its security and preventing development,” Fadlallah added.
At a meeting with Lebanese Premier Saad Hariri Wednesday, UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Michal Williams said he expected regional tensions over the Scud controversy to subside.
“The last thing this region wants and needs is further conflict. It has had enough of that over the years,” he said. Williams added he didn’t believe another war was likely, saying there was “too much at stake to lose for all the parties.” “I expect all parties will do their part to maintain the stability in the south and across the Blue Line and that tensions will dissipate,” he added.
In comments published Wednesday by the Qatari Al-Watan daily, Hariri reiterated comments that by claiming Hizbullah had Scud missiles. Israel was trying to justify new war against Lebanon that it could launch whenever it wants.”
He asked whether there was any proof that Hizbullah possessed Scuds, adding that Israel possessed nuclear weapons.
He said he would refuse to ask the Shiite group to deny possessing the missiles. “Why put ourselves in the position of being accused, and why give Israel the right to make such accusations?” Heightened tensions over the Scud missiles have prompted EU officials to urge Israel, Lebanon and Syria to avoid provocative acts. “The European Union is concerned by the public statements that have been exchanged recently between various parties to the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East,” EU Foreign Affairs chief Catherine Ashton said in a statement Tuesday. In July 2006, Israel launched a devastating 34-day war on Lebanon. Over 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers, were killed during the conflict.
UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the conflict, called for Israel to fully withdraw from Lebanese territory and for the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon outside the control of the government.

Hizbullah Calls for Accountability after U.S. Officers Made Inspection Tour along Border
Naharnet/An inspection tour by two U.S. officers from the Office of Counter-Terrorism to the Masnaa border area has upset Hizbullah which called for accountability.
Hizbullah said the breach was a violation of the "national security." "It makes the country exposed," Hizbullah said. Meanwhile, Hizbullah MP Hasan Fadlallah told the daily As-Safir in remarks published Thursday that the violation coincided with U.S. accusations that Iran and Syria were arming Hizbullah with sophisticated missiles as well as continuous Israeli threats against Lebanon. "How can a sovereign state allow a U.S. security service to inspect the border and give it sensitive information about border security, information that will definitely be passed to Israel to be used in wars," Fadlallah said. Local media said the U.S. officers, who were accompanied by a security staffer from the U.S. embassy, visited the Masnaa border area on Wednesday, asking a series of questions about the border crossing. They said the queries focused on finding out what the border needs and how to provide technical and modern equipment to enhance border control and the process of entry of individuals and trucks. The U.S. delegation also toured the border area around Anjar. As-Safir said the visit raised questions about the timing and whether or not it took place under the umbrella of Resolution 1701. Beirut, 29 Apr 10, 09:10

Aoun's Condition: Negotiating with Hariri Only over Beirut
Naharnet/Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun conditioned consensus over Beirut municipality on proportional representation and direct negotiations with Premier Saad Hariri.Aoun stressed during an interview with OTV on Wednesday night that he rejected discussions through State Minister Michel Pharaon, who has been tasked by March 14 Christians with negotiating with the FPM over its demands.
"In case we don't agree, we would head to (an electoral) battle," the MP said.
On the failure of agreements between the FPM and former Minister Elias Skaff, Aoun said: "There is no luck between us."
He described Skaff's management of the electoral campaign as "not sound," and said the FPM would have one candidate in Zahle, Engineer Antoine Abu Younes.
Clinton hails 'excellent' talks with Barak in Washington
israeli minister hails Obama’s ‘open-eyed approach’ to peace
By Agence France Presse (AFP)
Compiled by Daily Star staff
Thursday, April 29, 2010
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton late on Tuesday hailed “excellent” talks with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak as Washington cautiously hoped to revive indirect Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. A former Israeli premier who came close to striking a peace deal with the Palestinians a decade ago, Barak basked in the Washington limelight in contrast to the low-key welcome last month for hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As Barak and the chief US diplomat stood smiling together, Clinton praised “an excellent, very constructive, positive conversation” with Barak before he left for more talks with his US counterpart Robert Gates.
Barak meanwhile thanked US President Barack Obama’s administration for its “open-eyed approach to what should be done in the Middle East in order to push us all together, move together toward peace.” State Department spokeswoman Philip Crowley said Clinton, Barak, US envoy George Mitchell and Clinton’s top Middle East diplomat Jeffrey Feltman held 30 minutes of talks after teams from both sides met for 35 minutes.
Mitchell has just returned from the region in a new bid to revive the indirect “proximity talks” that were aborted as soon as they started in March when Israel announced it would build new homes in occupied East Jerusalem.
But Crowley refused to say whether progress had been made by Mitchell or during the talks here on Tuesday.
“We want to see them get into the proximity talks, and we’re not going to take anything for granted until that occurs,” Crowley told reporters after the Israeli-US meetings at the State Department.
But the mood was strikingly upbeat as Clinton and Barak warmly joked and held each other like the old friends they said they were. And Barak was granted full media exposure, in contrast to the low-profile meetings he attended at the White House with Netanyahu last month, which broke down in a row over settlements in East Jerusalem, which is still unresolved.
Last month Netanyahu did not even get a photo-op and a joint press appearance – the normal trappings for a visiting foreign leader.
An Israeli newspaper said Wednesday French President Nicolas Sarkozy has slammed Israel’s prime minister for “foot-dragging” amid international efforts to relaunch the Middle East peace process.
Citing unidentified officials, the center-left Haaretz said Sarkozy had voiced disappointment with Netanyahu during a “very difficult” meeting with Israeli President Shimon Peres.
“I’m disappointed with him,” Sarkozy reportedly said. “With the friendship, sympathy and commitment we have toward Israel, we still can’t accept this foot-dragging. I don’t understand where Netanyahu is going or what he wants.”
The comments were made during talks with Peres in Paris two weeks ago in which Sarkozy criticized Netanyahu for the first 15 minutes, the paper said.
Peres reportedly said “trust between Israel and the Palestinians has been undermined,” but that Israel had accepted a two-state solution in principle and taken steps to boost the Palestinian economy in the West Bank.
Meanwhile, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said on Wednesday Israel expects US mediated peace talks with the Palestinians to resume sometime next month.
Ayalon’s pronouncement was the latest in a series of statements by Israeli officials expressing optimism at the restart of talks stalled since December 2008.
When asked in an interview on Israel Radio when the talks might resume, Ayalon said: “There is no final date yet, but I estimate that it is a matter of some two weeks.”
Ayalon was speaking from Washington where he held talks with US officials. – AFP

Scud fiasco opens door for Israeli aggression
‘With or without the missiles, there is a crisis now … of broad proportions,’ says Analyst
By Michael Bluhm
Daily Star staff
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Analysis
BEIRUT: While the Scud crisis inflaming tensions between Lebanon and Israel is entangled with other regional issues, it clearly opens a path to war here should conditions deteriorate in the US-Iran nuclear standoff and Palestinian-Israeli peace process, a number of analysts told The Daily Star Wednesday.
While it remains uncertain whether Syria has provided Hizbullah with Scud missiles, as Israeli President Shimon Peres said two weeks ago, the Israeli charge unquestionably provides a major justification for the Israeli state to attack Hizbullah in the future, said Hilal Khashan, who teaches political studies at the American University of Beirut (AUB).
“With or without the Scuds, there is a crisis now … of broad proportions,” he said. “We have a casus belli. There is a cause for war.”
Because Israel has not supplied any proof of the missile transfer, interpretations vary on the veracity of the accusation and consequently on the source of the confrontation. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, speaking on Tuesday in the presence of Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, did not use the word Scud but rather discussed Hizbullah’s entire arsenal; Gates’ remarks have become fodder for various readings of the situation.
From one perspective, Israel is merely fishing for pretexts which would allow it to invade Lebanon and hammer Hizbullah, said Habib Malik, who teaches history at the Lebanese American University and is the son of Charles Malik, one of the founders of modern Lebanon and co-author of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
“It’s still a red herring,” Malik said, adding that Syria still had rearmed Hizbullah since the 2006 summer war with Israel, regardless of the existence of Scuds. “Absent evidence, it doesn’t really carry substance,” he added.
In another view, if Syria has indeed smuggled Scuds to Hizbullah, it appears Damascus decided to raise the pressure in the region to draw US attention to the necessity of including Syria in the possible resumption of Palestinian-Israeli peace talks, Khashan said.
But the ploy boomeranged when the US upped the stakes by calling into question all of Hizbullah’s rocket stockpile, said the AUB lecturer.
“The Syrians want to create a controlled crisis because the US has not been forthcoming on peace between Syria and Israel,” Khashan said. “Their plans have backfired. The issue now has gone out of control. The US has now brought up the entire Hizbullah missile arsenal.” Worsening the blowback, Syria might well find itself imperiled should a conflict erupt – if Hizbullah fires a Scud on Israel, blame would fall on Damascus, so Israel would be able to target Syria as well, Khashan added.
Whatever the truth about the Scuds, Israel has been building the case for another assault on Hizbullah and Lebanon since shortly after UN Security Council Resolution 1701 ended the 34-day war in 2006, said Paul Salem, head of the Carnegie Middle East Center. Israel then widened its argument for another war based on the “new alignment” in Lebanon after May 2008, when the Doha accord ended days of civil strife by creating a government including Hizbullah representatives, Salem added. With Hizbullah part of the state structure, Israel would be free to destroy any part of the Lebanese state in any future combat, Salem said.
Israel will not begin any armed strike on Lebanon in the short term, however, because of the region’s more pressing and significant problems, the analysts said. For example, the US is hammering out details with Russia and China on a new round of UN sanctions against Iran over the Islamic Republic’s disputed nuclear program, and Israel will have to wait out US diplomatic efforts to defuse the Iranian crisis before commencing a new war in the Middle East, Salem said.
“The main issue remains Iran,” he said. “I don’t think there will be a war in the next six months.” The Scud crisis “is saber-rattling, but it increases the risk of war, certainly,” he added. “Tensions are higher, certainly. Israel has more justification,” he added.
Israel also must delay any plans to attack Hizbullah in order to give a chance for the new American push for Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations, Khashan said.
But if those peace talks collapse, Israel will move to eliminate the Scuds from near its northern border, Khashan said. He said he disagreed with the notion that a deterrent equation existed between Israel and Hizbullah; Israel was avoiding war with Hizbullah because the Israeli state was happy with the status quo, he added. “Israel does not want a confrontation with Lebanon,” Khashan said. “Israel has achieved its objectives: They have the water, they have the security and they have a demilitarized border.”
The introduction of Scud missiles would change that equation, however, and Israel is not reluctant to attack Hizbullah, Khashan added. In the first 72 hours of the 2006 war, Israel destroyed more than 90 percent of Hizbullah’s long-range rockets before they were launched, he said. “Israel can put [Scuds] out of commission in no time,” Khashan said.
“The Scuds changed the rules of engagement between Hizbullah and Israel,” Khashan added. “The crisis has put Israel and Lebanon on an eventual collision track. Peace talks will eventually fail. Israel can and, I think, eventually will destroy those Scud missiles. There is no doubt in my mind that the Israelis will eventually dismantle them.
“This is very serious. I’m not saying that war will break out tomorrow, but the cause for war is there now.”
The rift over the Scuds is also serving other regional actors in their strategies, the analysts said. For instance, the US has taken the opportunity to reiterate that it remains committed for now to the path of engagement with Syria, Malik said. The US still believed it could “flip” Syria to a degree out of its strategic alliance with Iran, he added. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week said that reaching out to Syria was still the right tactic for the US.
“And, as usual, Lebanon’s caught in the middle of all this,” Malik said.
The US is also using the contretemps to try to smooth over its spat with Israel, Salem said. The US and Israel clashed over the Israeli state’s public refusal to halt illegal settlement building in areas which would become part of a future Palestinian state, but the Scud issue has offered up a topic on which the US and Israel can share the same viewpoint, Salem added.
Syria, meanwhile, has demonstrated during the row that it welcomes friction between Lebanon and Israel as a way to show that “Damascus matters,” Salem said. “Syria backs Hizbullah as an irritant” to push Israel to negotiate over the return of the Golan Heights, Salem added. “The Syrians are happy to rock the boat. Having peace and quiet is not great.”
Khashan said the scud accusation reminded him of the situation here in 1981, when Syria installed SAM-6 anti-aircraft missiles in the Bekaa. After a year of fruitless diplomacy, Israel invaded Lebanon, destroyed the missiles and occupied south Lebanon for the next 18 years, he added.
Retired General Elias Hanna, who teaches political science at various universities and fought with the Lebanese Armed Forces in the 1975-90 Civil War, said that the parallel did not hold because of the differences between the Palestinian threat then and the presence of Hizbullah today.
In any case, the Scud crisis reaffirms that Lebanon sits firmly in the Iran and Syria-led camp opposing Israel and so would absorb the consequences should that enmity explode into war, Hanna added.
“It means that Lebanon is really he said.

Resistance declares right to defend itself
By Dalila Mahdawi
Daily Star staff
Thursday, April 29, 2010

Listen to the Article - Powered by

BEIRUT: Hizbullah Wednesday reacted to US claims it was stockpiling Scud missiles by saying it had a right to defend itself, as a senior UN official said tensions were expected to “dissipate” soon.

“The resistance has the right to use all legitimate means to build its capacity to defend Lebanon,” Hizbullah MP Hassan Fadlallah told AFP. He added that US arms were “annihilating” civilians in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon, and were the chief “cause of all suffering in the region.”

Last week, Israeli President Shimon Peres accused Syria of furnishing Hizbullah with Scud missiles. The charges were repeated late on Tuesday by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who said the military capabilities of the Shiite group undermined stability in the region. “Syria and Iran are providing Hizbullah with rockets and missiles of ever-increasing capability,” Gates said at a press conference with his Israeli counterpart Ehud Barak. “We’re at a point now where Hizbullah has far more rockets and missiles than most governments in the world,” Gates said, adding that Washington was monitoring the situation “very carefully.”

Gates did not, however, explicitly accuse Syria of supplying Hizbullah with Scud missiles. Barak also voiced concern over Syrian support for Hizbullah but did not repeat the claim that Damascus was supplying the group with Scuds. “We do not intend to provoke any kind of a major collision in Lebanon or vis-a-vis Syria,” he said.

The Scud charges have been denied by Syria, which says Tel Aviv fabricated the story to justify a possible military strike in the future. Lebanese Armed Forces chief General Jean Kahwaji has also dismissed the claims, noting the outdated 30-meter Scuds would be too hard for Hizbullah to conceal and too cumbersome to launch.

The charges showed the US was “waging a diplomatic and political battle” to help its ally Israel maintain superior military capabilities, Fadlallah said. “The US is asking us to accept Israel’s alleged superiority to ensure Israel remains capable of launching attacks at its will, while we are stripped of the ability to face these aggressions,” he told AFP. “We have no interest in acceding to these attempts to concretize Israeli superiority.” The US, rather than Hizbullah, was “the principle factor destabilizing the region, undermining its security and preventing development,” Fadlallah added.

At a meeting with Lebanese Premier Saad Hariri Wednesday, UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Michal Williams said he expected regional tensions over the Scud controversy to subside.

“The last thing this region wants and needs is further conflict. It has had enough of that over the years,” he said. Williams added he didn’t believe another war was likely, saying there was “too much at stake to lose for all the parties.” “I expect all parties will do their part to maintain the stability in the south and across the Blue Line and that tensions will dissipate,” he added.

In comments published Wednesday by the Qatari Al-Watan daily, Hariri reiterated comments that by claiming Hizbullah had Scud missiles. Israel was trying to justify new war against Lebanon that it could launch whenever it wants.”

He asked whether there was any proof that Hizbullah possessed Scuds, adding that Israel possessed nuclear weapons.

He said he would refuse to ask the Shiite group to deny possessing the missiles. “Why put ourselves in the position of being accused, and why give Israel the right to make such accusations?”

Heightened tensions over the Scud missiles have prompted EU officials to urge Israel, Lebanon and Syria to avoid provocative acts. “The European Union is concerned by the public statements that have been exchanged recently between various parties to the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East,” EU Foreign Affairs chief Catherine Ashton said in a statement Tuesday.

In July 2006, Israel launched a devastating 34-day war on Lebanon. Over 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers, were killed during the conflict.

UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the conflict, called for Israel to fully withdraw from Lebanese territory and for the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon outside the control of the government.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=114343#ixzz0mREaHOD4
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)