Yesterday Was a Terrible Day in Lebanon

The following is from Juan Cole who, having already proven his stuff with the Iraq War, is doing one of the best jobs anywhere in reporting on the Israeli-Hezbollah attacks that have hurt Israel but largely destroyed Lebanon. Please read.

Israeli helicopters delivered special ops troops to Baalbak, where they engaged in firefights with Hizbullah fighters.

Apparently they were looking for a senior Hizbullah leader who was being treated at Dar al-Hikmah hospital in Baalbak. Israeli helicopter gunships are said to have destroyed a hospital in the city. However, it appears that they missed their man and satisfied themselves with taking 5 or 6 very junior Hizbullah fighters hostage, returning to Israel. Some eyewitnesses are saying that the Israelis fired a missile at the Dar al-Hikmah hospital, setting it ablaze. Unless the hospital had been turned into a military base, this action (if it occurred) was a war crime.

The Israelis killed 10 civilians in Jamaliyah near Baalbak, apparently as part of the operation (that went wrong).Another account of the hospital attack says:

' In the attack on the ancient city of Baalbek, about 80 miles north of Israel, commandos ferried in by helicopters fought Hezbollah guerrillas inside and around the hospital under cover of heavy airstrikes, witnesses said. At least seven people were killed in the city, they said.

'The Israelis then carried out air raids in the far north of Lebanon, a Sunni area with no Hizbullah, destroying three bridges, in an ongoing attempt to cripple the national infrastructure.

For all the cheerleading in the Western press about a "daring" raid into Baalbak, the evidence is that the Israelis failed to nab their real target, had to content themselves with very low-level captives, rampaged around damaging a hospital and killing 7 civilians, along with 10 civilians in a nearby village, and left with no accomplishment worth mentioning.