Israel Urged to Aid Oil-Stained Lebanon
UNITED NATIONS - When the Israeli Air Force destroyed a slew of oil storage tanks and a key power station in Lebanon in July 2006, the environmental damage was described as devastating.
And now, more than 15 months later, the United Nations has released a report detailing the extent of the destruction caused by that oil spill to human health, biodiversity, fisheries and tourism.
The destruction has had “serious implications” for livelihoods and economy in that continuously trouble-plagued country.
The Israeli bombing, which destroyed storage tanks and the El-Jiyeh power plant, triggered the release of about 15,000 tonnes of fuel oil into the Mediterranean Sea, leading to the contamination of some 150 kms of coastline in Lebanon and neighbouring Syria.
The four weeks of bombings, characterised by an intense military conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, resulted in more than 1,183 fatalities, about one-third of them children, while 4,054 people were injured and 970,000 Lebanese displaced.
After an assessment of the economic damage, the World Bank said the overall cost was between 527 million dollars and 931 million dollars, averaging about 729 million dollars, or about 3.6 percent of Lebanon’s gross domestic product in 2006.
The damages affected forests, water, air, hotels, beach resorts, public beaches, restaurants and commercial fishing.
The implications of the oil spill have been studied and assessed by over half a dozen international and environmental organisations, including the World Conservation Union (IUCN), the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP), the U.N. Environment Programme, the World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organisation.
According to the IUCN, much of the shoreline ecosystem was physically and chemically contaminated.
The oil spill had a direct impact on biodiversity hot spots and fragile marine ecosystem, such as the only marine protected area in the country: Palm Islands Nature Reserve.
In a report to the current session of the General Assembly, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urges the government of Israel “to take the necessary actions towards assuming responsibility for prompt and adequate compensation to the government of Lebanon.”
The international efforts to help Lebanon should be intensified, he says, in the study titled “Oil Slick on Lebanese Shores”, since “Lebanon is still engaged in oil removal, treatment of wastes and monitoring of recovery.”
“It should also be recognised that this oil spill is not covered by any of the international oil-spill compensation funds, and thus merits special consideration,” he notes.
According to the 14-page report, financial and technical assistance have so far come from more than a dozen countries, including Kuwait, Norway, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Monaco, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan and the United States.
But Israel is conspicuously absent from the list of donors.
To date, the report says, the government of Israel has yet to assume its responsibility for prompt and adequate compensation to the government of Lebanon.
The UNDP, which reviewed the many international and regional conventions that relate to oil pollution, found that all conventions are “inapplicable during armed hostilities.”
Additionally, the agreements that relate to spill compensation pertain only to oil spills from tanker vessels at sea, and not land-based incidents.
The U.N. report also says that when the oil spill occurred in July 2006, “it overwhelmed national response capacity because of the ongoing conflict, the simultaneous need for a massive humanitarian response, the destruction of infrastructure and a land, air and sea blockade by Israel.”
These factors also impeded initial efforts for international assistance.
In a report released last year, the London-based human rights organisation Amnesty International said that during more than four weeks of ground and aerial bombardment by the Israeli armed forces, the country’s infrastructure suffered destruction on a “catastrophic scale”.
Israeli forces pounded buildings into the ground, reducing entire neighbourhoods to rubble and turning villages into ghost towns, as their inhabitants fled the bombardments. Main roads, bridges and petrol stations were blown to bits, AI said.
Entire families were killed in air strikes on their homes or in their vehicles while fleeing the aerial assaults on their villages.
Scores lay buried beneath the rubble of their houses for weeks, as the Red Cross and other rescue workers were prevented from accessing the areas by continuing Israeli strikes, according to AI.
“The Israeli Air Force launched more than 7,000 air attacks on about 7,000 targets in Lebanon between 12 July and 14 August 2006, while the Navy conducted an additional 2,500 bombardments,” AI added.
On the humanitarian front, the United Nations and its relief agencies were outraged over the destruction of lives and infrastructure in Lebanon, in what then Secretary-General Kofi Annan called a “grossly disproportionate use of military force.”
The New York based Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused the Israelis of using artillery-fired cluster munitions in populated areas of Lebanon.
“Cluster munitions are unacceptably inaccurate and unreliable weapons when used around civilians,” Kenneth Roth, executive director of HRW said. “They should never be used in populated areas.”
Jan Egeland, then U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator, was quoted as saying “when one-third of the wounded and killed reportedly are children and women, then this goes far beyond responding to those armed groups (Hezbollah) and what they are doing against the civilian population in Israel.”
© 2007 Inter Press Service
Boycott Israel.
Israel committed war crimes. When it happened, I called Senators Clinton, Boxer and Feinstein and Congress woman Anna Eschoo. Their offices told me the exact same statement word for word “Israel has the right to defend itself.”
Dennis Kucinich did address the attack:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/26/147221
The United States of America for years has been supplying Israel with weapons, even after Israel attacked the USS Liberty in 1967 killing 34, wounding 171.
After many years the sailors from the USS Liberty have tried to get their story out. It finally made the Chicago Tribune, October 2, 2007:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-liberty_tuesoct02,0,66005.story?coll=chi_tab01_layout
Also, a very good book from someone that was there:
Assault on the Liberty
by James M. Ennes Jr.
Don’t ask Israel to do anything! Because of the German holocaust, Israel has an eternal get-out-of-jail-free card.
You want oil in Lebanon cleaned up? Hey, we suffered during the German holocaust. Stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians? Hey, what about our suffering?
When will Israel stop playing its victims credits? We hope no later than the death of the last great-grandchild of the last survivor of the German holocaust.
The report is saying that a coin has only one side.
Anyone who read this article might think that the IDF, out of the blue, for no apparent reason, out of pure evil, just decide to start bombing power plant and residential building.
- It failed to mention that there was a War.
- It failed to tell the readers that in that war, 4,000 rockets were fired by the Hizbollah on Israeli civilian targets (A war crime according to Amnesty international)
- It fails to remind us that that War was triggered by the Hizbollah, - a militant organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel.
White Rose November 2nd, 2007 1:59 pm “Boycott Israel.”
White Rose, assuming that you are not a hypocrite, and that do you plan to boycott Israel yourself, I would like to tell you a few last words.
It has been nice seeing you here in CommonDreams. No doubt, you will no longer read or post any message in this blog, since immediately after you will read this message, (again, assuming that you are not a hypocrite) you will throw away your computer that use Intel, and Microsoft components (Developed in Israel). And you will disconnect from your internet providers who use cisco and checkpoint technologies (again developed in Israel).
I hope you will have a long healthy life, since you will avoid any medical treatment which was developed in Israel.
If you will agree to delay your boycott by 8 more minutes, here are some more suggestion on how you can efficiently boycott Israel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIjs1TT5-sc
I think it would be best to close our embassy bring our ambassador home, shut our ports to all products of Israel. Israel is a pariah nation which survives by theft and murder.
templar you are a spreader of falsehood and a liar.
“If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. We come from Israel, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?”
David Ben-Gurion to Nahum Goldmann, the president of the World Jewish Congress
White Rose - Why are you calling me names?
CommmonDream is a civilized liberal forum, where people can freely express and discuss their opinion, even if they are different than yours.
I was not swearing at you, nor was I calling you names. I was trying to be polite civilized and informative, on how to boycott Israel.
My goal was not to insult you, but to educate you. I see no wrong with broadening knowledge, and exposing the readers of this blog to diversified view points.
If you think that a single word that I wrote is inaccurate, (Which I think they are) there are better ways to educate me or correct me than calling me names, such as “spreader of falsehood and a liar”.
White Rose -
With regard to the Israeli boycott, If you happened to live in California, call your Electricity provider, and insist to get only power which was generated by coal, nuclear or natural gas power plants. Since all 10 solar power plants in California, and most of the geo-thermal power plants in west USA were build by Israeli companies (Luz and Ormat). When you do that - make sure not to use your cell phone, which was invented by Motorola-Israel.
Good luck with your boycott. And since I don’t expect to see you here again (That is, if you follow your conscious and throw away your computer), Good bye.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115×119498
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/45123
templer: Let’s not get carried away, there are a lot of grays in this. The war wasn’t triggered by Hezbollah, Israel planned this operation for a year beforehand. Even so their intel warned against attacking due to insufficient understanding of Hezbollah’s potential. You also fail to mention that the formation of Hezbollah was in the first place a direct consequence of Israel’s earlier invasion of Lebanon. What goes around comes around and Israel created themselves a monster. To say also that the WWII technology Katyusha rockets were targeted is a little too strong a term as they are unguided and extremely inaccurate. I will agree that the expectation was that they would cause civilian casualties but I think you would also have to agree that the bombing of Beirut and its infrastructure could expect to cause civilian casualties too. The carpet bombing of Southern Lebanon with cluster bomblets that were 30 years old is especially reprehensible. This was done in the last couple of days of war after the ceasfire was in the bag. They are designed to kill civilians, particularly children and there are 500,000 unexploded bomblets, minus whatever the UN has managed to clean up, ready to keep on killing long after the war is over. If this isn’t a war crime I am unsure what is.
In case you are wondering I am no fan of either Hezbollah or Israel.
cromerovich, we are in agreement that both sides committed war crimes. (Not only we, also Amnesty International)
Some conspiracy theorist think the war (Which was not mentioned as a war in the article) was planed by Israel. I don’t know if that is true or not. What I do know is that the war was triggered, and started by the Hezbollah.
Here are the events that let to the war:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Israel-Lebanon_conflict
At around 9:00 AM local time (06:00 UTC) on 12 July 2006, Hezbollah launched diversionary rocket attacks toward Israeli military positions near the coast and near the border village of Zar’it[38] as well as on the Israeli town of Shlomi and other villages.[39] At the same time, a Hezbollah ground contingent crossed the border into Israeli territory and attacked two Israeli armoured Humvees patrolling on the Israeli side of the Israel-Lebanon border, near Zar’it, killing three, injuring two, and seizing two Israeli soldiers (Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev)
We all know what happened next…
Surly, you are not suggesting that this rocket barrage on civilian targets and cross border raid was planned or controlled by Israel.
My critics of the article, is that the events which triggered the war, + all the war crimes which were committed by Israel’s enemies - were ignored.
A more balanced article would have bring both sides of the story.
Zionists = Neocons = War Criminals = Lethally greedy, powerful goliath bullies with no respect for international law, human beings, and the environment, who kill, destroy and suppress en masse and are accountable to none.
One day these brutes will all be held accountable, one way or another.
Criticism of Israel in any shape or form is off limits, primarily because the US is complicit in their crimes. We should separate the corrupt Israeli government from the Jew; they are not the same. The Holocaust was not committed against Israel. Israel is the committer of a Holocaust against Palestine (not to say Palestine has been innocent in all of this), and a bully with respect to other Arab countries. Who or what gave Israel the right to decimate Lebanon? They have used and continue to use the Jew’s past mistreatment as a shield against their own atrocities. The Israeli government behaves in an almost psychopathic manner: paranoid schizophrenia. It’s time they were no longer given a free ticket to terrorize and destroy; the international community must cease to turn the other cheek. Unfortunately, it does not seem about to happen anytime soon.
templar demonstrate the truthfulness of your statements.
There was no war, there was an invasion of Lebanon by Israel.
Lebanon was defended by Hezbollah much to the chagrin of the once invincible Israeli army.
The 4000 flying pipe bombs was nothing compared to the devastation wrecked on Lebanon, what international laws has Israel not broken in it’s wrecklessness? Dose Israel still send assassins abroad using stolen Canadian passports? or have they reformed?
What does Israel invent? The Mirage jet? Stolen from the French, likewise the computer technologies you mention are also stolen borrowed or under license. The only tech I see coming from Israel has to do with population and prison control, nice but we don’t need it.
The zionazis in Israel have given Jews everywhere a tremendous set back. There will be negative blowback for generations.
templar you want to avoid responsibility for the result, nobody givess a fuck why they did it, could be any looney reason I don’t care. The fact is that Israel invaded Lebanon caused massive damage to the entire country and murdered thouands of Lebanese, left the countryside littered with cluster bomblets and mines. Continues to occupy Lebanese soil to this day and continuously make military incursions into Lebanese airspace on a daily basis. This is a pariah state. This is what happens when you allow religious states to have a military.
Israel must make reparations.
As I said before… I’m in favor of free information, and education.
Here is an example of what you called “4000 flying pipe”
http://newsblaze.com/story/20060806183200nnnn.nb/topstory.html
These “4000 flying pipe” caused 40 civilian death and and 300,000-500,000 Israelis refugees in Northern Israel.
Are you so sure that your computer does not use Intel or Microsoft components which were developed in Israel?
If we dispute some facts, such as that Pentium MMX, or other computer technologies, were stolen technology - It is easy to investigate and debunk your false climes.
The Israeli innovation and contribution in the field of information technologies, renewable energy (Solar and geo-thermanl) and medical research - Israel is the number one in the world per capita. And is one of the top world contributer in these fields even in absolute numbers.
White Rose - “Lebanon was defended by Hezbollah”
The Hezbollah are not the defenders of Lebanon, they were the destroyers of Lebanon.
I have a Lebanese friend, who is a Sunni Muslim. In his Lebanese village not far from Beirut, they call the Iranian backed Hizbollah (In Arabic “the party of God”)- The party of the Devil.
You can manipulate history and fact anyway you want to promote your anti-Israeli hate agenda. The truth remains visible to anyone who is not blinded by hatred, and who is willing to do a little research himself. (Not in hate sites)
If the Hezbollah would have believed in live and let live.
If the Hezbollah had not been committed to the destruction of Israel.
If the Hezbollah had not fired without provocation a rocket barrage on Israeli civilian targets, followed by cross border raid against an Israeli Army patrol inside Israel, braking international law
- There would be no war.
There would be no suffering in both sides of the border, and there would be no oil spill at the shores of beautiful Lebanon cost.
As for you your claim that the “event” was not a war:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Israel-Lebanon_conflict
- In Lebanon the “Not a war event” is called- The July War
- In Israel the “Not a war event” is called - The second Lebanese War.
Who are you White Rose to dispute, and contradict the people of the region, who suffer from that “Not a war event” which they believe was a war. What makes your opinion superiors to the feelings and the opinion of the victims?
“If the Hezbollah would have believed in live and let live.”
How can Hezbollah forget that their brothers and sisters the Palestinians are being held in a concentration camp called Gaza and the West Bank?
If Israel wants to be such a callous brutal neighbor and humiliate the people who have lived in that area for generations, then they must expect the friends of the oppressed to come to their aide.
I am sure Israel would like nothing better then for Hezbollah to mind their own business while they have their foot on the throat of the Palestinians.
Unless Israel comes to its senses and stops their imperialistic pursuit of biblical land, the Hezbollah rockets are going to get larger and more destructive.
We would all like to see the US and Israel free of the right wing conservative maniacs and for once show a little respect and compassion for your neighbors.
Illegally shutting down electricity to Gaza causing hardship and devastation to millions of innocent people is not a good way to win friends and influence people.
Cluster Bombing civilians? Do you think this was a little over reaction to a border incident? Has the Israeli government gone insane with such barbaric retaliatory measures?
I do not think the invincible Israeli army thought that it would be met with such ferocity on the part of Hezbollah. And I am glad they repelled the invasion of their country Lebanon once again, otherwise the Israelis would have expanded their grip from the Golan Heights and still be there.
Not too late, make peace now before the rockets start getting bigger and more vaporizing.
SEQUOIABISON, “How can Hezbollah forget that their brothers and sisters the Palestinians”
You say that remembering the Palestinians, justify the Hezbollah’s unprovoked attack on civilian targets in Israel (A war crime).
If so - Why didn’t they attack and commit war crimes against some other countries who are involve in a conflict? (Sudan, Morocco, China, Congo, Somalia, Chechnya, Syria, Sari-Lenka, Burma, to name a few?)
Following the same logic - Why not all countries and all organizations in the world will immediately attack all the countries and region who are involve in a war, and than attack each other since they will also be in war.
Your logic that provoking Israel to war by committing war crimes against Israel civilians, followed by cross border raids, is the way to progress for peace, may not work.
I think that my idea of live and let live is a better to achieve peace.
“Illegally shutting down electricity to Gaza causing hardship and devastation to millions of innocent people is not a good way to win friends and influence people.”
The Israeli Attorney General Menachem Mazuz yesterday (October 29th) prohibited the state from cutting off electricity to parts of the Gaza Strip, as the defense minister has threatened to do.
The decision followed a petition submitted by 10 human rights organizations, asking the High Court of Justice not to allow punitive measures against the Gaza Strip’s population.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/918258.html
Maybe petitioning the Israeli High Court of Justice is a better way than firing rockets. Just a thought.
namoses - When you can’t confront data that I truly believe to be true, you revert to swearing and lies.
Unlike namoses’s lies, I never said all great inventions come from Israel. I said that some did.
Unlike namoses’s lies, I never said all cures to all diseases, all scientists etc come from Israel. But some did.
Unlike namoses’s dilutions, I never said ““the supposed chosen people” above all peoples on earth”, in fact said all people are equal. And everyone should be judged equally.
namoses: “say nuke Israel and imprison all of their lobby groups in our country and all of their senators and congress people who have voted to support Israel”
Thank you namoses for admitting that you are a racist mass murderer wannabe.
namoses: “their Yahweh read the Old Testament.” This is a viscious god and people.”
Sorry to disappoint you here too, but I’m an atheist.
namoses: “Don’t ever forget that Israel lives and survives because of this American’s tax dollars and not yoursel-created god.”
Thank you namoses, for paying taxes.