For the Israeli air force, carrying out bombing raids over Lebanon is about as challenging as shooting fish in a barrel.

Hezbollah has no air force or air defences. So the Israeli air force — one of the best in the world — has been able to drop a constant barrage of bombs for the past two weeks on Lebanon, where civilians are essentially defenceless.

More than 600 Lebanese have been killed, according to the Lebanese Health Minister — more than 10 times the Israeli death toll.

By now, the Israeli civilian population has been largely evacuated from northern Israel, where Hezbollah rockets can strike, to the safe central and southern parts of the country. For millions in Lebanon, including an estimated 25,000 Canadians still there, no such safe haven exists.

So the refusal of the U.S. — and its attendants Britain and Canada — to call for a ceasefire amounts to an endorsement of a slaughter of completely unprotected people.

Essentially, the U.S. is saying: Let the killing continue, so that Israel can have a free hand in its mop-up operation against Hezbollah.

We're told that Israel doesn't target civilians, but that it sometimes has no choice but to kill them because Hezbollah fighters "hide behind them."

This is absurd. Let's say a gunman is trying to kill someone who runs into a crowded shopping centre. The gunman can't justify killing innocent shoppers on the grounds that he really only wanted to kill the guy he was chasing, but the guy hid behind shoppers.

Israel apparently considers some Lebanese civilians to be legitimate targets, since they sympathize with Hezbollah.

Last week, Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon said that civilians have had plenty of time to leave the villages of southern Lebanon, and that Israel should now flatten these villages. "All those now in south Lebanon are terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah," Ramon said.

In fact, the situation in southern Lebanon is so dangerous that it is almost impossible for civilians — including Canadians trapped there — to get out. A number of civilians attempting to flee, as well as ambulance workers and UN peacekeepers, have been killed and wounded by Israeli bombs.

Ultimately, this crisis will only be solved through negotiations for a comprehensive peace settlement that goes far beyond simply the release of the three captured Israeli soldiers (and thousands of Palestinian prisoners.)

Meanwhile, let's not forget the 1982 massacres, in which the Israeli army allowed vengeful Lebanese Christian militiamen to enter the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, where the militiamen slaughtered hundreds of Palestinian refugees. An Israeli inquiry, headed by a former Supreme Court judge, concluded that then Israeli defence minister Ariel Sharon bore "personal responsibility" for the massacre.

Once again, a slaughter is taking place in Lebanon, only this time those allowing the slaughter to take place are running the governments of the United States, Britain — and Canada.

Linda McQuaig is a Toronto-based author and commentator.

© 2006 The Toronto Star

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