In a keynote speech Friday night marking the third anniversary of that war’s end, Hezbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah outlined his strategy for Lebanon to deter Israel from launching another offensive. Responding to Israeli threats to flatten southern Lebanese villages and infrastructure, he vowed to attack Tel Aviv if Israel targeted Beirut or its southern suburbs, where Hezbollah’s headquarters are.

“We are now capable of attacking any city or village throughout Israel,” he said, dismissing recent Israeli threats against Hezbollah as psychological warfare. “When Israelis talk a lot, it means that they will do nothing. However, when they are silent like a snake we have to be cautious.” Nasrallah’s comments, delivered via a live video feed to a crowd of flag-waving supporters and invited politicians, were the latest in a month-long barrage of threats from both sides of the Lebanon-Israel border.

The saber-rattling, touched off in mid-July by explosions near an alleged Hezbollah weapons cache here in the hills of south Lebanon, seems driven more by a fear that the other side will take action, than a desire to launch a fresh round of fighting, say analysts and United Nations peacekeepers here.

“Contrary to the talk, the situation on the ground in our area of operations is generally quiet,” says Milos Strugar, senior advisor to the UN peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL, which patrols the southern Lebanon border district. “In our contacts with all the parties, they reiterate to us their interest in upholding the cessation of hostilities.”

Israel, Hezbollah threaten war – again

“Palestinians are encouraged by the commitment President Obama and his administration have shown to Middle East peace,” Saeb Erakat, a Fatah member and the Palestinians’ top official said on Friday.

Erekat said the establishment of a viable Palestinian state and a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem would make the region more secure and stable.

But, he warned “the peace process lives on borrowed time,” saying it would not survive another round of failed negotiations.

“Israel’s failure to implement its obligations under existing agreements has eroded its credibility, while its continued settlement activities are undermining the very viability of the two state solution,” Erakat said.

Hamas reaction

Hamas, however, called the meeting a continuation of Abbas’ “way of begging” to the US and the “Zionist entity.”

Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, said the meeting would “accomplish nothing but more pressure on Abbas.”

He said the US administration would fail to take “any action on the ground” to halt Israeli “aggressions” and realise Palestinian rights.

In the meeting on Thursday Obama called for a stop to Israeli settlement activity in the occupied West Bank and emphasised the two-state solution.

However, Benyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, refused to openly endorse the two-state solution during a meeting with Obama on May 18.

He also rejected the US and Palestinian demand for an absolute freeze in settlement activity.

Netanyahu promised not to build new settlements, but vowed to continue construction in existing ones to accommodate for “natural growth.”

Palestinians differ on US promises

The exercise was aimed at testing the air force’s ability to counter rocket and missile attacks from the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Syria and archfoe Iran, as well as the infiltration of jets overland, the official told AFP.

This is the first time the Israeli army has simulated strikes from the Islamic republic, located more than 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) away, he said.

The drill, however, did not simulate a strike on Iran, the official said, amid foreign media reports that Israel had recently performed massive air exercises to simulate strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites.

On Wednesday, Iran said it had successfully test-fired a new medium-range surface to surface missile capable of reaching Israel, a move which raised concern in the United States.

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said that the exercise “was successful and important. What we saw strengthens our security that there is someone we can trust.”

Heavy air force jet and helicopter activity was noticeable across the country during the drill, among the biggest the air force has ever carried out.

An Israeli army spokesman said the exercise was “routine and part of the army’s annual training plan and is intended to prepare the Israeli air force to successfully face any possible threat.”

Israel, widely considered to be the Middle East’s sole nuclear armed power, suspects the Islamic republic of using its nuclear programme to develop atomic weapons, a charge that Tehran has long denied.

The Jewish state considers Tehran to be its arch-enemy because of repeated calls by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for Israel to be wiped off the map.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that countering Iran’s nuclear ambitions topped his agenda and that the Jewish state reserves its right to self-defence against Iran.

Israel wraps up drill to combat Iran strike

The fact-finding mission appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate rights violations during the Gaza war also renewed a call for Israel to support its investigation.

Richard Goldstone, who heads the four-member mission, stressed that his team would adopt a law-based approach in preparing its report to council in July, and would investigate alleged rights violations by both Israel and Hamas.

“I would like to emphasize that we will focus our investigation not on political considerations, but on an objective and impartial analysis of compliance of the parties to the conflict with their obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law, especially their responsibility to ensure the protection of civilians and non-combatants,” said Goldstone, a former UN war crimes prosecutor in a statement issued on Friday.

“I believe that an objective assessment of the issues is in the interest of all parties, will promote a culture of accountability and could serve to promote greater peace and security in the region,” the South African judge said.

The mission intends to conduct visits to southern Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, and has requested the cooperation of the Israeli government.

The other members of the team include Christine Chinkin, professor of international law at the London School of Economics; Hina Jilani, an advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan; and Col. (ret.) Desmond Travers of Ireland, a member of the board of directors of the Institute for International Criminal Investigations (IICI).

On Wednesday, President Shimon Peres told reporters that IDF forces did not intentionally aim at civilians or UN facilities during Operation Cast Lead. However, he acknowledged that Israel might have made “some mistakes.”

Speaking after a private meeting with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Peres repeated the government’s position that it would not accept “one word” of the UN report released Tuesday on the attacks on UN facilities during the recent fighting.

The report, commissioned by Ban in February, blamed Israel for failing to take adequate precautions to ensure that UN installations and civilians sheltering in them would be protected from shells or other fire intended for Hamas terrorists.

According to the report, the IDF was responsible for fatalities and damage in six cases, including a strike that killed people sheltering at a Gaza school.

UN team probing Gaza war to visit Strip

The military said in a statement that it had “maintained a high professional and moral level” during the 22-day war, which ended Jan. 18, though it faced “an enemy that aimed to terrorize Israeli civilians whilst taking cover” among Palestinian civilians and “using them as human shields.”

Israel mounted its attack on Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza, with the stated purpose of preventing rocket fire on southern Israel from Gaza. But the offensive set off international outrage and condemnation as the Palestinian death toll grew, as United Nations facilities and medical teams came under fire and as allegations emerged of improper use of white phosphorus weapons.

This month, the United Nations Human Rights Council appointed an internationally renowned judge, Richard J. Goldstone, to lead a high-level mission to investigate allegations of war crimes during the Gaza war.

Though Mr. Goldstone, a former judge in South Africa and a former United Nations chief prosecutor for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, has said he will investigate possible violations by both Israel and Hamas, officials in Jerusalem have said it is unlikely that Israel will cooperate with the mission.

Gaza health officials said more than 1,300 Palestinians died during the war, but Israel disputes Palestinian claims that most of them were noncombatants. By the Israeli military’s count, 1,166 people were killed, of whom 295 were noncombatants, 709 were what it called Hamas terrorist operatives and 162 were men whose affiliations remain unidentified.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza put the number of dead at 1,417: 926 civilians, 236 combatants and 255 police officers. Israel says that about 400 Gazans die of natural causes every month, possibly accounting for the discrepancy in numbers.

Thirteen Israelis were killed during the fighting, among them 10 soldiers and 3 civilians.

Maj. Gen. Dan Harel, the Israeli military’s deputy chief of staff, told reporters on Wednesday that the army “discovered a small number of mistakes, not many, among the dozens of incidents we investigated, and we have already examined them and learned lessons from them.”

General Harel added that the army had “not found a single case of an Israeli soldier deliberately hurting innocent Palestinian civilians, whether from the land, air or sea.” If any such case was discovered, he said, it would be treated with the full severity of the law.

Describing the mistakes as “unfortunate” and ascribing them to “intelligence or operational errors,” the military said such incidents “were unavoidable and occur in all combat situations, in particular of the type which Hamas forced” on the army “by choosing to fight from within the civilian population.”

Three separate investigations whose conclusions were presented on Wednesday dealt with specific events that were brought to the army’s attention by the news media or other means. Two others examined general subjects, namely the use of weapons containing phosphorus and the destruction of infrastructure and buildings by ground forces.

In one case, where Israeli shells killed up to 40 Palestinians outside a United Nations school in the Jabaliya refugee camp, north of Gaza City, on Jan. 6, the soldiers were responding, according to the military, to mortar shells fired by militants in the vicinity of the school. Israel says that 12 to 17 Palestinians were killed, 5 of whom were militants.

Soon after the shelling, however, Palestinian hospital officials in the Jabaliya area told a reporter for The New York Times that 40 people had been killed, among them 10 children and 5 women. At a mass funeral in Jabaliya the next day, the reporter was unable to count the bodies in the press of the mourning crowd but described seeing the bodies of the children laid out in a long row on the ground. One of the mourners, Huda Deed, said she had lost nine members of her extended family, ages 3 to 25.

Another case investigated by the military involved the Daia family, 21 of whom were killed when their home, in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City, was hit in an Israeli strike on Jan. 6. Expressing regret for the attack, a senior military official said the army had intended to hit the house next door, which was a weapons storage site; the Daia home was struck because of an “operational error.”

Israel has already come under heavy criticism for its use of white phosphorus in heavily populated Gaza. White phosphorus is a standard, legal weapon in armies, long used as a way to light up an area or to create a thick white smoke screen to obscure troop movements. But it can cause horrific burns, so using it against civilians, or in an area where many civilians are likely to be affected, can be a violation of international law.

Last month, Human Rights Watch issued a report citing six cases of improper use ofwhite phosphorus by Israel and calling them evidence of war crimes.

The military said it used two types of munitions containing white phosphorus, incendiary shells for marking and range-finding, which it said were used in limited quantities, and nonincendiary types of munitions used to create smoke screens. But officials said that both types were used in open areas only, in accordance with the limitations of international law.

The military noted that these investigations, conducted by officers with the rank of colonel, were not a replacement for the central operational army investigation of the entire campaign, which will be concluded by June.

The findings are not exhaustive. For example, the case of the Samouni family, some 30 of whose members were killed when the building in which they had sought shelter in Zeitoun was hit on Jan. 5, remains unresolved. Maj. Avital Leibovich, a military spokeswoman, said that the case was still being examined, and that it was not yet clear if the Samounis were killed by Israeli fire.

Israeli and international human rights groups rejected the Israeli military’s internal investigations as inadequate. Human Rights Watch called Wednesday’s statement by the military “an insult to the civilians in Gaza who needlessly died.” The army leadership, the group said, is “apparently not interested, willing, or able to monitor itself.”

NYTimes.com

One account tells of a sniper killing a mother and children at close range whom troops had told to leave their home.

Another speaker at the seminar described what he saw as the “cold blooded murder” of a Palestinian woman.

The army has defended its conduct during the Gaza offensive but said it would investigate the testimonies.

The Israeli army has said it will investigate the soldiers’ accounts.

The testimonies were published by the military academy at Oranim College. Graduates of the academy, who had served in Gaza, were speaking to new recruits at a seminar.

“[The testimonies] conveyed an atmosphere in which one feels entitled to use unrestricted force against Palestinians,” academy director Dany Zamir told public radio.

Heavy civilian casualties during the three-week operation which ended in the blockaded coastal strip on 18 January provoked an international outcry.

Correspondents say the testimonies undermine Israel’s claims that troops took care to protect non-combatants and accusations that Hamas militants were responsible for putting civilians into harm’s way.

‘Less important’

The Palestinian woman and two of her children were allegedly shot after they misunderstood instructions about which way to walk having been ordered out of their home by troops.

“The climate in general… I don’t know how to describe it…. the lives of Palestinians, let’s say, are much, much less important than the lives of our soldiers,” an infantry squad leader is quoted saying.

In another cited case, a commander ordered troops to kill an elderly woman walking on a road, even though she was easily identifiable and clearly not a threat.

Testimonies, which were given by combat pilots and infantry soldiers, also included allegations of unnecessary destruction of Palestinian property.

“We would throw everything out of the windows to make room and order. Everything… Refrigerators, plates, furniture. The order was to throw all of the house’s contents outside,” a soldier said.

One non-commissioned officer related at the seminar that an old woman crossing a main road was shot by soldiers.

“I don’t know whether she was suspicious, not suspicious, I don’t know her story… I do know that my officer sent people to the roof in order to take her out… It was cold-blooded murder,” he said.

The transcript of the session for the college’s Yitzhak Rabin pre-military course, which was held last month, appeared in a newsletter published by the academy.

Israeli human rights groups have criticised the military for failing to properly investigate violations of the laws of war in Gaza despite plenty of evidence of possible war crimes.

‘Moral army’

The soldiers’ testimonies also reportedly told of an unusually high intervention by military and non-military rabbis, who circulated pamphlets describing the war in religious terminology.

“All the articles had one clear message,” one soldier said. “We are the people of Israel, we arrived in the country almost by miracle, now we need to fight to uproot the gentiles who interfere with re-conquering the Holy Land.”

“Many soldiers’ feelings were that this was a war of religion,” he added.

Defence Minister Ehud Barak told Israel Radio that the findings would be examined seriously.

“I still say we have the most moral army in the world. Of course there may be exceptions but I have absolutely no doubt this will be inspected on a case-by-case basis,” he said.

Medical authorities say more than 1,300 Palestinians were killed during Israel’s 22-day operation, including some 440 children, 110 women, and dozens of elderly people.

The stated aim was to curb rocket and mortar fire by militants from Gaza. Thirteen Israelis, including three civilians were killed.

Israel troops admit Gaza abuses

“The two Qassam-type devices were fired from the northern Gaza Strip and landed in the western Negev,” a military spokeswoman said, referring to the crude, homemade rockets used by Palestinian armed groups.

Gaza militants have fired more than 160 rockets and mortar rounds on Israel since the end of a massive Israeli offensive at the turn of the year aimed at halting the projectiles, shaking the ceasefires that ended the fighting.

Israel has in turn launched several air strikes at suspected militants, weapons caches, and smuggling tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border.

On Thursday Hamas said the “resistance movements” had nothing to do with the recent rocket fire and vowed to combat such activities, saying they came at a “bad time.”

Egypt has been struggling since the war ended in January to mediate a more lasting ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and a prisoner exchange to return an Israeli soldier seized by Gaza militants in June 2006.

The Islamist movement has ruled Gaza since June 2007, when it violently drove out forces loyal to the Western-backed president Mahmud Abbas.

Two Gaza rockets hit Israel: military

Fayyad is an internationally respected economist and politician. Salam Fayyad received his MBA from St. Edward’s University in 1980. Fayyad has a PhD in economics from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was a student of William Barnett and did early research on the American Divisia Monetary Aggregates, which he continued on the staff of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Fayyad began his career teaching economics at Yarmouk University in Jordan, before joining the World Bank from 1987 – 1995. He subsequently became the International Monetary Fund representative to the Palestinian National Authority until 2001, when he accepted the offer to become its finance minister.

Upon resigning as finance minister, Fayyad ran as founder and leader of the new Third Way party in the legislative elections of 2006 alongside Hanan Ashrawi and Yasser Abd Rabbo. Fayyad and Ashrawi won their seats.

He is seen as pro-Western and was predicted to be offered prime minister by both Fatah and by the winner of the elections: the List of Change and Reform. In response to the offer, Fayyad presented several conditions to becoming prime minister, including that Hamas would recognise Israel, which Hamas declined.

On 17 March 2007, Fayyad was again appointed finance minister, this time within the Fatah-Hamas coalition government. On 15 June 2007, following the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip, Fayyad was appointed prime minister of a new “independent” government (without any Fatah or Hamas members) which is supported by the Fatah, Israel and the West.

This appointment has been challenged as illegal, because while the Palestinian Basic Law permits the preseident to dismiss a sitting prime minister, the appointment of a replacement requires the approval of the Legislative Council. The law provides that after removal of the prime minister (in this case, Ismail Haniyeh), the outgoing prime minister heads a caretaker government. The current Legislative Council, in which Hamas holds a majority of seats, has not approved the appointments of Fayyad or the balance of his new government. Fayyad’s appointment was never placed before, or approved by the it. Haniyeh continues to operate as prime minister in Gaza, and is recognized by a large number of Palestinians as the legitimate acting prime minister. Anis al-Qasem, a constitutional lawyer who drafted the Basic Law, is among those who publicly declared the appointment of Fayyad to be illegal.

On 17 October 2008, while visiting the University of Texas in Austin, he received the Distinguished Alumni Award before the Texas-Missouri football game, presented by the Ex-Students’ Association of the University of Texas.

On 7 March 2009, Salam Fayyad submitted his resignation to President Mahmoud Abbas.

Links

• Salam Fayyad – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Salam Fayyad – Election Updates

But Hamas officials quickly rebuffed Mr Fayyad’s announcement, casting doubt on whether or not his gesture would help lead to reconciliation between the sides.

The main goal of such a government would be to end the current situation in which the militant Hamas movement rules the Gaza Strip and Fatah, considered more moderate and supported by the West, rules the West Bank.

”This government did not work for the sake of the Palestinians, it worked for its own agenda. This end was expected for a government that was illegal and unconstitutional,” said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said.

Mr Fayyad was appointed as prime minister after a violent showdown between the factions in June 2007 in which Hamas seized control of Gaza.

Mr Fayyad said he was resigning in hopes that a unity government between the sides might follow.

The two factions held their first reconciliation talks last week and have agreed to form a caretaker government that would then lead to new elections for both the president and the parliament.

Even if the sides find a way to share power it is not clear the international community will be supportive. The European Union, for example, refused to directly aid the previous and short-lived Palestinian unity government after Hamas failed to adhere to several peacemaking principles, among them recognising Israel’s right to exist.

Palestinian PM Salam Fayyad resigns – Election Updates

The history of private military companies started on June 24, 1997, when experts of the US Intelligence Department proclaimed the PMCs as a major tool in the implementation of the military security policy of the United States and its allies in other countries.

The professional level of a private military company is its major advantage. Inexperienced military men are not welcome there. A PMC member is usually a man between 35-40 years of age. A human being of this age is resistant to stresses and emergency situations. In addition, a man of this age can also do routine work very well, which can not be said about younger men.

Potential fighters of the private military companies possess the required level of experience and have an adequate insight, which allows such units to achieve better results in their activities in comparison with regular armies.

A private military company can be very efficient in local conflicts, where the use of regular armies can be complicated for legal reasons. For example, Russia can not send its troops to Nigeria if Nigerian gunmen attack employees of Russian companies – it would be a gross violation of international laws.

Russian PMCs – Tiger Top Rent Security and Orel Antiterror – do not lag behind their US or British colleagues. The only difference is that Russian PMC fighters are paid a lot less.

Russian PMCs took part in the military actions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Lebanon and Palestine.

Russia’s largest companies such as Russian Aluminium (Rusal), Lukoil, Rosneft and Gazprom received a carte blanche to form military structures to protect their interests both inside and outside Russia.

Private military companies supply bodyguards for the Afghan president and pilot armed reconnaissance planes and helicopter gunships to destroy Coca crops in Colombia. They are licensed by the State Department; they are contracting with foreign governments, training soldiers and reorganizing militaries in Nigeria, Bulgaria, Taiwan, and Equatorial Guinea. The PMC industry is now worth over $100 billion a year.

Private military companies to supersede regular armies