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UN building in Beirut stormed amid fury over Qana bombing
Thousands of Lebanese protesters have stormed the UN building in Beirut in fury after at least 20 children and dozens of other civilians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Lebanese town of Qana.
Hundreds of demonstrators ran through corridors in the building smashing offices as they vented their anger of the deaths.
Smoke was seen rising from parts of the building as UN security troops struggled to contain crowds.
The anger erupted after an Israeli bombing raid killed at least 54 people, most of them children, as they slept in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Lebanese media reported that dozens of people remained trapped inside the three-storey building. Some of them had fled the Israeli bombardment of the Lebanese coastal town of Tyre.
Yasir Abu Hilala, Aljazeera's correspondent in Qana, said aid workers had pulled out only three people alive.
Efforts to get the wounded to hospital have been hampered as all roads around Qana have been destroyed by Israeli air strikes, he said.
The Israeli army has rejected responsibility for the deaths, saying that Hezbollah bore the blame because it used the village as a site for launching rockets.
However Hasan Fadlallah, a Hezbollah MP, told Aljazeera that Israel had committed "a new massacre".
"This massacre will enhance the Lebanese people's determination to endure Israeli aggression and will increase the [Hezbollah] resistance's determination to confront this enemy," he said.
"Israel is mistaken and deceived if it believes it can break the will of the Lebanese people in this way."
New offensive
The attack came as Hezbollah fighters battled Israeli forces making a new thrust into southern Lebanon, Lebanese security sources said on Sunday.
More
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/6334D333-E2A2-4F66-81E6-42FD108FD8BB.htm
Smoke was seen rising from parts of the building as UN security troops struggled to contain crowds.
The anger erupted after an Israeli bombing raid killed at least 54 people, most of them children, as they slept in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Lebanese media reported that dozens of people remained trapped inside the three-storey building. Some of them had fled the Israeli bombardment of the Lebanese coastal town of Tyre.
Yasir Abu Hilala, Aljazeera's correspondent in Qana, said aid workers had pulled out only three people alive.
Efforts to get the wounded to hospital have been hampered as all roads around Qana have been destroyed by Israeli air strikes, he said.
The Israeli army has rejected responsibility for the deaths, saying that Hezbollah bore the blame because it used the village as a site for launching rockets.
However Hasan Fadlallah, a Hezbollah MP, told Aljazeera that Israel had committed "a new massacre".
"This massacre will enhance the Lebanese people's determination to endure Israeli aggression and will increase the [Hezbollah] resistance's determination to confront this enemy," he said.
"Israel is mistaken and deceived if it believes it can break the will of the Lebanese people in this way."
New offensive
The attack came as Hezbollah fighters battled Israeli forces making a new thrust into southern Lebanon, Lebanese security sources said on Sunday.
More
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/6334D333-E2A2-4F66-81E6-42FD108FD8BB.htm
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Several thousand people massed outside the building in downtown Beirut chanting "Death to Israel, death to America. We sacrifice our blood and souls for Lebanon".
Geir Petersen, the personal representative of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in Lebanon, condemned the Israeli attack on the village of Qana and called for an immediate investigation.
"I strongly condemn today's killing of tens of civilians by Israeli shelling of residential buildings in the village of Qana," he said. He was not in building when it was attacked.
By late afternoon, all the protesters had drifted away.
At least 542 Lebanese, mostly civilians, have been killed in the war between Israel and Hizbollah and there is growing anger in Lebanon that the international community has not done enough to end it.
Lebanon's health minister estimates the toll at 750, including unrecovered bodies. Fifty one Israelis have also been killed.
"We understand the feeling of the Lebanese people after many civilian victims fell in the bombardment of Qana ... which reminds us of the tragedy that befell the people of the village in 1996," said Mervat Tallawy, U.N. under-secretary-general.
More
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-07-30T141457Z_01_L30807889_RTRUKOC_0_US-MIDEAST-LEBANON-HEADQUARTERS.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsHome-C3-worldNews-2
Speaking to The Daily Star, Sawsan Ali, who hails from the South but who was forced to become a "refugee in my own country," said that she heard and saw on television the "newest Israeli massacre against my people."
"They have hit Qana. They killed 55 people, half of whom were children."
Though she didn't take part in attacking UN House, Ali said she wishes the UN would "disappear because its presence is as useless as its non-presence."
Ali said: "The UN never helped us. It always favors Israel with all its atrocities, and bows down in front of the US and Israeli will. It is a UN for the strong nations, not the small and peaceful countries like ours."
Shortly after the angry mobs stormed UN House, and before they were deterred by hundreds of army and Internal Security Forces personnel, Speaker Nabih Berri called upon the demonstrators to leave the premises of the UN headquarters. He said: "In the name of Amal and Hizbullah and all national forces, I call upon you to stop all attacks against ESCWA. I know the blood of the martyrs boils in your blood and I know your intentions are well-placed but this is not in our best interest."
More
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=74383