The latest news from Lebanon is that a terrible tragedy has happened in the southern Lebanese village of Qana, with the Israelis bombing a building sheltering refugees, killing 54 people, including 37 children.

There have now been something like 523 Lebanese killed, and 51 Israelis killed, in the fighting that erupted almost 3 weeks ago when Hezbollah kidnapped 2 Israeli soldiers. All a terrible waste of lives, and ultimately going to mean nothing in the overall context of the Middle East …only constructive negotiations will solve anything there.

This latest tragedy will add fuel to calls for Israel to back off on its strikes against the Lebanese bases of Hezbollah. I’ve thought Israel highly justified in most of its actions. Destroying Hezbollah and similar terrorist organisations is a commendable objective. Unfortunately, given these groups elect to base themselves in civilian areas, often deliberately sheltering in sensitive locations, even precision bombing is going to kill some innocent people. I hope Israel is doing all it can to choose its targets and attack them in ways that minimise civilian deaths and injuries.

There is a key difference between Israel’s strikes on Lebanon and Hezbollah’s on Israel. Hezbollah’s rockets and missile attacks are deliberately targeting Israeli civilians. I don’t believe Israel is deliberately trying to kill Lebanese citizens.

Update (31/7/2006): Having said constructive negotiations are the way to solve the Hezbollah/Israel problems, I mean from the viewpoint of rational people. I suspect Hezbollah will not negotiate away from its position of the destruction of Israel, so what can the Israelis do but pursue the objective of destroying Hezbollah.

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