Tasty fish

As a follow-up to the story of the Israeli hostpital raid in Baalbek the other day, Blogging the Middle East has an interesting blurb(complete with some lovely comments). It was noted in reports of this raid that,

Airstrikes by helicopters and warplanes enabled the commandos to escape with five men they said were Hezbollah fighters.

I wondered about just who those Hezbollah fighters might be, given the nature of other Israeli attacks on terrorists. Well, they may not be quite the brutes the media and Israel would have us believe, and they didn't pluck them out of the hospital either:

civilian Hassan Deeb Nasrallah of Ba’albak ... was kidnapped today before dawn in a heroic (and certainly historic) Israeli commando raid. Kidnapped along with him were 5 other civilians, one of whom, a 14-year-old, was released because “he was too young.” So these are the “junior HezbAllah militants” Israel has kidnapped. A woman’s husband, son, brother, brother’s son, and a neighbour. The other son was lucky - too young to even pass for a “junior HezbAllah militant.” The woman was on New TV, telling what happened: the commandos had raided the house, ordered them to stand with their faces towards the wall, tied up the men and blindfolded them. There were also two young kids, a boy and a girl, present during the raid. The reporter interviewed them. They were still shocked, could barely talk.

Now that's charming. Another "hearts and minds" approach, perhaps? And as was earlier noted, airstrikes were unleashed all around, with the attendant carnage:

The air raids around the area of the landing resulted in many civilian deaths; an entire family was wiped out as they tried to stay in open areas for fear of strikes against houses and buildings. An Israeli jet fired a missile right at them, tearing them to pieces. In another instance, a woman by the name Nisrine (couldn’t catch the last name) was driving to the hospital as she was about to deliver her baby, and the Israeli jets fired a missile at the car, killing her instantly.

60 year old gocers and 14 year old boys. These are Olmert's "tasty fish."