111101 entry from the books the books disagree: each version, with the date it gives
2006
July 2006
From the books
Between 180,000 and 200,000 people take refuge in Syria.
Between 180,000 and 200,000 people from Lebanon sought refuge in Syria, fewer than during the civil war, and were taken in far beyond family circles. Overall the war caused more than 200,000 departures from Lebanon, some of which may prove permanent.
Reports at the time: In 111101's July 2006 archive (Figures page), the HRC row 'Syria, Jordan, Cyprus and Gulf area' reads 200,000 (earlier), 231,000 (11 August), 180,000 (15 August) and 100,000 (16 August).
Hezbollah captures two Israeli soldiers at the border near Zar'it.
Shortly after 9 a.m. a Hezbollah unit ambushed two Israeli army Humvees patrolling the border fence near Zar'it, opposite Ayta al-Shaab, killing three soldiers and taking two wounded reservists, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, into Lebanon under cover of a rocket and mortar barrage. Five more Israeli soldiers died that day, four in a tank blown up during a pursuit across the border and one by mortar fire, bringing the army's dead to eight. Hezbollah announced that it would exchange the captives for prisoners held in Israel.
Reports at the time: The archive's first report of the capture comes at 10:40 (Al-Manar via AFP), 25 minutes after the time 34 Days gives for Al-Manar's announcement. The toll of eight soldiers appears only at 22:30, after reports of three (17:10) and four in a tank (18:05). Archive times are wire-feed publication times, not event times.
Olmert holds the Lebanese state responsible and promises a 'thundering' response.
At a press conference beside Japan's prime minister, Ehud Olmert called the attack the act of a sovereign state and warned that Lebanon, with Hezbollah in its government, would pay. Abirached has chief of staff Dan Halutz vowing to 'set Lebanon back fifty years'.
Reports at the time: The archive reports Olmert calling the attack an 'act of war' from 13:30, consistent with the 12:50 press conference; it does not report Halutz's 'fifty years' remark.
Siniora's government says it knew nothing of the operation.
After the afternoon cabinet, Information Minister Ghazi Aridi declared that the government had not known of the operation and was not responsible; March 14 leaders, among them former president Amine Gemayel, publicly attacked Hezbollah. Earlier Prime Minister Fouad Siniora had angrily asked Nasrallah's adviser what Hezbollah had done.
Reports at the time: The archive reports only that Lebanon, through Ghazi Aridi, asked for an urgent Security Council meeting on 'the Israeli aggression' (20:35); the government's disclaimer does not appear in it.
Nasrallah: the soldiers will be returned only through an exchange.
Hassan Nasrallah told a Beirut press conference that the raid had been five months in preparation and that Israel's new leaders should expect surprises if they sought confrontation; the two soldiers were far away and would come back only through an indirect prisoner exchange.
Reports at the time: The archive carries the statement at 18:50, nearly two hours after the 5 p.m. given by 34 Days.
Israel's cabinet votes for war; airport and Damascus road approved as targets.
'The Seven', Olmert and six senior ministers, approved strikes that night on Hezbollah's Fajr launchers hidden in homes and limited raids on Beirut airport's runways and the Beirut-Damascus highway, after the full cabinet voted unanimously for a forceful response. Harel and Issacharoff rely on Israeli participants and meeting records.
First Israeli raids on the South and the coastal bridges.
Israel's 'Just Reward' offensive opened with roughly forty air strikes in the South; its bombing there and in Beirut caused serious damage to infrastructure.
Reports at the time: The archive records two civilians killed near Ayta al-Shaab at 12:25 on 12 July, strikes on the Zahrani bridge from 17:45 and on Saida's Awali bridge at 22:30.
A Gaza solidarity sit-in turns into the Samidoun relief campaign.
Samidoun ('those who hold fast') began as a mixed coalition of environmental, gay and lesbian, artistic, far-left and student groups that had planned a sit-in and cultural festival for Gaza on the very day the Israeli offensive began. Based at Zico House, it quickly turned to relief work and drew up to three hundred volunteers a day.
Reports at the time: The archive does not mention Samidoun.
'Night of the Fajrs': rocket launchers hidden in homes are bombed; the Akash family is killed.
About twenty civilians died, Harel and Issacharoff report, among them a Shiite cleric, his wife and their eight children near Nabatieh, when Israeli aircraft destroyed 59 fixed medium-range rocket launchers hidden in southern homes, all within 34 minutes before dawn.
Reports at the time: The archive reports the killing of the cleric Adel Akkache, his wife and eight children at 06:40, matching the book.
Beirut airport, twenty-one bridges and the Damascus road are bombed.
Israel bombed Beirut airport's runways, some twenty-one bridges and the Beirut–Damascus highway, cutting air traffic and the main roads to Syria. Visitors, many from the Gulf, were stuck; Western states evacuated their citizens, dual nationals included, by sea.
Reports at the time: The archive's first report of the runways being hit is 06:30 on 13 July, after the Damour bridge (00:50); helicopters struck the airport's fuel tanks again in the evening.
Israel imposes an air and sea blockade on Lebanon.
Israel closed Lebanon's air space and coast. The blockade stayed in force until 7 September, over three weeks past the ceasefire, and hindered the export of books and newspapers printed in Lebanon.
Reports at the time: The archive reports a 'general blockade' at 10:05 on 13 July, supporting Abirached's date.
Hezbollah rockets kill two civilians in Nahariya and Safed.
Hezbollah answered with Katyusha barrages on northern Israel, nearly 125 rockets that day, killing two civilians, in Nahariya and Safed, and wounding 69.
The Jiyeh power station's fuel tanks are bombed; an oil slick spreads along the coast.
Some 150 km of coast, up to the Syrian border, was fouled after Israeli strikes on 13 and 15 July hit the fuel tanks of the Jiyeh power station, 25 km south of Beirut. Thousands of tonnes of fuel oil burned or ran into the sea; fishing was devastated, and the ongoing war delayed the clean-up.
Reports at the time: No archive report for 13-15 July mentions Jiyeh; the fires and the slick first appear on 26 July, and the strike notes put Jiyeh under 16 July.
Riyadh on 13 July blamed the capture on Hezbollah's 'irresponsible adventurism' yet still endorsed 'legitimate resistance'. Hezbollah had not expected it: no Arab government had openly condemned such an action before.
Reports at the time: The archive reports the Saudi statement only at 05:20 on 14 July, a day later than either book.
The first displaced leave the South and the southern suburb; 'civil resistance' begins.
Displacement began on the second day of the Israeli campaign, first to relatives in districts thought safer, and grew to 900,000–1,000,000 people, nearly a quarter of the population. A Beirut blogger reported bare supermarket shelves, petrol queues and hours of waiting at the Syrian border. Relief initiatives labelled 'civil resistance' multiplied from 13 July.
testimony 34 Days quotes throughout a Beirut blog, 'Anecdotes from a Banana Republic' (signed EDB, called 'Emily'), as its main Lebanese civilian voice.
Thousands cross to Syria at Masnaa before the crossing is bombed.
Israeli planes bombed Masnaa that evening, after nearly 17,000 people, many on foot, had crossed there to Syria with the airport shut. The tourism minister predicted billions in losses.
Reports at the time: The archive gives more than 12,000 Gulf nationals leaving through Masnaa on Thursday 13 July, and reports a raid near Masnaa (three dead) only at 12:45 on 15 July.
Hezbollah's 'security quarter' in Haret Hreik is flattened; Al-Manar keeps broadcasting.
Mona Harb stresses that Haret Hreik was chiefly a dense quarter of homes and shops; days of bombing ruined it. From the early evening jets levelled the towers holding Hezbollah's headquarters and the Al-Manar building, though the channel stayed on air from a secret site; tens of thousands had fled to northern Beirut after Israeli media announced the raid.
Reports at the time: The archive reports Nasrallah's headquarters and residence building destroyed on Friday evening 14 July (19:50, 20:15) and the official news agency confirming the nine-storey building 'entirely destroyed' at 15:10 on 15 July, which may explain Abirached's date.
memorial Israeli bombing in summer 2006 hit UMAM's Hangar and documentation centre in Haret Hreik, where since 2001 Lokman Slim and Monika Borgmann had been archiving, among other things, the memory of the Lebanese war; part of the archive was destroyed.
Nasrallah announces 'open war' as a missile hits the Israeli warship Hanit off Beirut.
Four Israeli sailors died when an Iranian-made C-802 missile hit the missile boat Hanit off Beirut. Minutes later Nasrallah, by telephone on Al-Manar, told Beirut to look out to sea; hundreds went to the shore. An Arab journalist called it the turning point when Lebanese opinion swung to Hezbollah. Over a hundred rockets were fired at Israel that day.
Reports at the time: The archive first reports the four sailors as missing (03:55 on 15 July) and also an Egyptian civilian ship hit in the same attack, which the books do not mention.
Chirac calls Israel's response disproportionate; Egypt and Jordan blame Hezbollah.
Meeting in Cairo on 14 July, Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdallah II condemned Israel's offensive and demanded it end at once, while criticising Hezbollah's 'adventurism'. Jacques Chirac's Bastille Day speech judged Israel's response disproportionate and ruled out a military solution.
Israeli special forces take the northern part of Ghajar.
Israeli special units seized the northern, Lebanese part of the border village of Ghajar on 14 July, when Harel and Issacharoff date the first Israeli raids into Lebanon.
Villagers fleeing Marwahin are killed on the road to Tyre.
Harel and Issacharoff count 21 dead among people leaving the border village of Marwahin for Tyre when Israeli aircraft struck their vehicle; images of the bodies were broadcast worldwide.
Reports at the time: The archive dates the attack to 15 July: first five civilians killed by helicopter fire on a minibus and a car (13:05), then eighteen civilians, mostly children, who were leaving on the Israeli army's orders (13:30). The 15 July strike note says 20 dead including 15 children; a 17 July note places the vehicles between Al-Bayyada and Shamaa.
Baalbek is bombed for the first time; the town empties.
Some 70 per cent of Baalbek's people had fled within 48 hours, to nearby villages, to Christian Zahle, or on to Syria and Jordan. The bombing began at 5 a.m. on 15 July with the petrol stations around the town; at 5 p.m. six raids hit the centre and the Ras al-Ain district, and Al-Safir reported thirty dead that afternoon.
Reports at the time: The archive's reports for 15 July have Sheikh Mohammad Yazbeck's house in Baalbek bombed at 17:30 and, at 19:00, ten civilians wounded in strikes on the homes of two Hezbollah leaders; none mentions thirty dead.
Siniora sets out terms to end the war; Arab ministers reach no decision.
In a speech on 15 July Siniora agreed for the first time to send the army south, as part of terms to end the war. The same day the UN's special delegation arrived in the region, and Arab League foreign ministers broke up without a decision after Saudi Arabia's Saud al-Faisal angrily attacked the Syrian minister.
Some twenty Lebanese NGOs agree a joint stand; schools are opened to the displaced.
The Civilian Campaign for Relief and an advocacy collective both grew out of a first meeting of some twenty Lebanese NGOs outside Zico House on 15 July, where they agreed a common position. Getting no response from the government, associations forced open public schools to house the displaced, after which the government declared all of them open. The 'Gathering of NGOs for Relief in Lebanon' eventually counted 74 organisations.
Western governments evacuate their citizens by sea.
France alone repatriated some 14,000 people, 12,000 of them French, as Western governments, mostly by sea, brought out tens of thousands of their nationals after Israel bombed Beirut airport and the Damascus road; many were dual-national emigrants on summer visits.
Rockets kill eight railway workers in Haifa; the G8 meets in St Petersburg.
On 16 July a Hezbollah rocket killed eight workers on the Haifa railway, and Condoleezza Rice said it was not the time for a ceasefire. The G8 summit closed that day with a statement that Abirached's chronology reads as a call for an immediate halt to the fighting; Harel and Issacharoff stress instead that it blamed Hamas and Hezbollah, floated an international force and wanted resolution 1559 applied and the Lebanese army sent south.
Reports at the time: The archive's Haifa toll moves from eight to nine and back to eight. It does not record Rice's 'not the time' remark; its Lebanese tolls that day do not add up to Abirached's sixty.
To spare civilians, Hezbollah had hurriedly moved part of its weaponry out of central Baalbek into fields at the town's entrance; on the night of 16-17 July Israeli forces struck the site for more than two hours.
Nine of one family, seven of them children, died in Aitaroun on 17 July when their house was blown up. Bread, fuel and water ran short for southern villagers who stayed despite Israeli leaflets ordering them out, and taxis charged a fortune for the trip to Beirut.
Reports at the time: Archive: thirteen dead of the Awadah family, nine of them children (posted 01:13 on 18 July).
On 17 July Olmert told the Knesset Israel would stop once its captured soldiers were returned, a ceasefire agreed and Lebanese troops deployed in the South; the speech was later called 'Churchillian'. Harel and Issacharoff hold that Israel missed a chance to stop on 16-17 July.
French media spoke of a 'disproportionate' Israeli response; Al-Hayat's 17 July headline told of a continuing 'Israeli massacre' and Hezbollah missiles on Haifa. That day Abdel Bari Atwan (Al-Quds al-Arabi) replied to Egyptian and Saudi claims that the resistance served Iran: Iran's agenda was worthier than their 'American-Zionist' one. Al-Jazeera moved part of its newsroom to Beirut.
Eleven Lebanese soldiers are killed at army barracks near Beirut.
Israeli raids on Lebanese army barracks killed eleven soldiers. Picard notes that throughout the war the army, confined to barracks and to civil-protection work, barely fired back, exposing how poorly armed fifteen years of Syrian-supervised rebuilding had left it.
Reports at the time: The archive names the Jamhour (and Kfarshima) barracks and gives eleven dead, four of them officers.
240 dead in Lebanon; Israel turns down a UN ceasefire formula.
On the morning of 18 July UN envoys put to Tzipi Livni a formula accepted by Siniora and not rejected by Hezbollah, which might have placed the captured soldiers with the Lebanese government; the diplomats, quoted by Harel and Issacharoff, say Livni balked at its mention of the Shebaa Farms and Olmert refused it. Lebanon's dead numbered 240 that day, mostly civilians; in the war's second week the authorities put those who had fled at some half a million.
Reports at the time: Archive: '240 dead since the beginning of the assault' (01:55 on 18 July).
From 18 July Israeli aircraft set out to destroy every lorry carrying fuel or food in the Bekaa, and private cars on the roads from Baalbek to its villages and to Zahle were also targeted. People soon went hungry.
First ground clash at the Shaked outpost above Maroun al-Ras.
On 19 July Walid Jumblatt made any ceasefire conditional on the state deciding on war and peace. Avivim, a moshav under fire from Maroun al-Ras, had nearly emptied; a Maglan team heading for the nearby Shaked hill found a Hezbollah bunker, and two of its soldiers died in the fighting.
Reports at the time: The archive places much of the 19 July fighting at Aitaroun and has Hezbollah claiming six Israeli soldiers killed against Israel's two.
UN agencies and international NGOs arrive; 'humanitarian corridors' disappoint.
Raymond describes local associations proving more effective than the international agencies, which were slowed by heavy UN procedures and later mostly admitted as much. When UN agencies and international NGOs arrived, between the war's second and third weeks, there were hopes of supplies despite the blockade and of protected 'humanitarian corridors', but protection came only in part.
Reports at the time: The archive traces the corridor idea to Chirac's call of 19 July. Israel agreed to a corridor on 21-22 July; on 23 July aid was still stuck in Syria; the first WFP convoy got to Tyre on 26 July.
Egoz lost a company commander and four men on 20 July in its first clash at Maroun al-Ras, sent in by daylight to back paratroopers who had entered at dawn; the battle lasted two more days.
Reports at the time: The archive reports four Israeli soldiers killed that evening; a fifth is identified only on 23 July, the day Hezbollah acknowledged the Israeli entry.
Interviewed on Al-Jazeera, Nasrallah denied taking instructions from Iran or Syria and said Israel had seized on the capture to start a war planned long before. Hezbollah, he claimed, had lost none of its leaders or military strength; victory meant the resistance surviving.
Reports at the time: The archive reports the interview at 23:10 on 20 July, so 34 Days' date probably reflects its broadcast or reporting the next day.
Hezbollah rejects the UN plan; Baalbek and Tyre bombed.
On 21 July Halutz told his division commanders he saw no chance of a major ground offensive. Israel raided Baalbek and Tyre; Hezbollah rejected a UN plan for an immediate halt and the soldiers' unconditional release.
Reports at the time: The archive attributes the plan to Kofi Annan and reports the same evening that Israel accepted a humanitarian corridor.
Abbas Baydoun publishes 'A possible poem for the Dahiye'.
On 22 July Al-Safir carried 'A possible poem for the Dahiye' by the poet Abbas Baydoun, which looks over the bombed southern suburb for the details, moments and things that must once have been there.
Art and memory
artwork Abbas Baydoun's 'A possible poem for the Dahiye' (Al-Safir, 22 July 2006) is a written trace of the southern suburb in ruins; Mona Harb opens her chapter on the Dahiye with a line from it.
