Lebanese President Emile Lahud has vowed to stand by Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah.
As Israeli jets continued their murderous air strikes on the stricken country, Lahud pledged to a mass rally: ‘Rest assured Lebanon will not remove Sayyed Nasrallah.
‘He, the resistance and the national army achieved liberation for Lebanon. We will not forget that.’
Over 200 Lebanese civilians and around 20 soldiers have been killed in the past seven days.
Yesterday six bodies were pulled from the rubble of a home in the Lebanese border village of Aitaroun, and another family was killed in the southern coastal city of Tyre as thousands flee their homes.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora yesterday in a statement implored ‘the international community and Arab countries to work towards installing an immediate cease-fire’.
He said Israel was ‘committing massacres against Lebanese civilians and working to destroy everything that allows Lebanon to stay alive.
‘The intensifying aggression in this barbaric way proves that Israel has decided to push Lebanon back 50 years.’
Meanwhile, the US and Britain are pushing for the sending in of a UN-led ‘stabilisation force’.
In a statement to MPs in the House of Commons yesterday Prime Minister Blair defended Israel, lashing out at the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance.
He said: ‘This situation began with acts of extremism by militant groups that were, as the G8 said unanimously, without any justification, and of course were designed to provoke the very response that followed.’
In an attack on Iran and Syria, he added: ‘In the communique issued by the G8 we refer to and condemn the activities of the extremist groups, and more eliptically, as we say, those that support them.’
