Ceasefire - what Ceasefire?

Qana is the legendary village in the Bible where Jesus Christ is said to have performed his first miracle, turning water into wine. The Israelis tried something similar during the weekend and succeeded; but instead of wine they turned it to blood.

Following their air-strike, it was reported that at least 60 people (including 37 children) were dead and many others injured. The Israeli governemnt stated that rockets were launched from the village towards Israel and that they gave warning to local people to leave the area. Considering that most infrastructure leading out of the area had been destroyed by the Israeli Airforce and moving vehicles such as ambulances & buses have been targeted by the Airforce - where were the Lebanese people to go?

After receiveing heavy critisism throughout the world, Israel agreed to a 48 hour ceasefire, not a full ceasefire but an ariel ceasefire. The fighting did not stop Hezbollah and Israel to continue fighting on the ground and as the fighting continued the ariel ceasefire became void.

The bombing in Qana had apparently scarred Condoleezza Rice’s weeklong mission to halt the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, prompting her to scrap a planned meeting with Lebanon's prime minister and hence she arrange to return to Washington for consultation.

The truth is that the Lebanese Prime minister cancelled the meetings as the US did not condemn Israel for the strike nor were they in support for the UN ceasefire. Kofi Annan the UN general secretary said in unusually frank terms that he was "deeply dismayed" his previous calls for a halt were ignored by the US.