"The locals knew that the 10-story apartment building had been the office, and possibly the residence, of Sheik Tawouk, the Hezbollah commander for the south, so they had moved their families out at the start of the war."

If you want to find the ever so secretive and attention hating Hezbollah you can google them in google images and you'll see them marching, weapons in hand, all over Beirut and elsewhere.

Like here:

http://www.interet-general.info/article.php3?id_article=5628

Please note the berets and the camo fatigues and military uniforms.

Israel is in the process of destroying Gaza and Lebanon. These are massive crimes against humanity and yet the Israeli apologists here continue to shoot the messengers. Mitch Prothero has reported what he has seen and he is not the only one to make the point here. Even if he were wrong, which I doubt, that could not possibly justify the monstrosity of Israel's actions.

So: Jan Egeland, the UN humanitarian chief after visiting Beirut has this to say:

"Consistently, from the Hizbollah heartland, my message was that Hizbollah must stop this cowardly blending… among women and children," Mr Egeland said.

"I heard they were proud because they lost very few fighters and that it was the civilians bearing the brunt of this."

Cliff Robertson of CNN admits that it is incredibly difficult reporting in Beirut because Hizbollah control all access to bombed areas - making sure reporters see exactly what Hizbollah wants them to see. Even staging "rushing ambulances" for the cameras.

The former commander of one of the UN observers killed produces e-mails he received from the observer stating that Hizbollah fighters were "all over their position" effectively using them as a shield.

But Mitch Prothero knows that they are all wrong because...he thinks so? Maybe someone who may or may not be Hizbollah said so (but they weren't wearing a black mask that day so obviously they couldn't).

Perhaps next time he could provide some facts with his disertation.

The problem is not where Israel is shelling. Other Lebanese acknowledge that Hezbollah has been using civilian areas in the south as staging grounds. That's undisputed by even the Lebanese government. It's the aim that is sometimes a problem. Sometimes the Israelis conflate areas where Hezbollah operates with areas (like CHristian areas) where Hezbollah does not operate. That's a matter of aim and information. Shelling the civilian areas where Hezbollah is known to operate is actually popular in the Sunni and Christian areas, because Hezbollah overreached, and is evil in the best of times to non-Shia. The concern is that the Israelis may not limit themselves to Hezbollah's areas.

The rockets today trace back to civilian areas. They have been for years. If Israel keeps the targeting tight and resists the urge to be indiscriminate, they will weaken Hezbollah enough to allow the Lebanese Army to punish Hezbollah for thuggishly starting a war without even CONSULTING the Lebanese democratic government. The LA can then actually remove Hezbollah from that area. Or the Israelis will have leveled it into such a moonscape it will be unusable for Hezbollah, allowing relif to Israeli areas regularly shelled by those rockets.

Israel is not he bad guy in this picture. Even the Arab world is sick of this crew of vicious criminals. When the Arab League won't help you, Syria disses you, and they all issue so muted a criticism of Israel it looks to many like an endorsement of the bombings, Hamas and Hezbollah have overplayed their hands. By encouraging radical unrest and attempts to overthrow Arab governments, Hezbollah, Hamas, and their sponsor, Iran, have made themselves an issue as big or bigger than Israel and the West.

The criticism of Israel is not anti-semtic, but it is ill-informed. Hamas is killing as many or more Palestinians than Israel. The Palestinians are screwed in that hamas has no wish for security and peace, and they misuse money meant for health and food on rockets and armaments. They are as corrupt as Fatah, but less inept than Fatah. Hamas' uprising was an excuse for Hezbollah to act a fool. Hezbollah claimed they were helping Hamas, but they really don't give a dman about the Palestinians or Hamas- neither the Arab states nor the Persian Iran cares. Hamas was a pretext, and as soon as the real Arabs were threatened, Hamas/Palestine was ignored by the Arab world.

The Arabs fear the Persians more than the Israelis right now. They are correct. By removing Hussein in Iraq, we took away the bulwark against Iranian/Syrian adventurism and attempts to export Islamism/anti-Western radicalism. Until Iraq stabilizes, we will have this problem. This is why taking out Hussein was unwise. But it is done now. We must reap this whirlwind.

If the US is smart, we will keep or big mouths shut for as long as possible. Syria probably got Hezbollah to provoke this in the hopes the US would restrain Israel and Syria could re-invade (a number of analysts think this). Syria and Iran did not think the Arab League would stand down the way they are, or that people would call them out so quickly. Syria does not want a battlefield fight with Israel; nor does Iran. If the US stays away, we might actually get an outcome we like: democratic Lebanon able to limit Hezbollah, with Europe and other countries footing the bill for Arab League and/or other peacekeepers to reinforce the Lebanese Army.

It was Nic Robertson of CNN and here is what he had to say to Howard Kurtz of "Reliable Sources":

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Howard, there's no doubt about it: Hezbollah has a very, very sophisticated and slick media operations. In fact, beyond that, it has very, very good control over its areas in the south of Beirut. They deny journalists access into those areas. They can turn on and off access to hospitals in those areas. They have a lot of power and influence. You don't get in there without their permission.

But there's no doubt about it. They had control of the situation. They designated the places that we went to, and we certainly didn't have time to go into the houses or lift up the rubble to see what was underneath.

So what we did see today in a similar excursion, and Hezbollah is now running a number of these every day, taking journalists into this area. They realize that this is a good way for them to get their message out, taking journalists on a regular basis.

So there's no doubt that the bombs there are hitting Hezbollah facilities.

KURTZ: To what extent do you feel like you're being used to put up the pictures that they want..."

So Mitch Prothero - who was your escort?