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Post the recent Middle East War.....

The Independent, here, reports:

"The war in Lebanon has not ended. Every day, some of the million bomblets which were fired by Israeli artillery during the last three days of the conflict kill four people in southern Lebanon and wound many more.

The casualty figures will rise sharply in the next month as villagers begin the harvest, picking olives from trees whose leaves and branches hide bombs that explode at the smallest movement. Lebanon's farmers are caught in a deadly dilemma: to risk the harvest, or to leave the produce on which they depend to rot in the fields."


Meanwhile, in Israel, Danny Rubinstein writing an op-ed piece in Haaretz, here, says:

"The direction is therefore clear. The European countries have started to acknowledge it, and there is a fair chance that they will begin to offer aid to the new government. The Israeli government should also fall into line with this trend. Israel does not have the option of getting rid of Hamas. It is an authentic Palestinian movement, which rose to power democratically, and in fact with our approval. Abbas indeed has the authority to dissolve the Hamas government and assemble a government of professional experts. He did not do this, nor will he, since that would spell his end. He would lose the remainder of his public support, and condemn himself to be branded as the United States and Israel's stooge."

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