Qana

The recent airstrike on Qana, bringing about the bloodiest day of fighting in this conflict, bothers me on a number of levels. It's not that it's any different in kind than what Israel has been doing thus far. In fact, it's more of the same. The problem is the way in which it seems to cross a certain line, to overflow its levee.
For some reason, the international community is beginning to make the movements, motions, and act like they've had too much. Condoleezza Rice is attempting to put together a ceasefire and the UN is hoping to get in on the action (although more than likely reluctanly). At the least Annan is going through the motions.
The problem is that Israel, in the wake of the Qana attacks, has agreed to a 48 hour ceasefire in order to investigate into whether or not the attack on Qana was justified, whether Hizbollah was targeted, or whether something terrible had gone wrong to bring about the death of so many civilians. And it is these civilians which Israel repeats that Hizbollah is using as shields. Thus something like Qana is bound to happen as a result of the way in which Hizbollah 'hides' amongst its civilian population. "So see," Israel seems to be saying to the Lebanese,"they don't care about you any more than they care about us. Come with us, we'll take care of you".
For this brief moment, let's pretend that this is exactly what Hizbollah are doing. Then why only civilians killed and no Hizbollah? Curious. One day into the ceasefire, however, Israel has continued launching attacks under the guise that they "were in support of ground forces and so not covered by the 48-hour halt" (NYTimes, "Israel Says No Halt to Strikes in Support of Ground Forces,"7-31-06). Clearly this leaves the door wide open. They seem to be saying "We'll quit striking on the grounds that we may or may not have done something gravely wrong, but in the meantime, we won't stop while we stop". Israel's defense minister is even quoted as saying, "We must not agree to a cease-fire that would be implemented immediately. If an immediate cease-fire is declared, the extremists will rear their heads anew" (NYTimes, ibid). There is an obvious blurring of the term 'cease-fire' and 'halting attacks' going on. The problem is that Israel agrees to halt attacks, but since no formal cease-fire has been put into place, continues to attack. A halting without halt.
But let's not forget why this halting/continuance is going on in the first place, Qana. With what the UN Security Council tagged a situation that causes "great shock and distress" one would expect some form of an international outcry over and above the mimetic cease-fire proceedings carried out by the US, Britain, and others. For after all, the 48-hour non-halt is being put into effect to investigate, right? Is it these members of the international community that are participating in the investigation of this horrific attack on civilians and young? No. Israel is the conducter of the inquiry.

I'm interested to see what they come up with.