PUBLIC MARKS with tags israel & middle-east

Margaret Beckett, the foreign secretary, told a press conference the omission was because the timing was "a little bit tight" for publication. She said she anticipated the war being dealt with more fully in next year's report. But the authors did find sufficient time to include criticism of the Lebanese-based guerrilla group Hizbullah, and one of its backers, Syria, over attacks on Israel and to provide a figure for Israeli, but not Lebanese, casualties.

The State Department is investigating whether Israel’s use of American-made cluster bombs in southern Lebanon violated secret agreements with the United States that restrict when it can employ such weapons...

[Guardian] The Syrian president, Bashar Assad, today warned he would consider the deployment of international troops along the Lebanon-Syria border a hostile move towards his country.

BADSTRING

Israeli soldiers killed twice as many Palestinians last week alone - both of them children - as the number of Israelis killed by Hamas all last year.

A Palestinian Aids patient has been denied permission to leave Gaza for treatment in Israel despite warnings by senior Israeli clinicians that the case is urgent.