had postponed the "much anticipated" relocation of is headquarters to Beirut, as Israel continued military attacks in the region killing at least 16 people.
Maj. Gen. Moshe Kaplinsky, Israel’s deputy chief of staff, told Israel Radio that the army needed more time to complete "very clear goals," including the disarming of Hezbollah and gaining the release of two soldiers captured by the Muslim militant group.
He said, "The fighting in Lebanon will end within a few weeks. We will not take months.” Meanwhile, Israel struck a Lebanese army base outside Beirut and flattened a house near the border, killing at least 16 people in a new wave of bombings, while Hezbollah fired more rockets at northern Israel, news reports said
As the fighting intensified, the MEU announced it had called an "emergency meeting" at the present headquarters in Nicosia, Cyprus “where the escalating consequences of the regional conflict were acknowledged."
EVACUATIONS ISSUED
In comments distributed by the Adventist Press Service to BosNewsLife, MEU President Kjell Aune said that "with all major world governments issuing evacuation alerts to their citizens, coupled with uncertainties of when normal life and basic logistical services can be restored, it is not currently possible to operate with an international staff whose responsibility is to reliably serve the 14 countries which comprise our territory."
He said the situation will be reassessed at the church’s year-end executive committee meetings in December to determine whether a move can go ahead early in 2007. Earlier the church expressed concern over its aid workers in Lebanon, after rockets fired from Israeli warplanes landed close to the Mouseitbeh Adventist School in Beirut last week.
The Adventist church in Lebanon has about 300 members and runs two schools as well as the Middle East University, the regional church’s only institution of tertiary education. Other Christian aid workers are also caught up in the fighting and there is concern over the plight of native Christians and churches, especially in areas controlled by or near Hezbollah sites.
EVANGELICAL GROUP
Across the border in Israel, an influential evangelical group supporting the Jewish state, said however it understood the Israeli military strikes were necessary. The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) said it "warned" for years “of the terrorist threat to Israel posed by Hamas [in Gaza] and Hezbollah [in Lebanon].
"For both groups, the inspiration behind their agenda is fanatical Islam, which seeks the total destruction of Israel," said ICEJ Executive Director Malcolm Hedding in comments to BosNewsLife. "In concert with their devious sponsors in Damascus,[Syria] and Tehran,[Iran], they have unleashed a war against Israel," he added.
"We fully support Israel in her right to self-defense and in her measured military campaign now being waged against this terror militia. Israel’s response is entirely just and we note with appreciation the statement of the G8 Summit gathered in St. Petersburg, that affirms Israel’s right to self-defense in light of this wicked and unprovoked aggression."
LEBANESE CITIZENS
He said however the ICEJ is "not without sympathy for the vast majority of Lebanese citizens who have been forced into war by Hezbollah," at a time when an estimated over 200 people, mostly civilians, have been killed by Israeli air strikes.
Hedding said the "inaction" of the United Nations and the international community was partly to blame for the current crisis in “that they failed to insist on the complete disarmament of Hezbollah and its removal from southern Lebanon, as called for in UN Security Council resolutions."
It is also cited by Israel as one of the main reasons why it rebuffed a new proposal to deploy United Nations peacekeepers along its border with Lebanon. Israel also stuck to its refusal to release prisoners in exchange for the return of two Israeli soldiers captured last week by Hezbollah.
TIME "ESSENCE"
"Time is of the essence," said UN. Undersecretary-General Vijay Nambiar, head of a U.N. team that was shuttling between Beirut and Jerusalem. "Creative solutions have to be found in order to prevent a broadening and deepening of the conflict," he told reporters.
The United States has expressed support for Israel, but confirmed Tuesday, July 18, that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to travel to the Middle East to mediate. (Stay for continues coverage on the conflict in the Middle East from a different perspective with BosNewsLife).
