This
preamble to this week’s post is about my birthday party. If you didn’t know
better, you would probably think I am a nine-year-old telling my friends what a
great party I had. Explaining that I hadn’t invited them because the
invitations were sent mostly to my family. Admittedly, at times I behave more
like a nine-year-old and less like a ninety-year-old.
In
retrospect the change of venue from the swimming pool to the club house
definitely was for the better! I
mentioned that we had to move because the pool was mistakenly “double-booked.”
Situated
not far from the pool the club house is ideally equipped for small to medium
size gatherings. The food was served buffet-style, bought from a local caterer.
The place has all the audio-visual equipment we required. The presentation projected onto a large
backdrop screen included pre-recorded segments, mostly family photos and clips.
Your
are welcome to view them by assessing the attached link -
The background music isn’t
played in the link. However, birthday greetings from my eldest daughter and her
husband Marc were played intermittently on the backdrop screen. They live in
Auckland, NZ.
Here’s the link-
While
we were partying Israel allegedly ‘sparked off’ another pyrotechnic show.
An
Associated Press correspondent reporting from Beirut said — “The Hezbollah commander
killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut’s southern suburbs Friday was one of
the Lebanese militant group’s top military officials, in charge of its elite
forces, and had been on Washington’s wanted list for years.
Ibrahim
Akil, 61, was the second top commander of Hezbollah to be killed in an
Israeli airstrike in the southern suburb of Beirut in as many months,
dealing a severe blow to the group’s command structure.
The
strike Friday came as the group was still reeling from a widely suspected
Israeli attack targeting Hezbollah communications earlier this week
when thousands of pagers exploded simultaneously. The attack killed
12 people, mostly Hezbollah members, and injured thousands.
Akil
was a member of Hezbollah’s highest military body, the Jihad Council since
2008, and head of the elite Radwan Forces. The forces also fought in Syria
gaining experience in urban warfare and counterinsurgency.
During
the 1980s, Akil was a principal member of Islamic Jihad
Organization—Hizballah’s terrorist cell—that claimed the bombings of the U.S.
Embassy in Beirut in April 1983, which killed 63 people, and the U.S. Marine
barracks in October 1983, which killed 241 U.S. personnel.
In
the 1980s, Akil directed the taking of American and German hostages in Lebanon
and held them there.
Akil
was under U.S. sanctions and in 2023, the U.S. State Department announced a
reward of up to $7 million for information leading to his “identification,
location, arrest, and/or conviction.”
Israel
has consistently upheld a policy of ambiguity regarding its alleged involvement
in ‘targeted assassinations’, So I doubt if it will be collecting the reward.
Trying
to fathom out we did and how it was accomplished is mind- boggling.
Take care,
Beni
21/09/2024.
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