PROFESSOR Michael Wald (Irish Examiner letters, September 6) claims that in 1947, “700,000 Arabs left the areas they lived in” of their own free will because of “the promise by the Arab invaders that they would soon regain their own homes as well as taking those of the Israelis when they were driven back into the sea”.

ON August 29 we learned from your letters page that Hezbollah launched missiles from apartment blocks (Prof. Michael Wald), even though it would not be possible to do so without blowing massive holes in them, and that Hezbollah deliberately prevented Lebanese civilians from leaving villages and fired missiles from hospitals (Gene Cahill), though there is no evidence of this.

IN his defence of the recent Israeli bombardment of Lebanon, Professor Michael Wald is keen to make a distinction between murder and what he refers to as “collateral damage”, something, he assures us, that “regrettably happens in any war” (Irish Examiner letters, August 29).