These two stories, taken together, are interesting. They may turn out to have no salience, but they are both certainly possible:

First this, from Haaretz:

The Israel Defense Forces indicated yesterday that it might not have been responsible for the deaths of at least 54 Lebanese, including 37 children , when a building bombed in an Israeli air strike in the village of Qana collapsed yesterday - but was unable to offer an alternative explanation.

There is an unexplained gap of about seven hours between the one Israeli air strike that hit the Qana building housing the civilians, which took place around 1 A.M. Sunday, and the first report that the building had collapsed, said the chief of staff of the Israel Air Force, Brigadier General Amir Eshel. Speaking at a press conference at the Kirya military complex in Tel Aviv last night, Eshel said that of three Israeli air strikes on Qana early Sunday, only the first strike hit the building in which the civilians were staying. The other two hit areas at least 400 meters away.

"I can't say whether the house collapsed at 12 A.M. or at 8 A.M.," said Eshel. "According to foreign press reports, and this is one of the reports we are relying on, the house collapsed at 8 A.M. We do not have testimony regarding the time of the collapse. If the house collapsed at 12 A.M., it is difficult for me to believe that they waited eight hours to evacuate it."

Then there is this, too:

This morning, I posted some speculation that the 30-foot banner of Secretary of State Rice that miraculously showed up in Qana yesterday was probably prepared in advance, leading to questions whether the entire event was staged. Tonight, reader Postermaker made the following comments about that blog post:

Since I do banners like this for a living, I can tell you it take more than a few hours depending on the equipment. A banner that large can be done one of two ways. With a grant format printer. It would probably take about 3-4 hours to print, then hours more to sew and grommet so it could hung. It would have to be Made of heavy duty material or one that was reinforced or the sheer weight would rip it apart.

The other way it to use a smaller series of machines all color calibrated and produce sections. At that point they would have to be stretch the length of the banner ( read large facility) and sewn together. Additional support would go on the tops and bottoms.

In short if it was related Qana and went up within two hours- four hours, it was done prior to the bomb hitting. No other way. Just putting an image together that large on a computer with Type would take a few hours.

Then color tests, proofs and finally printing. That would be an all day affair for most print houses even with a grand format printer. The cost would be in the thousands.

Then you would have to transport it.

As I say, both may - indeed, probably will - be red herrings. But given Hezbollah's media savvy, and their contempt for human life, it's far from impossible that they staged the entire thing.

(via The Corner.)