Beirut Journal

2006-08-16T12:23:00.000+03:00

Because so many of you asked for her picture: this is Kinda last winter when she was visiting her father in his office .
Hanady

2006-08-15T16:52:00.000+03:00

Beirut aug 15th , 2006

This would probably be my last letter to you.
I will miss you all. Some of you I never met, but I feel that you are all so close to me. More than that, you probably already know it: without you I would not have made it throughout this hell. You were there, by my side and that made me stronger. Everyday, you gave more meaning to all this: people’s stories were heard, people’s suffering was shared. This was what I could do to my people : tell some of their stories. Knowing that you will listen, knowing that you will care made the whole difference.
As of yesterday, new stories will unveil : those returning to find .. nothing. Those returning to find their loved ones under the rubble. But returning anyway. 7 a.m. ( or 8) was the official time for the cease fire on Monday morning. People were on the roads at 7 sharp. I am so proud. Sad, hurt, but proud. Proud of my people, proud of their resistance, proud of their commitment and dignity.
Hussein Ayoub, my colleague, finally found his mother today. Ten minutes ago actually. He went to Aynatha in the morning and the rescuers were able to pull her out of the rubble of a house where she, and some 17 other people had taken refuge. We don’t know when she was killed. But at least he was able to recognize her body. She was 75. His father was killed by the Israelis in 1972.
We will be fine, I hope. We will burry our dead, the way they deserve to be buried, we will remember them as long as we live. We will tell their stories to our children; they will tell their own children the story: the story of a great people, one that never lost faith despite all the crimes, pains and injustices.
One that started rebuilding the minute the fighting stopped. Rebuilding although they know that the enemy might destroy everything again, as it did so many times before.
We will also tell them the stories of our enemy : how they killed our children , our elderly , how they hit us from the air, from the sea and from the ground and how we prevailed. How they starved our families in their villages, killed them on the roads, bombed their houses, their shelters, their hospitals, they even bombed vans carrying bread to them; and how in return we did not give up.
My grandmother used to tell me how people starved during World War One. I used to think I would never have similar stories to tell Kinda. Kinda, my heroine , Kinda my sweet little heroine who now , every time she hears the sound of a plane, rushes to my arms , points to the sky and says : Israel , Hweiyda wa wa.
Kinda my baby who survived her first Israeli aggression. To that, I will always be grateful, and I promise I will never forget that other babies were not spared. For them, I will keep telling Kinda the story. For them, Kinda will never leave this land. Kinda will know who her enemy is. Kinda will know this enemy can not beat us. Kinda will grow to respect all the men who fought for her on the front lines, and those who will rebuild her country again.
Kinda will also grow to know how important you, all of you, were part of her life during a long painful month in the summer of the year 2006.
To those I knew through this list: I hope I will get to meet you one day. To all of you : thank you for your support , your encouraging messages, your prayers, and your feelings for Kinda.
My love and gratitude to all of you.

Hanady Salman
PS : later today I will send some pictures from the villages where people returned

2006-08-12T17:46:00.000+03:00

This is from the heart of my dear friend Zahera

H...

"Bourg El Barajneh

I come from a small 'town' called Bourg El Barajneh in the southern suburbs of Beirut. My parents’ house is there, so as my brothers, uncles, aunts and cousins. This is the place of my grandfather and my great grandfather, an existence that goes back to thousands of years. This morning Israel dropped leaflets over the town ordering the residents to evacuate. They will bomb, and when Israelis order evacuation expect the worst. My parents have never left their home, even during the worst fighting of the civil war including several Israeli invasions and assaults. We grew up, me and my two brothers, believing that our house is the safest on the planet. That was how my parents used to calm our fears down when we were young. Our house is not safe anymore; Israel has made it not safe. My parents who are both in their sixties refused to leave, we had to convince them that their stay in the mountains is a fulfillment to a promise they made to their retired friends long time ago. So, they left two days ago, but my brothers are still there and they refuse to leave. The eldest, a school teacher, is assisting in rescue and aid works in the area. The second, a medical doctor, is present at the local hospital. They stayed to help their fellow town residents who have no friends or relatives to go to and feel so dignified that they don’t want to end up in a public school or a public garden as refugees. Innocent people who might not have the money or the means to leave are still there. They are numbered in thousands. Israel has taken the decision to bomb them all. This is a crime against humanity, they will bomb, kill and then tell you ‘we told them to evacuate’. The Israeli army has transformed the Lebanese population into lottery balls and those sitting in the commander room in Tel Aviv enjoy mixing and picking up the ones they decide to destroy and kill. I have a great believe that for the F16 Israeli pilots it is just a computer game and the Lebanese people are like those computer characters trying to run and hide from the pilots constant fire. Remember among those characters are children and old people who can not run fast enough.
I feel void. London ‘terror plot’ have taken the attention away. World media now has a different priority. News from Lebanon has been pushed down the ‘running order’. Israel can do whatever they want and no one outside the Arab world would even have a clue.
I am not someone who believes in conspiracies, but this time I do. Those who were plotting to bomb the planes leaving Heathrow have made Israel a favor. The Israeli government was working hard to divert the British media, in specific, from transmitting the images of Lebanon’s victims. London’s ‘terror plot’ gave them what they wanted.
Call it naivety, but massacres are to be expected when they hit Bourg El Barajneh, Hay esselum and Al Chiyah, the three districts that are still standing in the southern suburbs of Beirut. My greatest fear is that none of you will be watching or listening. Our stories will become history; my home town will become history."

Zahera Harb
Lebanese Journalist

2006-08-12T17:36:00.000+03:00

Beirut, August 11th, 2006

Everybody was clapping in the street half an hour ago. I looked from my window to find out the reason: the electricity was back.
I was sitting in my office, sweating, trying to meet my deadline and to keep the mosquitoes away at the same time.
So, the clapping in the street meant I was able to turn the AC on.
But then my neighbors were clapping again. What now? Did Brazil win the world cup?
No. It was Al Jazeera: it said Israel accepts an emergency cease fire.
Well, so we’ll have a break tomorrow?
This was what I wrote yesterday night, but I didn’t send it cause my colleagues and I were waiting for the UN security council resolution to be voted and we stayed in the office till about 3 a.m. The answer to yesterday’s question came today:
These are extracts of what my colleague Zeina Karam wrote for AP news agency:
Israeli air strikes and ground attacks continued on Saturday despite a U.N. resolution for a cease-fire, with missiles and artillery killing at least 19 people across Lebanon, mostly in the south.

In the South :

-The deadliest attack was on homes in the village of
Rachaf, some 7 kilometers (4 miles) from the border, where at least 15 civilians were killed, security officials said.
-Israeli missiles also hit a vehicle in Kharayeb, a village
in the Zahrani region about halfway between Beirut and the border, killing three people and wounding five, officials said.
-A separate raid destroyed a bridge linking the southern cities of Tyre and Nabatiyeh with Sidon.
-Shrapnel from missiles fired on the village of Insariyeh, halfway between Sidon and Tyre, hit a vehicle carrying Lebanese journalists working for a Swedish television channel, and one of them was wounded, security officials said.
-Electricity was out in Tyre and Sidon, after Israeli warplanes struck transformers at power plants in both coastal cities. An official at the power plan in Sidon, George Makhoul, said it could be 10 days before power was restored.
-Ground fighting was also intense throughout south Lebanon. Bombardment continued in hills and villages in southeast
Lebanon as well,

In the North :

-An Israeli air strike destroyed a road leading to the only remaining border crossing to Syria _ Arida, on the northern coast _ severing the last escape route for besieged
Lebanese and for humanitarian aid entering the country.
Israeli jets targeted the highway linking Arida with the
Northern city of Tripoli, at a point about 8 kilometers (5
Miles) from the border, officials said.
The crossing remained open, but the road leading to it was impassable, and vehicles were spotted driving off-road through ditches early Saturday.
- Security officials reported several air strikes in Akkar
Province, located about 97 kilometers (60 miles) north of
Beirut

In the Bekaa (east)

-Warplanes struck at apartment buildings that house a
Hezbollah charity organization in the heart of the eastern
City of Baalback, wounding three people. Another four people were injured in an air strike on a house west of Baalback, officials said.
-A Lebanese soldier was killed overnight in an air raid near an army base in the western Bekaa Valley, the army said.

H..

2006-08-12T01:51:00.000+03:00

Mohamad Husseini, the 3 years old boy in the pictures ( in the green t-shirt), and his family werefound alive when a red cross convoy reached Maaroub in the south todayFriday Aug 11 to try and rescue its residents. They couldn't reach the people whowere under the rubble in Maaroub, they left them there. However, they wereable to evacuate people who had walked from Arsoun , another village. The convoy also brought back the remains of a family who had been killed 2weeks ago in their car , on the road while attempting to flee the village. (JihadBazzi wrote an excellent article to be published in As-Safir tomorrow , for those of you who read Arabic).

A Lebanese eldelry woman from t is carried by Red Cross members before being evacuated by ambulance from Maaroub 11 August afp

2006-08-12T01:48:00.000+03:00

Refugees in a public school in Alley keep the record of this war : in theboard , she's writing the names of the villages in the south and the dateswhen each was evacuated. Also on the board are the dates of the "massacres" in each village. The picture was taken by my colleague Bilal Kabalan from Assafir
H...

2006-08-12T01:46:00.000+03:00

also in Sanayeh

2006-08-12T01:43:00.000+03:00

Sanayeh is the public garden where hundreds of refugees have been living formore than 3 weeks now. This is how some of them spend the day.hanady

2006-08-11T00:23:00.000+03:00

These are two comments that were posted on As’ad’s Angry Arab blog “in reaction” to my writings.

1- pleaaaaaase stop this wheeping all the time wheeping hanady salman this is too much!!!!she's exagerating the melodrame and that doesnt serve anything at the end. this isn’t litterature, this isn’t psychology, what does this wheeping mean???
the dog 08.10.06 - 4:14 am #

Not to be dignified with an answer

2- Hanady as in Hanady and Colmes show on Fox?
Dottore El Jose Truthe Gigante 08.09.06 - 8:50 pm

Could anyone tell me what this show is ? I really don’t know. Is it bad?

H..

2006-08-10T18:57:00.000+03:00

From the news agencies :

In Beirut :

Israeli planes have blanketed the heart of Beirut, including the Lebanese government headquarters, with leaflets for the first time.
Israeli warplanes have dropped leaflets over downtown Beirut, threatening a ®painful and strong¯ response to Hezbollah attacks and warning residents of three southern suburbs to evacuate
immediately.
®The Israeli Defense Forces intend to expand their
operations in Beirut,¯ the single-page leaflet read. It
said the move came after statements from ®the leader of
the gang¯ _ an apparent reference to Hezbollah leader
Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, who made a taped television address
the night before.

In Tripoli ( north):

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) _ Israeli warplanes dropped leaflets
over northern Lebanon for the first time Thursday, warning
trucks off the roads after 8 p.m., residents said.
The leaflets fell north of Tripoli, Lebanon's second
largest city, some 25 kilometers (15 miles) from the Syrian
border. The blanketed area includes the Palestinian refugee
camp of Beddawi.
Trucks were being used to carry rockets and missiles to
Hezbollah, the single-page documents said.
They were signed: ®The State of Israel.¯
(lf)
In Baalback (east ) :

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) _ An Israeli drone fired a missile
into a minibus driving in the eastern Bekaa Valley, killing
one person and wounding 12, residents said.
The attack occurred near the town of Rayak, about 5
kilometers (3 miles) east of the provincial capital of
Zahle.
Another airstrike targeted a road linking the city of
Baalbek, with theSyrian city of Homs, witnesses said.

IN the South : trying to reduce the number of people who have been wounded turning to people who have died

By Michael Winfrey
BEIRUT, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Hospitals were running out of
food, fuel and other supplies in southern Lebanon on Thursday
and aid groups said fighting and a ban on movement meant they
could not reach thousands trapped in the area.
Medecins Sans Frontieres said that since an Israeli air
strike destroyed the last coastal river crossing for trucks to
the south on Monday, aid agencies had been reduced to carrying
supplies by hand over a log across the Litani river.
It said Israel's warning that it might attack any vehicle
south of the Litani that was not part of an aid convoy with
Israeli clearance significantly undermined the chances of the
tens of thousands of people still believed to be trapped in the
region.
"The people in the south are afraid. They are terrified to
move," Rowan Gillies, president of MSF International, said in
Beirut. "To forbid all forms of movement, without distinction,
will lead to even more civilian deaths and suffering."
MSF said it had suffered close calls with shelling and air
strikes close to two of its convoys earlier this week. On
Monday, warplanes attacked two cars travelling near a U.N.
Nations convoy, killing three people.
Israel has drawn international criticism for attacking
targets in populated civilian areas. At least 1,011 people have
been killed in Lebanon during the four-week-old conflict with
Hizbollah guerrillas.
Israel, which has lost 116 dead, mostly soldiers, says air
attacks and ground operations are the only way to stop the
Shi'ite group, which sparked the conflict when it captured two
Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12.
The United Nations World Food Programme said it sent a
15-truck convoy to the eastern town of Baalbek but was still
waiting for two planes carrying about 10 tonnes of supplies each
which had been delayed since Tuesday.
The agency was also trying to send a 10-truck convoy to the
battered town of Nabatiyeh in the south, but had not received
security guarantees.
"We had hoped to get down to Nabatiyeh today, but were
denied clearance," WFP spokesman Robin Lodge said.
MSF said hospitals were quickly running out of food, medical
and other supplies in Tyre and other southern cities. The worst
shortage was diesel fuel to run generators.
The shortages coincide with heavy fighting that has brought
new wave of casualties to southern hospitals. More than 3,000
people have been wounded in Lebanon so far and the United
Nations says up to 900,000 people have been displaced.
"We're trying to reduce the number of people who have been
wounded turning to people who have died," said Gillies.
"It's very basic. If we can't give the local authorities the
ability to do that, the consequences for civilians are dire."
The European Union aid chief Louis Michel also said it was
vital to restore access to aid in south Lebanon.
From Beirut to the US : stay away from us, we want sayyed hassan

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) _ During a tour of a refugee shelter
Thursday, a U.S. congressman got a taste of the virulent
anti-U.S. sentiment among many Lebanese, fueled by
Washington's support for Israel's offensive, which has
forced almost one million people from their homes.
When Representative Darrell Issa, a Republican from
California, walked into a classroom that is now home to
several refugees, one of them held up her newborn
granddaughter while she launched into a tirade against U.S.
President George W. Bush.
®We don't want America. Stay away from us,¯ shouted
Mariam Saad, 45, who was displaced from Beirut's southern
suburbs.®Tell Bush we don't want his civilization. Tell him we
want Sayyid Hasan,¯ she added, referring to Hezbollah's
leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
Issa arrived in Lebanon on Thursday on a trip he described
as primarily humanitarian to assess the needs on the
grounds during the hostilities and ®also to try to hit the
ground running to get Lebanon back up and running once the
fighting stops.¯
Economists estimate it will cost billions of dollars to
repair Lebanon's infrastructure, which has been critically
damaged by Israel's offensive, and repatriate hundreds of
thousands of people displaced from their homes in Beirut's
suburbs and south Lebanon.
®We are on the edge of what is becoming a humanitarian
crisis, and it's important for the United States to have a
firsthand witness go back to the Congress,¯ Issa told The
Associated Press.
As Issa's car pulled into the school in a predominantly
Christian Beirut area, a couple of explosions were heard in
the distance _ an Israeli air raid on an old lighthouse a
few kilometers (miles) away.

2006-08-10T18:37:00.000+03:00

Hell started early toady.
It seems it will be hell all over. They bombed inside Beirut some half an hour ago. They bombed an old light house, so old no one ever remembers it exists. It’s some seven buildings away from my house. But it is also some 4 buildings away from Hariri’s house.
There’s a small army unit based under that light house which also had transmission aerials that belong to the Lebanese Public Radio.(LPR)
They hit another transmission aerial, in Amshit, to the north from Beirut. It was on top of an old building that LPR have not used in years. There’s a small army unit based there too.
They’re bombing Baalback in the East, Beddawi in the North and they’re hitting every single village from Tyre to Naqoura in the South.
Most hospitals announced they finished their fuel reserves. There’s a ship loaded with fuel that came all the way from Algeria and has been waiting in the Lebanese (poisoned) waters for days for an Israeli OK to come in. In the newspaper, the two generators we have are out of order and they’re cutting the electricity in some 15 minutes. So, I’m writing this in a hurry.
I feel so angry for what happened in London’s airport this morning. No words can describe my fury. I wish I could undo it all. I just can’t.
All I can do is sit here, write my messages, try to get them through for those who care to read them, and pray I would still have an internet connection to do so for as long as possible.
Last night I had a terrible thought: YOU ARE THE ONLY FRIENDS I HAVE LEFT. EVERYONE ELSE LEFT THE COUNTRY, EXCEPT FOR RULA.
I feel we’re falling apart, one town after the other, one house after the other, one person after the other.
But I know that deep inside, none of us lost faith : we know who our enemy is, we know what it’s capable of, and we know that this enemy knows that no matter what it does we will prevail.
H..

2006-08-10T13:11:00.000+03:00

I really need to share this with you, it’s absolutely surreal!!!

It’s someone who replied to my august 7th letter:

Yes, just put the blame on this catastrophy on one part and one part only. Hizbollah has ofcourse no guilt in this. Forget their actions and point the finger the other way. The government in Lebanon has no guilt although they have alowed a fascist religious murderous cult grow stronger and stronger. Founded and payd by Iran and backed up by Syria. Why has this remnants of a 15 year long mass sloughter been allowed to exist with its arsenal, untouched and quietly benn left a peace with its fascism. The other parts have laid down their guns, but not Hizbollah. Why? They have said that they have no interrest in Libanon, the lebanese people, only the islamic world state. The UN representative Jan Egeland heard a conversation with highrank members of Hizbollah that they were proud of all the civilians killed but they hoped for more. That kind of military tactic is cynical and evil. Hizbollas 2 500 rockets have only hit civilian targets in Israel where 1 000 000 lives under ground in shelters. Hizbollah must be destroyd by Lebanon in a combined effort from every libanese. This evil must be driven out of your country, once and for all.
It is so easy to blame only those who drops the bombs and ignoring those who provoced them to drop those bombs ( is this sentence is for real? ). Killed israely civilians are being celebrated by palestinian but no israelis have done the same. They have done the opposite, they have marched against the killing of 1000 civilians in Lebanon. The conflict is old, complex and its roots are deep. Large groups are feeding from war, hate and conflict. Their base of power is these things, and they wont let go of that power easily. Hate makes you blind and irrationel. It open you up to any kind of madmen and their misdeeds. You seek to find justice for your hate. But you need to let it go. The middle east dont need more hatred, it need peace and love. Please dont close your eyes and walk into Hizbollahs trap. Fight them in words and thoughts. Tear down their wall build on lies. Hold up a mirror and let people see the true nature of Hizbollah and then cast them out of your heart and soul. Stop giving the israeli leaders more excuses for unleashing more terror and destruction ( and this one?) . For 58 years they have been fighting for their existence, for survival. When generations live in a state of crisis and war it creates an environment for psycopathic behaviour. May all the Gods in this world hear the cries of the innocent victims of this and other ongoing conflicts in our world today. Kongo, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast, Iraq, tchetchenya, Afghanistan, India/Pakistan and the countless dictaotorship. 8 - 10 000 000 are killed in these conflicts alone.
Morten Ove,
Trondheim, Norway.

2006-08-10T13:10:00.000+03:00

Beirut August the 9th

When I went home last night, I rushed to Kinda’s bed as usual.
I pulled her arm and kissed her hand.
For a second, I thought that her arm remained in my hand. Her small white arm left her shoulder and was in my hand. Suddenly she became parts and bits. Her foot was at one end of the bed, her leg was at the other. Parts and bits. My baby is nothing but parts and bits. Now, todya, she is still in one piece. What is it that will prevent them from tearing her apart? What is it I can do to prevent them from tearing her apart?
Baby Waad has in her mother’s arms. She stayed there when the building fell on them. It was the rescuer who separated them. Waad died in one piece. Too small to be cut in two: she is, was, ten days old. From the mother, only one arm remained.
They killed baby Hadi too. He had his diapers on. His mother should have known better. She should have changed his diaper; it looked really heavy in the morgue.
They killed baby Manal. Baby Mohamad, baby Ali, baby every single name in the Arabic language. Those they missed here, they killed in Palestine.
“ya Ali” , the man was calling in Srifa. “Ya Ali, Ya batal” . That’s how he was calling his sun, “hero”. The hero never answered back. The hero was under the rubble. Along others who are still under the rubble in Srifa. Along others who are still under the rubble in Houla, Aynatha, Aytaroun, Hallousiyeh, Taybeh, Maroon el Ras, Bint Jbeil. People are rotting under the rubble in every single village south of the Litany River in Southern Lebanon.
There was a day, at the beginning of this, when we felt sorry for those who lost their homes. Reporters would use their best writing skills to describe how bad one might feel if one looses one’s house: in houses, there are photo albums, there are books, music, and “memories”, the reporters said. It is not poetic to mention winter clothes, kitchen utensils, underwear, fridges, heaters, air conditioners, cars and other trivial details people in poor neighborhoods spend years saving to get. Talking about left behind medicine, IDs, deeds, medical reports, birth certificates and other “vital” stuff is more likely to move the readers.
Today, under the rubble, the house owners vanish. Forever they will keep their books, their music, their photos, their winter clothes, their medicine; they can hug their kids indefinitely.
Under the rubble, one village after the other, one house after the other, memories take their owners along. Ashes.
Pity the living, pity those who are left behind. Pity those who are dreading the day when it will be their turn to run down the streets, screaming, collecting the legs and arms of their loved ones, calling their names so loud their voices would reach the skies.
H..

2006-08-10T13:04:00.000+03:00

Did you think they spared Palestinians ?... This is what happened in Ain El-Helwe refugee camp in Saida

2006-08-10T12:58:00.000+03:00

meanwhile in Tyre kids were having a break .. and Apatchi above them Before the Israelis cut off the city from the rest of the world . This will start tonight

2006-08-10T12:55:00.000+03:00

2006-08-10T12:49:00.000+03:00

This is how we burry our dead new : in masses

2006-08-10T12:46:00.000+03:00

2006-08-10T12:43:00.000+03:00

others were saying goodbye to their loved ones too

2006-08-10T12:32:00.000+03:00

9th of august

Fadi Dhaine was busy today , aug 9th . He was saying goodbye to his wifeFatmeh and his 20 month old Mohamad who were killed by the Israelis onMonday the seventh of August when the Israelis decided to kill civilians in their homes in Chiyah

2006-08-09T01:54:00.000+03:00

Here's what they did to baby waad in her tenth day, while she was in hermother's arms

2006-08-09T01:50:00.000+03:00

Here's what they did to Hadi Jaafar : two years old from Ghaziyeh

...and here is his father

2006-08-09T01:41:00.000+03:00

Here's what they did to Manal Husseini in Ghaziyeh in the south

2006-08-08T19:45:00.000+03:00

Real storyGHAZIYEH, Lebanon, Aug 8 (Reuters) - An Israeli air strikehit the southern Lebanese village of Ghaziyeh on Tuesday,killing one person while mourners were burying 15 relativeskilled in bombing the previous day. At least two rockets hit Ghaziyeh during the funeral, thoughnot in the immediate vicinity, a Reuters journalist reported. Rescue workers said the air strike on two homes had killedone person and wounded three. They were working to save threemore people trapped under the rubble. The mourners chanted anti-American slogans after the airstrike

A Lebanese civil defence worker removes the body of a toddler from the wreckage of a building August 8, 2006 that was hit by an Israeli raid in Beirut reuters

gravely injured woman into an ambulance 08 August 2006 after she was rescued from under the rubble of a building hit today by an Israeli air strike in the village of Ghaziyeh afp

2006-08-08T16:59:00.000+03:00

Beirut August, 8th

Hallucinations

-A man steps inside his house. It’s a nice house, overlooking the beach. The man, however, doesn’t even look towards the window. He rushes to the kitchen, hugs his wife, takes his daughter into his arms, and makes funny faces to his toddler trying to make him smile. The man looks tired, he hasn’t shaved in a while, and he certainly needs a shower.
He takes a shower, eats lunch with his family, hands his wife a sum of money and goes to bed.
The wife calls the children to go with her to the supermarket: they’ll shop for food and toys from the husband’s wage. The kids are excited and noisy; “shush”, she says putting her finger on her lips while they’re leaving the house, “your dad needs to rest. He has to go back to work tomorrow. He works hard, you know”.
The dad is an Israeli soldier. He works hard, Marwa knows that.

-Marwa (10) was in the small pick-up with 22 other people, her family and relatives, on July 15th 2006. They were trying to make it out of their village, Marwaheen. They believed the Israeli ultimatum that told them to evacuate the village within 2 hours. They know that when it comes to bombing, when Israel says, Israel does. So, while her parents were trying to figure out where they should go after the nearby UN base refused to hide them, Marwa and her sisters were playing “beit byout”.
Marwa was pretending she was answering a very important phone call on a fictive phone, and her sister Mirna (12) was pretending she was holding a tray with drinks on it , offering them to fictive guests speaking with an Egyptian accent.
Then suddenly, there was a huge BOUM. “The wind carried me far away , I woke up on the nearby rocks. Next to me, mama and Mirna were sleeping. I went to them to wake them up but the plane saw me and came towards me so I ran away. My brother Wissam was hit in his leg and he could not reach me, he was hiding behind a rock and when the ambulance came he was waving to them to stop. Mirna was sleeping the whole time ”.
That is what Marwa recalls. But Wissam ( 15) tells a different story :” after the first explosion, Mirna was standing alone, crying. I crawled towards her because my leg was bleeding but a shell fell between us before I could reach her, and Mirna was no more”.
Marwa, from her hospital bed in Beirut, calls Mirna everyday but she always gets Wissam instead. For her, Mirna is still sleeping. During her first five days in the hospital where they treating her wounds and burns, Marwa would wake up in the middle of the night, yelling and crying for her mother. Marwa is safe now in a house in Beirut with a sister who was not in the south when that little incident happen.
Marwa is waiting for her mother Zahra ( 51) , Mirna and her brother Hadi to wake up and join her in her refuge.
She keeps two pictures of Hadi : one of him when he was eight month old, and another when he was five, days before he was killed.
Marwa wears a pink sweater her mom had bought her and refuses to change it. She says that she prays every night before she sleeps “ I read the Fatiha and pray that my mom will come soon , that the war ends .” then she adds shyly “I also ask God not to forgive Israel. I know this is mean, but I promise that when the war will be over I will stop asking that”.
Marwa won’t keep her promise. Sometime soon , even before the war is over, she will find out her mother, sister and brother are not sleeping anymore.
h..

2006-08-08T01:12:00.000+03:00

2006-08-08T00:55:00.000+03:00

shiah massacre

2006-08-08T00:50:00.000+03:00

also from shiah tonight

2006-08-08T00:46:00.000+03:00

2006-08-08T00:42:00.000+03:00

a wounded boy from the airstrikes in Shiah

2006-08-07T23:08:00.000+03:00

beirut...7th of august :(

No more good news tonight. No more good news ever.
One suggestion I need any of you to transmit to the Israelis: I offer you all of us. Our flesh, our scalps, our inner parts to exhibit live on TV screens, our bare feet eaten by wolves during the night in ex- villages, our blood flooding in the streets, our kids, our mothers, our fathers , our brothers, sisters, grandparents , every single one of us. KILL US ALL. You can be selective if you wish. Leave those who like you, believe in you, to prosper by you side in the new whatever hell you would like to have.
JUST KILL US. DO NOT LEAVE US BEHIND. DO NOT LEAVE US TO WATCH. Tens of kids everyday, toddlers, elderly, killed in their houses, in their shelters, on the roads trying to flee, in the centers where they took refuge.> THEY ARE ALL MINE,THE KIDS THEY KILLED, THEY ARE ALL MEMEBERS OF MY FAMILY THE “CIVILIANS” THEY KILLED, AND YOU KNOW WHAT ,THE FIGHTERS ARE FIGHTING FOR ME AND FOR MY CHILD’S TOMORROW. THEY ARE ALL MINE, THE ONES THEY’RE KILLING.
Blood is all what you have to offer, it has always been that way. Blood you shall have. As much blood as you planes can get. As much blood as your fantasies imply. As much blood as there is in our veins.
Did you have enough blood for today? Only in the afternoon, in Ghazyeh, in Ghassanieh, in Houla, in Britel, in Chmestar, in Ali Nahri, in Hezzine, in Tyre, in Bayyada, in Qassmieh, and those you killed a few minutes ago in Shayyah, in the southern suburb, the Hezbollah stronghold as your reporters label it. In this Hezbollah stronghold, my colleagues fail to mention, hundreds of POOR families live, and today most of them are refugees from other parts of the country.
Kill as much as you can.
Your smart planes and smart rockets and smart asses and smart allies: kill us all. This is not just another war. This is extermination. This is another fun game, the way the Israelis like them, played with US made arms, funded by YOUR MONEY, justified by YOUR PRESS, encouraged by YOUR ELECTED POLITICIANS.
SHAME ON ANY OF US WHO WILL EVER FORGRET. SHAME ON THAT WHO WOULD EVER FORGIVE. SHAME ON THAT WHO WOULD EVER MENTION PEACE AGAIN : YOUR PEACE WAS MISSED BY MY KIDS, THUS , I NEED IT NO MORE.
H..

2006-08-07T23:02:00.000+03:00

What we thought to be a new disaster turned out to be great news, for once: the 60 something people who were missing under the rubble after an Israeli air strike shelled the house where they were hiding in Houla in the south were found ALIVE. Only one of them died. I love good news.

2006-08-07T11:58:00.000+03:00

Beirut, August 6th, 06

I need to share a secret.
I know why I took half a day off yesterday.
Friday night, I went home at 11:00 pm. They were watching the news there. They keep the TV on all the time. I don’t know when they’re watching and when they’re not.
There was the usual footage of villages with heavy smoke in the background; the usual figures: the number of dead, the number of rockets; the usual blah blah blah from DC (or wherever he’s on vacation now), London, Paris and Beirut..
And then, suddenly, there she was. She was 80? 75? She was wearing a black and white dress, a scarf hardly covering her white hair. The most striking thing about her were her eyes. They were wide opened, as if they were screaming. They were so opened. Terrified, she looked terrified. I’m sorry, her eyes looked terrified. There were Red Cross rescuers helping her out of her house.
Someone was talking to me in the room, but I had my eyes glued on that lady’s eyes, and I was trying to hear what the correspondent in the south was saying about her. SHE WAS BLIND, he said. The poor lady was blind, stuck in her house, alone, for ten days, not knowing what was going on, not knowing what she should do.

Were her eyes were open like this because she’s blind, or because they were reflecting her feelings? THE POOR LADY WAS THERE, ALONE, BLIND, FOR TEN DAYS, UNDER THE SHELLING, NOT KNOWING WHAT TO DO, NOR WHERE TO GO.
I did not sleep that night.
And every time I remember this lady I feel I’m suffocating.
Today, there was a lady, same age, talking to TV reporters from her hospital bed. She had a “rural” accent, and when she spoke you could tell she was old because of the sound her denture made.
The reporter, who used to have her own games show, asked her with her very “Beiruti” , I’m-a- beautiful –spoiled- yet –compassionate- girl- accent “ and how did you get here”?
“Ya binti (my child) “the old lady said, “When you get hit how do you get anywhere? What can you do? You go out, try to escape the shelling, but I don’t have a car, and you can’t leave while they’re hitting, and what do you do when you’re my age? I can’t run, and there is no one in the streets to help you, and if a car happens to be passing by you can not stop it, who would stop under the shelling?” And cut.
There was a question haunting me, for the last few days. Two or three days after Qana, with the flow of pictures of the same nature coming from every region in the country, I kept wondering about the real effect of these pictures.
Ever since this started, my departement here decided we were only going to tell the stories of the people. The survivors, those in hospitals, those in shelters, in refugee centers, anywhere: our job is to tell there stories. Each story if we could. And to publish their pictures. Each one of them if we could.
But then , I thought , this was intended to show what it meant to be injured, to loose a child, a house , a village .. but what if this will only make people get used to the new situation. Would people get bored from these stories?
And most important, would the pictures of civilians killed in shelters, on roads, in house, become “normal” when you publish them everyday? Is this why they’re bombing civilians all the time: so we get used to that fact, so we get sick of seeing more if the same , so that pictures of bleeding kids loose their meaning…
The stories of the two old ladies offered me a partial answer: no , no one can get used to this. And even if you do , there will always be “new” stories, stories none of us could dream they might happen.
H...

2006-08-06T19:00:00.000+03:00

Beirut 6th of august

Good morning ,
I had a good time yesterday evening. Not so good, I hate going out in dark, empty streets. It reminds me of the war, and so far, I've been trying to live in denial as much as I could. I put my "automatic engine " on, and take things one hour, half an hour .. at a time.
I had nightmares last night. Lots of them, and woke up I don't know how many times to find out I was only dreaming.
This denial issue is a big issue over here. You see, if we were to grasp ( let alone understand) the whole scope of what's happening, we'll spare the Israelis a whole lot of US tax payers money : we'd all explode, die from natural causes such as heart failures and the likes.
OK , I give some reasons why I dread the day when this war will be over:
We already have ONE MILLION refugees all over the (tiny) country. What can any state, country , government do with one million refugees? November is almost two months away, that's when the winter season settles in for real in here.
Now think of the wiped out villages. Who's going to remove all the rubble ? No one wants to think now about rebuilding, it took us some 15 years and some 40 billion dollars in debts to do it once before.Anyway , it was not over yet, rebuilding ( and the debt) that is.
Then , there are scattered families who still have hopes that once this is over they might find their loved ones. What will happen when they find out how many of them died. If all these people start crying together , at the same moment, at the same minute, hard enough, I mean as hard as anyone would cry when they loose one family member, and then there will be others crying even harder because they would have lost more than one family members ( I think she should stop counting as of 3 and above ). So, if they do cry as hard as expected, how far away would they be heard?
Now , the other thing is the kind of weird diseases starting to spread out because of the physical presence of so many corpses outdoors almost everywhere in the South, and elsewhere.
By the time this is over, these diseases would have killed another good bunch.
Thus, the one thing I'm hoping for right now , is a 24 hour truth so we can bury the dead and empty the hospitals refrigerators. And then , they can start over, and go on as much as they like , pushing as far as possible the day when denial will have to fall.
H..

2006-08-05T21:51:00.000+03:00

Beirut , August 5, 2006

Today, I took half a day off for the first time in three weeks. I felt so tired this morning, so sad and helpless.. I thought that the best cure would be to spend some time with Kinda.I took her up to the mountain, where my sister and nieces took refuge. I can say , as far as I, myself, am concerned that the visit of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Welch to Beirut today was not a complete waste of time : it allowed me to get out of Beirut for the first time since July the12th.Can you believe it : the trees are still there, the flowers , the butterflies, even cockroaches are still there.I can't really say I had time to contemplate any of those; I spent most of the day sleeping.Anyhow, I'm back in the office now, BUT: my two very dear friends , Leila and Anni ( actually the only friends I have who did not leave Lebanon yet)are taking me out to dinner. They're really spoiling me. The only thing is none of us knows what restaurant would take us .. but who cares ?However , don't think I will spare sad stories today , I found one written by my friend Alaa Shahine who works with Reuters press agency , two other sad stories from Reuters and the Ap , and a not so sad one ( actually a niceone ) from Johannesburg.
Here they are :

By Alaa Shahine TYRE, Lebanon, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Hussein Ali Ayoub waswashing his face one morning in his border village of Maroun al-Ras in southern Lebanon when the ceiling suddenly collapsed. He had refused to follow his parents to a nearby shelterbefore Israeli bombardment of the village. His last memories arehearing two loud explosions before waking up at a hospital in the city of Tyre, suffering wounds in his foot, knees and back.His parents are missing, and so are his wife and four children. "I can't stop thinking of them," he said, sitting on amattress at a U.N.-run school in the Palestinian refugee camp of al-Buss in Tyre that is sheltering hundreds of Lebanese familieswho fled the war between Israel and Hizbollah. "If I don't hear from them for another week, I will go mad. I will explode," the 43-year-old construction worker said. Ayoub's wife, Najibeh, had taken her daughter and three sonsto a village near Tyre before the bombing of Maroun al-Ras, ascene of fierce fighting between advancing Israeli troops and Hizbollah fighters. When he went to check on them, they weregone, leaving no trace behind. FADING HOPE As anxious as he may be, Ayoub still hopes to find his wifeand children. For some other refugees, the most they can hope for is that the bodies of loved ones will be recovered. "My parents are under the rubble of my house and they areprobably dead," said Abduallh Hussein, 57, lighting a cigarette.His father, Mohammed Ali, 85, and his 80-year-old mother were stuck in the village of Tair Harfa, one of many in Tyre'shinterland that has come under heavy Israeli attacks. "I hope I can go there, pull them out and bury them," saidHussein, whose hands are rough from chopping wood for living. Hussein has lost relatives in past wars -- his brother Abbaswas killed shortly after the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanonand two nephews, Nidal and Mouein, were killed fighting to Israel in southLebanon in the 1980s. Another refugee, Mohammed Rasatmi, has not seen his cousinMahmoud since the Israeli bombing of al-Qasmieyh village nearTyre about a week ago. "We are no different than other people who are losing their family members in this war," said the 45-year-old gardener, nowa refugee in the city of Sidon. At Sidon's town hall, aid workers have set up a detailedcomputer database for the refugees who have flocked to the city,the largest in the south, helping them locate missing relatives.
"We were able to reunite many people," said MohammedNahouli, sitting at a partitioned corner in the main hall wherevolunteer aid workers, mostly young college graduates, sit behind computer screens to sort out the refugees' data. A group of refugees gathered around one worker to hand ininformation about missing relatives. One of them, 70-year-oldMohammed Shammout, was asking about his son, Mustafa. "Tell your colleagues to say his name on the radio," he tolda visiting reporter. "Tell him 'Your father is looking foryou'."

This is what Alaa reported from Saida where yesterday, as Laila Bassam from Reuters puts it :
BEIRUT, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Israel said on Saturday it planned to bomb "Hezbollah rocket launching sites" in Sidon (Saida) and warned the inhabitants of south Lebanon's biggest city to leave. An Israeli army spokesman said leaflets dropped on Sidon,whose normal population of 100,000 has been swollen by refugeesfrom war zones further south, had warned all residents to leave."We dropped leaflets warning residents to leave because the army will attack Hezbollah rocket launching sites in Sidon," he said. Other army officials confirmed the warning had been given.However , Saida's mayor Abdel Rahman Bizri told the BBC yesterday that there were no Hezbollah sites in his city ( which is predominantly Sunni) and that even if the leaflets were actually thrown , there was nowhere where his city's people + the refugees could go anyway. Elsewhere in our part of the world, the families of the Syrian workers who were among those killed in Qaa yesterday, were burying the loved ones.

Here's the extracts from AP's story :
JANDIRES, Syria (AP) _ Grief and shock swept through thissmall, impoverished village in northwestern Syria Saturday as it buried 23 of its people who were killed when Israelimissiles slammed into a refrigerated warehouse just across the border in Lebanon. ®How long will the Arabs and the world keep silent aboutIsrael's crimes?¯ asked Brifan Rashid, who lost herbrother in the Friday attack. She was slightly wounded. ®How long will the U.S. support Israeli terrorism? Whathave those poor workers done to Israel to receive such fate?¯ asked the 18-year-old, choking back tears. Herfather was still missing in the rubble, she said. Four missiles blasted the warehouse in the Lebanese townof Qaa, where farm workers were loading vegetables and fruits onto trucks bound for the Syrian market, killing atleast 33 laborers according to Syria's official newsagency, including 23 Syrian workers. The bodies of the 10Lebanese killed were believed to have been buried quickly after the attack.
The Syrian dead included 18 men, two elderly women andthree young girls, it said. Ten other Syrians were wounded.
Rashid, the survivor, recalled she was resting in a smallroom when the attack occurred. ®The room's walls fell uponme and I lost consciousness,¯ she said.
Wailing crowds thronged pavements in front of the villagecemetery Saturday, and large tents were erected to host the mourners. A weeping woman, who identified herself by her first name of Zaloukha, said she lost two daughters, Mazkeen, 18, and Offa, 20, as well as a son, 25-year-old Shukri. ®My heart has been broken ... What have those poor youths done,¯ she asked. The dead Syrians, mostly ethnic Kurds, worked in Qaa during the summer loading vegetables destined for Gulf countries into refrigerated warehouses. Their coffins werecarried by 16 hearses escorted by ambulance and police cars through the narrow streets of Jandires, some 450 kilometers(281 miles) northwest of Damascus.

Elsewhere in the world , in a great country that suffered for too long from a state very similar to Israel, a state that was supported by the west almost as much as Israel is , the AP reports :

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) _ Thousands of SouthAfricans marched through Cape Town to Parliament on Saturday to demand sanctions against Israel for its strikes against Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. Demonstrators carried pictures of Sheik Hassan Nasrallah,leader of Hezbollah, and posters declaring ®Israel the new Nazis.¯ They urged the South African government to recall its ambassador from Israel and sever diplomatic ties, impose trade sanctions, and prosecute South Africans who serve in the Israeli defense force.
This march, the latest in a series across the country to express solidarity with Lebanese and Palestinians, was organized by a coalition ofreligious, trade union and civil society groups that cut across religious lines.
H...

2006-08-05T01:33:00.000+03:00

Aug 4th , 10:00 pm

These are dispatches from both AP and Reuters :

- Israeli air strikes on two villages in south Lebanon on Friday flattened two houses, and 57 people were reported buried in the rubble, security officials and the state news agency reported. The number of dead was not immediately known.
The warplanes hit Taibeh, about 5 kilometers (3 miles)from the border, destroying a house where 7 people had taken refuge.
The second attack flattened a building in Aita al-Shaab, 2 kilometers (1 mile) inside Lebanon. Fifty people were reported covered in the rubble there.

- Israeli air strikes killed at least 40 civilians in east Lebanon and Beirut suburbs on Friday:
- One air strike hit a farm near Qaa, close to the Syrian border in the Bekaa Valley where workers, mostly Syrian Kurds, were loading plums and peaches on to trucks, local officials said. They said 33 people were killed and 20 wounded.
- Israeli aircraft destroyed four bridges on the main coastal highway north of Beirut, disrupting efforts to aid civilians displaced or trapped by the conflict in Lebanon, and cuting off the coastal highway to Syria, which the United Nations called its "umbilical cord" for aid to Lebanon.
"The whole road is gone," said Astrid van Genderen Stort of the U.N. refugee agency. "It's really a major setback because we used this highway to move staff and supplies into the country."
The European Commission said Israeli bombing of routes north of Beirut had made it harder to deliver humanitarian aid.
"We will need guarantees for the safety of our people on the ground if we are to successfully continue the provision of aid," said European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid, Louis Michel.
- The U.N. World Food Programme called off planned convoys to the southern port city of Tyre after air raids on a Beirut suburb prevented drivers from reaching the assembly point.
-The International Organization for Migration said the destroyed road meant more than 700 Filipinos and SriLankans who were supposed to be evacuated to Syria were now stuck in Lebanon.
IOM spokeswoman Jemini Pandya said the bombed highway was the main route for getting refugees out of Lebanon, and noted that evacuations by sea are much more difficult. It was unclear whether a second road along the coast could be used, she said.
- In further developments Friday, U.N. aid organizations will help the Lebanese government begin a mass immunization campaign to prevent an outbreak of potentially fatal measles among refugee children, officials said.

Also, live from Israeli war planes :

- Israel has also launched an offensive in the Gaza Strip.
- Israel killed three Palestinians in the Strip on Friday amid air strikes that also wounded four people.
- At least 164 Palestinians, more than half of them civilians, have been killed since Israel's Gaza offensive began on June 28.

H...

2006-08-05T01:31:00.000+03:00

Here.
The 30 something workers killed today in qaa, in the bekaa, on the borderwith Homs Syria.They had just finished collecting apples, packing them to be put on board ofa truck , and they were having lunch. The israeli wasted 2 air strikes onthem. The first one hit some of them . The others gathered to try and helpout the wounded and take the dead bodies out . Israel loves to kill those who help others. Israel loves to kill poor people. They're its favorite target , second best if you count kids.

2006-08-04T16:04:00.000+03:00

a frame with the picture of hanady sleiman

Last night , at two am or so, Sahar , my friend and colleague , called me. Ijumped to the phone ( didn't want the ringing sound to wake Kinda) and myfirst question to her was "what's happening? ( shou fi?) ", and she replied with a question "where are you?" . I laughed, she had left the office atmidnight and I was still there. "Home, in bed" , I said, "why?" . So shesaid " So , you're not in Baalback?" .At that point I said to myself that either she's drunk or she has lost her mind , almost no one can reachBaalback during the day, let alone a night trip there.When she heard how ridiculous her question sounded , she tried to laugh andtold me she was calling because someone told her they heard on the news that Hanady Salman was killed in Baalback. And since my home town is in thatregion , she got worried. At that point we both laughed and I warned her tostop disturbing my when I'm sleeping before she double- checks her sources. I'd forgotten about this incident, until I saw the pictures attached. Thewoman killed is Hanadi Sleiman ( not salman) . She was killed in an air raidon Burdai , near Baalback.Besides the resemblance in our names, we have , had, one more thing in common, that woman and I : she both , each , have ( she had) a two year oldbaby girl
h..

2006-08-04T14:14:00.000+03:00

Beirut , august the 4th
Good morning,

We’re still alive, despite last night.
They were busy bombing Gaza, South Lebanon and Baalback , until 3:14 am , that was when they started hitting the outskirts of Beirut.
12, 13 air strikes? I stopped counting at the 12th strike and fell asleep. Don’t ask me how, I don’t know.
My husband and “my refugees” were out on the balcony trying to locate the new targets, but I stayed in bed. I had a terrible migraine and couldn’t even open my eyes. I’d open them only with every new explosion, and listen to the correspondent of the New TV specifying the number and targets of each. They were all falling on Ouzai, south of Beirut.
This morning, it turned they hit fisherman’s spots, 2 or 3 associations for orphans and people with special needs, and a place where The Rabab Sadr Charity Association keeps donations ( clothes, medicine etc …)
I don’t know how many people got hurt yet, our reporter is still there.
This morning, they bombed four bridges north of Beirut, killing 5 and injuring 15 (this figure is not final because some are still under the rubble) , and closing the one remaining road out of this hell to Syria.
The international press headlines this morning are , of course, “Nasrallah threatens to bomb Tel Aviv”. Well , maybe one can excuse them , they went to print before 3:14 am. Only , I don’t understand why is CNN and BBC still hanging to that headline. The guy said “if you bomb Beirut, we’ll bomb Tel Aviv”. That was it. So, what they’re doing is bombing the outskirts of Beirut (smart, right??).
Reports say the 3 coming days will be very harsh. (harsher?)
In nay case, for the last three days, here in the newspaper, we’ve been busy with a very complicated matter: among the one million refugees, there are many people with special needs. There is one main reason for that: most of them are from the south and were injured in previous wars or were victims of landmines; and then there are those who were born with special needs.
Anyway, these people are going through hell in public schools. These schools are not equipped for the disabled, and autistic and epileptic kids are getting worse surrounded by all these people crowded around them. The refugees, on the other hand, are mostly rural, fairly educated people, definitely not ready to handle , on top of their misery, “special” situations.
So whenever one of our special friends has a crisis, the others get scared, some even complain, and the parents of the “special” refugees try to keep their kids “hidden”. One mother with an autistic child has been living in a bathroom with her kid, refusing to get out, refusing to let the people from the Disabled Association see her kid: for one, she lives in complete denial refusing to admit that there’s anything wrong with her child, and also she’s scared to death they might take him away from her.

Yesterday, a very dear friend of mine knew about this. This great person, really, was able, till now (ie in less than 12 hours), to collect 15 000 dollars from his friends abroad and he spoke to an international institution who will help in providing trained personnel and here’s what they’re planning to do : they will rent a whole building up in the mountains, in a safe area, for three month, they will provide a doctor and nurses , and they will move all the people with special needs that we already know about , some 158 people, up there and take care of them and their families. He just sent me a message saying that some institution offered to host 50 of these, with their families, in Cairo, Egypt.
In the middle of this horror, when a whole state is throwing fire in your face, destroying your country, killing your kids, your elderly, your disabled ones, your women and men , while “the international press “ is depicting your enemy as the victim, having someone like Khaled around is all you need to keep faith , faith in the whole race of human beings.
Thank you Khaled.

H..

2006-08-03T17:47:00.000+03:00

Beirut, August 3rd

Absurd ….

Kinda came to the office today. It’s one of the rare places where I can take her nowadays. My mom is taking care of her. She tries to take her in walk in the neighborhood at least once a day.
My mom takes her to the Corniche sometimes when it’s calm. Sometimes she plays in front of the building where we live with my neighbor’s daughter.
But ever since this started, Kinda likes to stay home. I think she’s completely depressed: she sleeps a lot, laughs when we’re not expecting her to, wakes up screaming in the middle of the night, and resists going out as much as she can. Kinda is living her first war. She’s much younger than I was when I lived my first war, I was seven.
This summer, in June I mean, I really envied her. I’d leave the office early every day, at around three, pick her up from day-care and take her out : to the beach , to a park , to her cousins, to the mountains. I took her everywhere. It’s good that this war broke, because I was running out of ideas.
One new refugee joined the other three staying with us.
At the beginning of this, I’d go home and get some kind of a “cultural chock”: somehow, my home was too clean, too neat, too white, and too different from everything else happening around it. There even flowers in the vases.
Now, my house belongs to the rest of the country: I have men shirts hanging on the chairs in the living room, suitcases in the dinning room, veils hanging from my balcony with the rest of the laundry, and no more flowers in the vases. I’ll spare you the description of my kitchen….
I had to tell you about my kitchen before I give today’s figures , because if I give you the figures first , they’ll get all your attention and you won’t read about my kitchen.
So here’s the latest , and I quoting from Reuters :
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said Thursday that 900 people were killed, 3,000 wounded and a third of the
casualties in the 23-day-old conflict were children under 12 ( ie 300) .
He said a million Lebanese, one quarter of the population, had been displaced and the country's infrastructure devastated.
H..

2006-08-02T14:19:00.000+03:00

Linda asked me to stop apologizing. I have a better deal : I’ll stop writing when I’m out of my mind, this way , I won’t have to apologize.

Yesterday , it seems, I was completely out of my mind : Hussein’s mother story was like the last drop that made us explode here in the newspaper. We went to see him and pay our respects, but then we were told that maybe she’s not dead for they can’t find her body. It’s the same for so many other victims and their relatives: since so many bodies are still under the rubble in their villages and since most of the victims in the hospitals are disfigured , dismembered and thus completely unidentifiable , no body knows who’s dead and who’s still alive.
Actually we still don’t know where Hussein’s mom is. The last thing we were told last night was that she was not among the bodies that were brought to Tyre, but the red cross told us there were still four bodies in Aynatha’s down town that they were unable to recover due to the shelling.
Hussein went to Tyre today, and there’s heavy shelling on Tyre, on the neighboring towns and on the road to Tyre. We’re all holding our breath in here.
And also yesterday , the pictures of the people of Aytaroun leaving their home town , kids , elderly , poor men and women trying to run for their lives, same as the people of Bint Jbeil the day before .. It’s more than any human being can bear.

So, I’m sorry for my “crazy messages “ yesterday. I hope it won’t happen again.
PS: so many people asked to be removed of the list yesterday. So this apology does not come out of the blues.
h...

2006-08-02T01:08:00.000+03:00

before

after
Dahiye , beirut southern suberb, before and after the israeli agression

2006-08-02T00:28:00.000+03:00

Yes, more pictures. loads of pictures. Hundreds of pictures . As manypictures as people get killed. As many pictures as the number of people whoflee their homes, become refugees. As many pictures as there are people who carry their children and walk , under the sun , on the rubbles , under theirair raids , their shells, their bombs, their bullets, their prayers for moreblood. As many pictuers as it will take, no to stop any of this , not to give children their lifes back , not to give those people their homes back ,not to stop others , all poor who never lost their DIGNITY, from turninginto beggars in the streets of Beirut. Just as many as it takes to undermine any attempts to try and convince any of us this should be forgotten, thatthis should be forgiven. Any attempts to convince anybody that Israel is ademocracy , that Israel deserves any better than what it has to offer.
h

2006-08-02T00:24:00.000+03:00

We just learnt that the mother of our senior reporter, Hussein Ayoub , was killed in her village Aynata in the south. She had been missing for five days now. She was staying with the rest of her neighbors at a house they figured was safe in the village. Five days ago , she left them and said she was going to visit her sister who lives one block away. Hussein managed to call his aunt two days later, and she told him his mom never came to her house.
Today, the red cross confirmed they have found her body along with two other people in the woods near Aynata. They were trying to flee the village on feet.
Hussein’s father was killed by the Israelis too, in 1978

2006-08-01T19:51:00.000+03:00

This is Lina's English translation of the story of Zainab that Sa'ada-Allaw published in As-Safir newspaper today.

Zainab's Story--
Four-year old Hassan Shalhoub opened his eyes and looked around him,-and found a little girl sleeping next to him, who was not his six-year-old sister Zainab. Then he saw a man and asked him, "Uncle, why am I-here?". The man, the family's neighbor "Uncle Salim", ran towards-Hassan, hugged him and said "Darling! You are still alive?", taking him-away from the side of the dead two year-old girl. Hassan had been-wrapped in a blanket, sleeping among the bodies of the children who-were killed in Qana on Sunday. One of the rescuers had thought he was-dead too; how could he hope there was life in the midst of all the-death? Hassan had spent the night, blood covering his face and head,-next to a girl whose name he did not know, scared of the shelling, and-upset at his mother who "had left me on my own"; he stressed that "had-it not been for the shelling, I would have followed her to our-village", where he thought she had gone. Hassan's mother Rabab had-woken up in Qana, finding herself buried in rubble along with her two-children Hassan and Zainab. She managed to pick up Hassan from the-rubble and asked him if he was in pain, and he said he wasn't. So she-handed him over to a rescuer and started looking for her daughter and-her disabled husband. She couldn't find Zainab. She called her name but-did not get an answer. Under heavy shelling, Rabab was taken with her-husband to another shelter in the village where she stayed till the-morning, knowing that her son was "OK"; he had told her so before-falling asleep again. Her worry about Zainab was suffocating her. She-must have been killed, she kept telling herself. Salim entered the-shelter with Hassan and the story of Hassan's "new life". When Hassan-saw his mother, he blamed her for leaving him "alone, sleeping with the-neighbors". Rabab has one last memory of Zainab, who died suffocating-under the rubble, and whose image worldwide television stations-broadcast as a man held her body to the cameras, denouncing the Israeli-aggression: "I saw a small hand next to Hassan, where Zainab had been-sleeping. I couldn't drag it from underneath the rubble, so I kissed it-and said, please don't be upset with me, mama, I can not help you".-That is where Rabab left Zainab. Where Zainab died. Rabab did not see-the photographs of Zainab in the press, "I do not want to see them. I-want to remember Zainab as she is in my mind". She was told that Zainab-was not disfigured, which pleased her. She told Hassan that Zainab went-to Heaven, "There is no Israel there. There, Zainab is happy".

2006-08-01T19:06:00.001+03:00

More pictures. Some from the Lebanese border with Syria, some from BintJbeil. In Yugoslavia, they called this ethnic cleansing, right?This from the Associated Press American news agency (I edited a couple of sentences and cut it because it was too long) It's what their reporter saw when journalists entered Bint Jbeil yesterday:
BINT JBAIL, Lebanon (AP) _ The elderly man stumbled overthe rubble, his crumpled suit hanging off his shrunken frame, his loose pants held together by a pin after eatingonly a piece of candy a day.
®I haven't seen the sun for 20 days,¯ said 73-year-oldMehdi al-Halim. Next to him, his wife balanced a bag ofclothes on her head as she tried to pick her way over thewreckage of bombed-out buildings.
Some 200 Lebanese, many elderly, struggled to safetyMonday, ravaged by days in hiding with little food asbattles brought the town of Bint Jbail down around them.
The siege lifted, they emerged from their shelters,dehydrated, starving _ some in their 70s or 80s _ and somestarted to walk out of devastated Bint Jbail. Two died onthe road, one of malnutrition, the other of heart failure. Others waited for ambulances.
®All the time I thought of death,¯ said Rima Bazzi, anAmerican who hid with her two daughters, son and mother ina doctor's house. ®The bombing never stopped. I didn't go out. I was too afraid. I just thought I would die.¯
She had left her husband behind in Dearborn, Michigan, tovacation with her children in Bint Jbail.
While she was there, the Israeli offensive began, and bombardment rained around the town and across the south.Then things got worse: Bint Jbail became the objective in an Israeli groundassault. For eight days, Hezbollah fighters and soldiers fought thebloodiest battles of Lebanon's nearly three-week conflict, until the Israelis pulled back over the weekend. Al-Halim and his wife Shamiah survived alone in theirhouse. In the last days of the siege, their food and waterran out.
®Everyday we had only one candy each, one candy that is all,¯ Mehdi said, pulling his pants to show the weighthe'd lost. ®How much you eat in one day is how much wehave eaten in 20 days.¯
Shamiah, a petite 65-year-old with wire-rimmed glasses,talked about her children as she struggled toward a waiting ambulance. Three of her daughters were in Beirut but two ofher children were in the United States. ®My son is adoctor, in Boston,¯ she boasted in a tired voice.
Most of the town's population of 30,000 _ along with many vacationers from the West visiting relatives _ fled duringthe first weeks of bombardment. Those that remained wereeither too old to bear the journey out, or had children andwere afraid of the road, which eventually was cut off by bombs and missiles.
Some simply couldn't walk. Dibi Ismail, in her 70s, hadtripped over wires while scavenging for food in a bombedout store.
®I cut my hand and hurt my foot. For six days I can't move,¯ said Ismail, who wore nylons with gaping holes anda bandage black with dirt on her hand. Dozens of flies hadsettled around her face. At her foot was a small plastic bag with some old clothes.It was all she had.
On Monday, some had to walk al the way to the nearesthospital in Tibnin, 8 kilometers (5 miles) north. Later inthe day, the road was cleared and ambulances could make itin to clear others, like Rasnam Jumma, a diabetic with a partially amputated foot who had run out of her diabetesmedicine five days ago.
Two residents died as they tried to make it out, one ofmalnutrition, the other of heart failure, said NabilHarkus, a doctor in Tibnin. The Israeli assault on Bint Jbail had cut a swath ofdestruction right through the center of the town. Houseswere flattened, the faces of multistoried buildings shearedoff, girders snapped by the force of explosions lay on the road, fallen power lines snapped in the wind. The reservoirat the foot of the main street was a green stagnant pool.The road was peppered with spent ordnance. Yet Hezbollah flags still hung defiantly on shattered buildings. Rocket fire gouged holes in a four-foot cementportrait of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hussein Nasrallah thatstood at the foot of Bint Jbail's main street.

PS : OTHER REPORTERS SPOKE ABOUT THE UNBEARABLE SMELL IN TOWN, AND SAID MANY OF THE ELDERLY THEY FOUND THERE COULD NOT REMEMBER THEIR OWN NAMES.
h..

2006-08-01T19:06:00.000+03:00

2006-08-01T12:34:00.000+03:00

Beirut , august the 1st , 2006

So July is over. Now it’s Beirut, August 2006.
I don’t know if any of you are reporters who covered wars in their homeland. But it’s really weird, somehow “funny”.
Editors crying while reading their reporters’ stories, photographers breaking down, colleagues calling their kids in the middle of the night after seeing pictures from the south, weird sounds during editorial meetings ( you know how men like to hide their tears and emotions) , women wearing black as a “natural reflex”, men growing the beards, even our publisher doesn’t wear suits anymore.
People are sleeping here, somewhere in the basement. Women sleep in the nearby furnished apartment building.
In the morning, we don’t greet each other anymore; we just look deep into each other’s eyes. Some turn their faces away, some lecture about the necessity of being strong. We touch each other a lot. Hugs here, holding hands there, a mere tap on the shoulder.. you name it.
People stay around each other. No one likes to stay alone in an office. We order food and eat together. But we never talk about anything concerning what’s happening.
We watch the news together, we weep, we smile, but we don’t say anything and then we get back to work. Someone goes out , the only question I ask them when they get back is : how many words , and when will you be done. No details, no one wants to tell what they see, no one wants to hear it. We write while crying, we read it and cry, but we never talk about it.
Saada had tears in her eyes yesterday in her office. I came in and spoke to her and she answered back and her tears kept coming but we both behaved as if nothing was happening. I didn’t see her tears, and she wasn’t crying.
Zeinab called me from Tyre yesterday. She was in the hospital. She was telling me something about her story and then suddenly she started yelling “you can’t believe what’s happening here, you won’t believe what’s happening here, oh Hanady please khalas , please I can’t take it anymore.” And then, suddenly also, she stopped, went back to her normal tone of voice and finished our “professional conversation”.
Yesterday Wajdi and Ali decided to take me out to the sea side. They almost dragged me out of the office, put me in the car and drove through Hamra to the Corniche. I was looking at the streets, the houses, the cars, the shops as if I see them for the first time.
I hadn’t been to Hamra ever since this had started. I go out to the southern suburb to check out the damages, I go to schools and parks where refugees stay, but otherwise I stay in the office and go home.
So, we went to the Manara Corniche, they got me coffee, we sat on a bench and they started making plans for when this will be over. They agreed they should take their families to Sharm El Sheikh, in Sinai, Egypt. There, the kids will swim, and they will get to rest. I told them that the whole newspaper should take a week off, when this is over, to rest. So they suggested we all go together to Sharm el Sheikh. I said I’m renting a whole floor in the hospital for psychiatric patients “assfouriyeh”. They suggested I make reservations now, because at the end of the war, room prices in Assfouriyeh will rise. They spoke as if they were certain this will end before the summer is over, as if they were certain Sharm el Sheikh still exists, as if they were certain that outside this country , life is still going on.

I always thought that I had a limited mind. For me life happens only here and now.
H...

2006-08-01T12:05:00.000+03:00

beirut 31-7-2006

Three of my colleagues went to Tyre today.
I will spare you the details of what they saw and wrote. Only one thing that I need to share with you. Saada went to Jabal Amel hospital. There she found the following: a four year old boy, Hassan Chalhoub, had spent the previous night between the dead, in the morgue. He was sleeping next to his sister , zeinab ,6 , in the shelter in Qana. There was his mom too and his dad, who’s on a wheeling chair. Many of the people of Qana are survivors of the 1996 massacre , when 110 people were killed and more than 100 were injured when by Israeli raids on civilians who had sought shelter in a nearby UN base. Thus, many of the people of Qana have special needs, if you see what I mean.
So, hassan was sleeping when it all happened Saturday night. His mom was injured, but she managed to find her way under the rubble and was looking for her kids. She called him , and he answered her. She asked him if he was injured and he said no. So, she went to look for her daughter and husband. She found her daughter’s hand. She tried to take it out , to pull her up. She couldn’t . Then she saw her husband, so she crawled to him. But before that, she caressed her daughter’s hand and whispered to her “forgive me my angel because I can’t help you out of here.”
She saved her husband, thinking that someone had already taken care of little Hassan.
She and her husband spent the rest of the night the closest house, where the civil defense workers had taken them. The next morning, they took them to the hospital.
Hassan was thought dead. They put were they put the other kids. HE woke up in the morning, opened his eyes to see a two year old girl lying next to him. He thought she sleeping. He looked around, and luckily found a man “Ammo, what am I doing here ?” he asked. The man couldn’t believe his eyes.
He took hassan to his parents. When Hassan saw his mom , he started yelling at her “why did you leave me there , alone, sleeping with our neighbor’s kids? How could you? You know, if I weren’t scared I would have followed you home. But it was dark and they were shelling, so I slept again. Where is Zeinab ?”
His mom , Rabab , told him the following “she’s having fun in heaven. There are no Israelis there, she’s happy there”.

H....

2006-07-30T14:59:00.000+03:00

Qana - Sunday July 30th , 2006
Only to let you know that these are 55 civilians, all killed , 20 of themare kids betwween 7 months and 12 years old.Only to let you know that a number of these children are handicapped, theywere hit in the last Qana massacre in 1996. Only to let you know CNN and BBC are hosting IDF spokespeople who tell theworld that these civilians were warned to leave , but they just didn't.Only to let you know the air strikes took place at 1:00 am , all they people were sleeping, in their pyjamas, bare feet, in a shelter. The house was hittwice. Twice. To make sure they will all die.Only to let you know that despite the fact that we're animals, but it wouldhave been impossible for animals to sleep had there been any shelling from anywhere close , as the IDF alleges.Only to let you know you free media won't show you these pictures.Only to let you know that this is not the first time this happens , and Ican promise you it won't be the last time. ..
H..

2006-07-28T01:49:00.000+03:00

27th july 2006

Dear all, Sad stories in the paper today.

A colleague went to see a family in AL Zahra Hospital In Beirut , they told her how they fled Tireh village in the south: their house was bombed, some of the family mambers stayed under therubble, tha rest went to the nighbours' house. It was also hit, and under its rubbles were left more family members... The rest run away. Their carwas targeted on the road. More of them got killed. They met a UN convoy andscreamed for help. What happened next is the following : one UN soldier was taking their picture , and when he finished , he yelled "no , no " and leftthem there.Now the father and two sisters are in a hospital in the south , and therest of the family is in Beirut. (the shayto's pictures ).
My other colleague toured some schools hosting refugees with a group of doctors . Conclusion : spread of diseases due to lack of hygiene : when youdon't have water, or washing machines , when tens, sometimes hundred of people share shool rooms , this is bound to happen. She also met a group ofsome 30 people who could not find a place in publis schools and who are nowin a garden of an empty house. She tells the story of the 80 year old woman there who wouldn't eat , because she wants to spare the food for thechildren . She told Saada , my colleague, it would be a waste for her to eatwhereas the kids are hungry.
Milia did a small thing about a fx some hospitals in the south received from a local association , offering very attractive packages for nurses andradiologists needed in the US. Now, here, the US is recruiting medicalstaff.Faten went to the Securite General and found out that loads of people are applying for passports : five thousand passports are issued every day sinceJuly 13th ( in a country of 3,5 million people). Some 151 thousand Lebanesenationals have left the county in nine days.(betw July 13 and July 25th) Habib wrote about Green Peace closing their offices in Lebanon at a time thesea is plagued with unprecedented pollution due to the Israeli shelling offuel tank reserves that made our sea's colour look black. Experts say it will take the water, the rocks, the sand , the fish tens of years torecover. People shoud not swim in the sea for long years to come..The minister of heath annouced today that 600 people were killed and some 1300 injured since the Israeli aggression started on July the 12th.George W. Bush says he's against a cease fire that does not solve theproblem from the roots. Well , tell him it's working : we're being exterminated from the roots.
H...

2006-07-28T01:27:00.000+03:00

Beirut , July 27th

I did not go to the funeral.
Yesterday was not a particularly good day. I was completely devastated, and had a lot ot do.
I had , first , to take care of Oum Mostafa, a 75 year old Egyptian lady who cleans houses in Lebanon since the 70s I guess. My friend Leila said we’d better get her out of here, she doesn’t have to go through all this. She’s not feeling well, she’s getting poorer every day cause no one wants to hire an old lady who can barely move, to clean their houses. I don’t think you want me to describe to you the room ,( is it a room ? it’s something with a roof on the top of it) where she lives.
So I called my friend Yasser at the embassy and he was very helpful. However , we discovered that the lady was wanted by the Lebanese authorities, and that if the embassy can get her safely to the border , she will be arrested.
For two days we were trying to know what crime she committed, what is it that she did that gives her only two choices in life: stay here and get killed by Israeli air strikes or go to jail at 75.
After in-depth investigations, we found it : ever since the year 2000, she never renewed her work permit, nor her other papers. So ? she ‘d have to pay 1200 usd or rot here for the rest of her life.
We got her out. Thanks to the embassy’s efforts. Most Egyptian works in here do not have permits. If the embassy hadn’t done something about it, I think the Lebanese authorities would have seized the opportunity to collect some money ….
So , Oum Mostafa is now in Syria ( I hope) on her way home.
I called Salim. He told me Mohamad’s mother is …. so I decided I won’t go . I’ll wait a couple of days. Is that enough for a mother to get used to the idea that her 23 years old “baby” was killed?
Last night air raids were so close, I was almost out of my mind. Israeli fighters were flying so low, I couldn’t wait to go home and hug my little baby (we live on the 12th floor, remember?).
It turned out later they were bombing more TV, radios and phone transmission arials somewhere close (Amsheet, near Jounieh).
I’m not supposed to write to you anymore. That was my decision when Mohamad was killed. But I did miss you.
And I know this will sound corny, but so many of you wrote to me, and it made me feel …
One of you wrote the following : I am so grateful for your posts on The Angry Arab Blogspot. I scan through the blog each night when I get home to see if there is a post from you. It has meant a great deal to me. In most ways I am utterly powerless. I have no or little influence from my location and position. And yet, that is not the whole truth, is it? No. It isn't. I think of you, and Kinda, and all the people you write about, and hold them in my thought, in my soul perhaps, here. Your words are affecting me and the way I live each moment. The way I listen and respond to those around me. It is perhaps too little, too late. Yet, I wanted you to know that you have all touched me, deeply. I hear you. I simply wanted you to know that, first of all, someone reads them, and that like a seed scattered on the dry earth, maybe not today, or tomorrow, but someday, some of these seeds will take root. Pity? No. Guilt? Perhaps some guilt, certainly despair, and underneath it all a fragile living connection.

May you and Kinda be protected, .

This is for you Howie, thanks.
I’m going home now to see Kinda. Tonight I’ll send some pictures and write about some of the stories we’re publishing.
H...

2006-07-26T02:20:00.000+03:00

Beirut , July 25th , 2006

This “boum boum ha ha” technique doesn’t seem to work all the time; not with me at least.
After 24 hours of “nothing“ in Beirut , I was almost getting ready to bid you farewell , and thank you for your support during 14 long days.
Everything in Beirut was so calm I even went home for lunch. There were ongoing air strikes on the South but no reports of causalities yet.
Kinda wanted to come with me to the office when she saw that I was going back there.
The minute we reached the street, we heard the sounds of four huge consecutive explosions. I don’t remember what I did, maybe I jumped , but when I looked at Kinda she was pale. It took her two seconds to get back on earth and say the magic words “boum boum ha ha “. And she kept repeating that for five minutes, automatically. She was not smiling. She was asking: Boum boum ha ha ?
Four people were killed, others were seriously wounded in that air strike on the southern suburb. Yes, the suburb again. I sent the pictures of the rubbles, of people searching for their homes in streets that were completely wiped off, didn’t I?
Well, it seems that was not enough. I wonder what they’re looking for… It must be something really important.
Seven raids hit the suburb today, dropped ten shells on an area that’s already almost completely destroyed.
They spared it for a while, so people went to check on their belongings and then .. BOUM
It killed four people; I know one of them. He’s my best friend’s young cousin. He went there with his brother , without telling their family , to check on their home that they’d left five days ago under the shelling. Mohamad is Palestinian. He was staying at his cousin’s house, Salim, my friend. At the moment he died, the moment Kinda and I had reached the street and heard the explosions, his mom and Salim were on Salim’s balcony , trying to locate were the shelling was falling. They did not know it hit a building that fell on four people and killed them. They did not know it was falling on Mohamad.
Now they do.

Counting the dead: Twenty people were killed today. It brings it up to 411 since July the 12th.
Zeinab Mounes , 9, her brother Mohamad , 11, and their uncle were found under the rubbles of their house in Halloussiyeh where 6 air raids had destroyed 3 apartment buildings. Nine other people were injured. No one knows how many people are still under the rubble. One other civilian from the same village was killed in a morning raid.
Two civilians were killed in Ma’lyeh, west of Tyre.
Six Red Cross paramedics were injured on their way to Qana.
One Palestinian was killed, 5 others wounded, one of them is a child, in Rashidiyeh refugees camp.
Eight people were found under the rubbles of their house in Qana.
Seven people , the members of one family were killed when their house was destryed by a shell in Nabatiyeh.
Six Red Cross paramedics were injured on their way to Qana, IN AN AMBULANCE.

You want more? There’s plenty, but I just can’t keep doing this.
You were right Linda, writing was therapeutic, but I’m just totally fed up.
Who cares? They’re dead. Killed. Chidren, women, men , oh yeah some are men… unfortunately, their pictures, dead, aren’t as sensational as those of toddlers’.
The UN “peace” keeping forces evacuated today a number of civilians from some villages in the south. Only those who hold a western nationality were evacuated. The filthy holders of Lebanese passports were begging them to take them along.
THEY DID NOT. They just left them there to die.
Do they tell you about this in your newspapers? Do they tell you that the UN “humanitarian” envoy who came and toured MY country was lecturing the refugees with that patriarchal “arrogant-knows it all\ seen it all- trying to look sweet and companionate with other species” look in his eyes?
Do they tell you that this same guy , whose monthly wage is most probably higher then the yearly revenues of all those who died today , had concluded that MY country needs 150 million dollars in humanitarian aid, and that once he reached Cyprus, he concluded all this was Hezbollah’s fault?
Do they tell you we’re not beggars? Do they tell you we don’t need charity? Do they tell you we work for a living? That we earn whatever we hav? That we sweat, we sing, we read, we learn, we breath, we love and we hate.
That woman, Hweiyda’s aunt, is not a beggar. She’s all alone with her burnt niece in a Beirut hospital. Four days ago , she had a house and a family. Four days ago she had a life.
Yesterday, when I gave her the hundred dollars Rola had given me for the people in need, she cried so hard it made me want to die.
Dignity. That’s what it’s all about.
Dignity.ـــــــــــــــــــــ
No more pictures, that’s it. Showing their pictures will not “open the West’s eyes “ . Showing their pictures will not bring them back. It will merely deprive them whatever is left from their dignity.
Those pictures are never published anywhere, there are laws that ban it. No laws ban killing people like this.
These people are not dying so we get to see their pictures.
Let them die, tens of them each everyday. Don’t pity them. I bet you they pity us. They pity us. They’re somewhere where nothing worse could happen to them.
We’re left here, dealing with our consciences , debating whose fault it is , what’s wrong and what’s right.
Pity us , pity those who did not get killed. Pity us who will be living in the New Middle East the US is tailoring for us. Pity the days to come.
Does Hweiyda know that there’s a bunch of people who will decide her fate in a conference in Rome?
H....

I forgot this
Three more things :

1- the UN envoy , the very white , very clean , very shaved “humanitarian” envoy, when he toured the suburb yesterday was accompanied by tens of local and foreign journalists. Did any of them , as far as you know , report about the smell of the whole place? That was the smell of corps, buried under the rubbles. In here, in the Southern Suburb of Beirut, 10 minutes away from me, corpses are rotting ……….
2- Does the bunch meeting in Rome tomorrow know about Hweiyda?
3- No one is turning us into beggars. We’ve been there before. Actually , ever since I was born , it was the last 15 years of my life that were unusual .The days when I’d wake up knowing exactly what will happen in the next few hours were the exception. Living like this is my life. So, let them try. They did it before and we were able to prevail.
Here’s extracts from a report by Agence France Press :
The Israeli strikes hit hundred of industries and factories in Lebanon since July the 12th. Infrastructure was destroyed , and more than 300 people lost their jobs when only one factory was completely destroyed in Taanayel in the Bekaa.
On Sunday , two shells targeted Al Dalal factory and left it in ruins. Tens of neighboring houses were partially destroyed.
The owner estimates he lost 20 million dollars in the strike and he tells the AFP reporter : what so I do now? Leave or rebuild?
Tens of smaller factories all over the country face the same fate.
Bridges, airports, roads, trucks, ports were all destroyed. Thus , aids , goods , food etc .. can not reach those who need them.
Many institutions did not go back to work after hundreds of its employees fled to safer areas.
One owner was quoted as saying” we might not be able to pay our employees in the few coming months .”
The head of the Industrial Association Charles Arbid told afp that 75 % of the industrial sector is currently out of business and that this sector that employs some 125 thousands people is completely paralyzed.
He said Israel’s strategy was to target the whole chain of manufacturing , from production to distribution.
Thus, Arbid explains that the rise in prices is due to petrol shortages and to the high risks on the roads.
The Lebanese minister of finance Jihad Azour had told AFP last week that preliminary estimates suggest losses in billions of dollars.

CAN SOMEONE TELL THE UN TO KEEP ITS 1,5 MILLION AND GO HANG ITSELF (it’s supposed to relief some 750 000 displaced and refugee.
Nb : the total population of Lebanon is 3,5 million

2006-07-25T11:15:00.000+03:00

Beirut , Monday July 24th , 2006

She's much prettier than her pictures, Hweiyda. Despite what they did toher.The one safe eye she still has is green, sad, and beautiful.The stitches that go all the way down from her right eye to underneath herneck, are almost as deep as the look in her eye.She was sitting on her bed, very silent, very small, so small. Her aunt was trying to get her to eat. Jelly, custard, cheese, chocolate,fresh orange juice. There was everything on that tray. Everything any childwould want.Only when she saw the books my colleagues brought her, did she havesomething that looked like a twinkle in her eye. The one eye they left her.She's Fatma's room mate. Lucky Fatma, she has her mom and her sister next toher. They were injured too; they stay in the room next door. The wholefamily is at the same hospital, although on different floors. Hweiyda'sparents are not there.Hweiyda's father, her sister Abla and her brother Ahmad were in the gardenof their small house in Marje'youn in the south when the Israelis wenthunting.Hweiyda was in the house with her mom and other sister. So, they didn't die.I don't know who brought Hweiyda to Beirut. It was probably her aunt who'sstaying with her. The mother and sister were taken to a hospital in WesternBekka.Nobody dares to tell Hweiyda what happened. She speaks to her mom on thephone. She keeps asking for her brother, Ahmad. Her Ahmad has left her, butshe doesn't know it yet.She holds her tiny sandwich with her banded hand. She bluffs, she's noteating, she's somewhere else, that look in her eye, the only they left her,is so deep, it's not the look of a seven year old.It's that of a much older person. A wise one. Experienced. Someone who'sbeen through things other people can't even know they exist.It's the same look in Fatma's eyes. Fatma turned 12 today. We got her a cake, some candles that we weren't allowed to light not to hurt her lungs.Her whole body was burnt. She and her family were in the car fleeing Bleedato Tyre in the South; they believed the Israelis who'd told them to evacuatethe village before it was too late. They should have know better. Theyshould have known they were going to get them anyway , anywhere.Wise; not only the looks in their eyes were wise. Wise was the way they bothhandled us, with our stupid cake, our presents, our fake smiles; smart us,acting as if nothing has happened, is happening.Sad, no other word in the world can describe it more. Sad. So sad it makesyour heart ache, and your faith shiver.Happy birthday in Arabic is :sana helwa ya jameel , that is : (we wish youa) beautiful year .Singing that, there, was the most incredible thing on earth. Fatma waslooking at me with that "you ought to know better" look in her eye. I didn'tgive up, I told her that this coming year will certainly be better. Howworse could it get , I asked myself.They already lost their house, their village, they got hit by a bomb . whatelse can happen to them?Meanwhile , Hweiyda was busy listening to the cd on her walkman. I think itwas a smile , that thing I spotted.A colleague asked her aunt when we were leaving : what is it you need thatwe can get you?The answer was : the only thing she keeps asking about is Ahamd. He's allshe needs.

H...

PS : I did take Kinda along. She gave them CDS, but then got scared.. So mysister took her to the hall and waited for us there. When I came down shewas playing with kids her age who were waiting for their parents

this is Huweida

2006-07-25T11:03:00.000+03:00

Monday 24th july 2006

I'm sorry to disappoint you, but today , nothing happened yet : condy riceis still here, so we're having a break.I'm going to the hospital this afternoon , actually a group of my colleagues in As-Safir is going : it's the birthday of Fatima : she's turning twleve today. Her body is burnt and she can't use her arms or legs. We got her awalkman (couldn't think of anything better to give to someone who has no arms or legs) and some books. We also got her a cake. Her whole family was hiding in a shelter in Blida in the south when the Israelis bombed them. She was burnt and her dad lost his legs. She told our colleague who went to seeher yesterday that her dad was planning on moving them to Beirut for her birthday anyway. I didn't know poor people celebrated their birthdays too...it also turned out she's the room mate (in the hospital) of Kinda's friend, whose picture she saw yesterday in the newspaper and wanted to visit. This morning she asked me when I was reading the newspaper : wein (where is) baby ? , so I knew she did not forget that I promised her I'll take herthere I'll tell you about her when we get back, for now I'm sending some picture and since not much happened last night, I tought there was room forme to send 2 or 3 pictures from Gaza : well, they're the same bombs, right?I'm aslo sending this analysis from reuters :Lebanon will need billions of dollars in aid to recover from Israel's war with Hizbollah, which has ruined many civil installations, hit tourism,forced businesses to close and forced hundreds of thousands to flee. The war is not over yet, but economists say the country's infrastructure has so far sustained $1 billion worth of damage after Israel bombed roads,bridges, ports and airports. Beyond damage to bricks and mortar, the Lebanese pound has come underpressure, the stock market has temporarily closed, and tens of thousands of foreigners have fled the war. Traders say the central bank spent $500 million last weekdefending thepound, though they add that the central bank has plenty of reserves to relyon and pressure is now declining.
Marwan Iskandar, a leading Lebanese economist, said the war could forcemany firms to close and cause the economy to shrink2-3 percent. This implies about $2 billion in lost growth, not to mention some $600 million in lost government income. Lebanon's economy had been growing at a healthy 6 percent or so before the crisis broke on July 12 when Hizbollah guerrillas seized two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid. "We are talking fairly enormous losses here," Iskandar said. "We will definitely need $3 billion in assistance in the very short term inthe nature of donations rather than loans. Much depends on the speed withwhich reconstruction can proceed, which depends on the speed and size of assistance." Even before the war broke out, Lebanon was struggling to cuta publicdebt above $35 billion, worth some 180 percent of GDP. Lebanese politicians had bickered for months over a draft reform plan, which foresees privatisation of the power and telecommunications sectors,higher taxes and lower spending. Lebanon had hoped to present the reform programme eventuallto potentiallenders at an international debt aid conference. What was a high priority just two weeks ago has been knockeddown thelist by a growing humanitarian crisis. SHELVING REFORMS "The effect on the economy is going to be very, very drastic. Forget reforms for the moment. We will not be in the mood for a while, possibly notfor a long time to come," said Shadi Karam, chairman of BLC Bank. "I hope the mood in the donor countries, which was not to give Lebanon a penny unless it reforms, will tone down." International credit ratings agencies have already cut Lebanon's outlookdue to the violence. Fitch has affirmed its current rating of 'B-' but cutthe outlook from positive to stable. Standard & Poor's put its 'B-' credit rating for Lebanon on credit watch with negative implications. Those ratings are already far below investment grade and Fitch said thewar's impact would be worse than the slump after last year's killing offormer Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. "The government will have to return to the market to borrow. You have torebuild roads and bridges and get things in and out.Many private concerns in the Bekaa Valley and the south have also been destroyed," said Karam. "To try to avoid crowding out financial resources for the privatesector, which also needs to rebuild, we will need as much from donors as wecan get."
Lebanon has a long history of weathering or bouncing back from crises, but bankers and economists say it will not be easy to lure back investorsunless a lasting ceasefire is reached. "If the solution is perceived as final and Lebanon can start rebuildingwhat is damaged, then we can foresee a medium term recovery," said Joe Sarrouh, adviser to Fransabank's chairman."People need to re-establish confidence for investment." Lebanon's financial markets fell sharply after the murder of Hariri, abillionaire tycoon who masterminded the reconstruction of downtown Beirut after the 1975-1990 civil war. But the markets recovered to record highswithin months. Flush with petrodollars, Gulf Arab investors poured over $1 billion intoLebanese real estate alone this year. Arab tourists had descended on Lebanon before the crisis emptied hotels. Whether Lebanon will recover now depends on a rapid return to stabilityand a lasting solution to Hizbollah's weapons -- tough challenges forLebanon's weak and divided government. "There is no interest in bringing Lebanon back to a very threateningsituation, so I think we will get some help,"Sarrouh said. "But the situation really is disastrous from a humanitarianpoint of view, so it is too early to speculate."
H..

2006-07-24T10:56:00.000+03:00

Sunday the 23th...

Today’s message is huge, and probably boring. But here it is :

Daily routine : I wake up on the sound of a close one (shell). The radio is on all night long. So is the TV. I listen to, and look at what I missed in my sleep. Last night they bombed Saida, where my aunt and her family live, they bombed Akkar in the north, they bombed the Southern Suburb of Beirut (the usual), they bombed a factory in West Bekaa and they bombed, for the first time in its history, my village, Chmestar in Eastern Bekaa.
I get up , fix breakfast for “my own personal” refugees, and start my “daily phone marathon”. (don’t tell them land lines are still working). I start with Saida; my aunt pretends to be strong. She tells me the bombing was far from their house. She did not “synchronize” with her son. When I spoke to him , he told me a mall, very close to their house, was hit.
I call my friend in the north : all is fine. My other friend in west Bekaa: they brought a factory down, a big one it seems that used to build pre-fabricated houses and hangars and export them to Iraq. But that wasn’t all : some miracle happened early this morning it seems, when the shelling spared AL Hanane Institution where ten of orphans live : the whole area was bombed like hell.
I need to mention that Hezbollah does not exist neither in the North nor in West Bekaa , these are Sunni areas (that do not like Hezbollah anyway). I call the family house in my village ; they tell me there are over 40 people living in the house, because we have a basement. It seems that Israeli fighters flew over the village all day yesterday, took pictures and then bombed at dawn. They bombed the graveyard, where my grandfather, my uncle and my cousin are buried. My cousin tells that my ailing grandmother is not well, she’s ninety and she’s sick, and it seems that for 3 days now , she’s not recognizing anyone or anything. If she dies now , we won’t even be able to take part in the funeral : the are no roads. But if she dies now , maybe it will be less heart braking because every one lese is dying: younger people, children (the estimations say 170 children were killed by Saturday July 22nd) Then I call my sister who found refuge in Alley in the mountain. All fine. The last phone call was to my sister in law , my brother’s wife who fled to Syria (her mom is Syrian). They’re staying in Bloudan , a town closer to the Lebanese border than Damascus. She told me they could hear the bombing on Baalback and the rest of the Bekaa all night long.
Kinda’s diary : before I left to the office, Kinda, my two year old daughter (actually she’s 28 months old) was looking at the pictures in the newspaper. It’s a habit she took when all this started since we’re publishing lots of pictures of the displaced children. Of course , every morning I hide the pages that contain hideous pictures and give her the rest of the newspaper: she loves to see the pictures of other children. "

So, she saw this picture of a wounded 10 year old girl (god she’s pretty) who’s being treated at a hospital in Beirut. She came to me and said : mama , baby wawa ( ie sick in Arabic baby language) . I said yes, very wawa. And here’s what happened then : she wanted to go see her. She said : (in Arabic of course) I want to go there (with her finger pointing at the picture ) with cadeau ( present in French) . she kept insisting and wouldn’t let me go to work before I promised I’ll take her tomorrow .THIS IS A TRUE STORY, I still can’t believe it myself. I never took Kinda to a hospital before, and she doesn’t know it is customary to take presents to patients. But I promise you this : tomorrow I’ll take her there.
Hanady the weirdo :Here are some more of my sick thoughts. I need to tell you that ever since this started, I’ve been keeping myself busy 24\7 because I don’t want to have time to think about anything. But sometimes, I can’t help it : you know, when I’m taking a shower or trying to fall asleep. I get these weird thoughts. I try to get rid of them , but they keep coming back . sick thoughts. Yesterday , I thought I was completely mad because I found out that somewhere deep down inside of me , I fear the moment when all this will be over . What would happen then? We’ll be left with the dead, the injured, the ruins, the rubbles, the refugees, the diseases, the misery of those who lost everything, all this destruction , no roads, no phones, no electricity ( you know how long it takes to repair this sector?) no water, ..and a corrupt , impotent government. "

We’ll be left without the attention we might be getting now : crimes should be really bad to be able to draw the world’s attention : look at how indifferent we all get to be towards other conflicts and sufferings, with time. It took something as big as the massacres in Rwanda to shake us, for a while. Who remembers Africa now? Back to earth : the thing is that all this destruction happened so fast (congratulations to all the scientists working on “improving” arms and their ability to be effective, they’re really doing a great job that nobody seem to appreciate). I can’t believe, for instance, that when this will end, if we’re still alive, I won’t be able to reach my own village. It’s fast and it’s reported live : so it makes somehow unreal , as if you were watching a movie. I just can’t seem to be able to grasp the idea that this is actually happening. What do you call this ? Denial? Extracts from the story of my life: and then , there’s something else that explains my sick feelings and thoughts: my history. I’m 38 years old. I was seven when I witnessed my first war. I was 14 during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Seeing all these rubbles, all these villages completely wiped out , the fires, the injured, the dead , all of it .. brings me way back in time, and I stick to the idea that these images are not of what’s happening now , they’re pictures of old houses that were never rebuilt after the last war was over. That’s what I tell myself. I need to, because I fear that the moment I get to realize that this is actually happening here and now, I’d explode …literaly..
I can’t believe the kind of articles we were working on in the newspaper 12 days ago, I still have the minutes of the last meeting : two people covering a mini campaign to change the family laws that grant the kids to their dads after divorce, two other people following the lobbying efforts for granting women the right to give the Lebanese nationality to their kids if they’re married to foreigners, one person (this is the funniest) working on air pollution and the ill performance of the ministry of environmental issues , the economic departement working on revenues of tourism this summer and the transportation sector (we were trying to ban trucks from circulation on week-ends because they cause 10 of accidents weekly), and the education departement preparing articles about children summer camps , and the recent waves of immigration of the elite due to unemployment ..
H...

Saturday the 22th

Good morning , So it’s Saturday. The day we fear. It seems the Israelis will have to postpone some of whatever plans they might have: the evacuations are not done yet. The French still have people leaving tomorrow, the Canadians too. There are growing reports about the segregation of the US evacuations : they have priorities .. white ones. I’m sorry I can’t confirm , but my friends holding US passports keep telling me about it. I don’t have time to investigate it, I’m rather working with the people fleeing their villages and homes. Hamra (neighborhood in West Beirut, not targeted yet) was almost booming this morning. There were even traffic jams in the streets were some of the embassies asked their citizens to go to to be evacuated. There are also people who are shopping : food, bread, necessities that is. Hamra is hosting loads of displaced people from both the South and the Southern Suburb. There are also people who just need to go out for a walk… I even spotted two lovers walking hand in hand in one of the streets. All this is happening today because last night , Beirut and its suburb were spared air strikes. It’s weird, the ability of human beings to cope and go on no matter what. One “clam” evening and it somehow feels like we’re back to normal again. We, here in Beirut, can afford it. Some of my friends who live in the Southern Suburb went there yesterday to check on their houses and bring some of their stuff : they weren’t able to find their homes. Whole neighborhoods are completely destroyed, they weren’t even able to recognize in which streets they were. Some people were able to reach Beirut from the South over the past couple of days. Their tell hideous stories , about what they witnessed there, about how they fled and what they encountered on the roads, about the people they left behind : some alive and some buried under the rubbles. I feel you should read their stories, but I really don’t have time to translate the articles we publish in As-Safir . But for those of you who read Arabic they’re all on our website : http://www.assafir.com/. If any of you wants to use them , translate them , please feel free to do so , but I only need you the mention As-Safir as the source. When I started writing this message, the Israeli air fighters had just bombed 3 aerials in the Tourboul in the North , In Sanine in the East and in Fatqa east of Beirut. These are TV and mobile phones aerials. They might want to cut off the rest of the world. They might not … but just in case , I’m trying to find a way to keep you posted , at least with pictures. I need you then to spread them as much as possible. And if I don’t succeed in doing that , keep checking the wires. I’m sure the reporters on this list have free access to the news agencies, PLEASE CIRCULATE ANY PICTURES YOU GET. And if all this fails , then keep talking about us. Don’t leave us alone in Beirut. Now , in case this conspiracy theory of mine proves to be wrong , and I’d still be able to reach you people , then we’ll all laugh together and I’ll manage to accept criticism about how naïve I am.

------------------
July 22 , 2006

Here’s a translation of my article in today’s As-Safir. It goes with the pictures attached . Excuse my English , literally. Die, deeply Die. Die the way They want you to die. No one will weep. Die by gunshots, by missiles, by sea shelling, or air strikes. Die out of starvation. Die under the open sky. Don’t run, they’ll get you on the roads. Stay where you are and die, stand still, don’t even attempt to move, just die. By forbidden arms, by “allowed” arms, die. And die together, whole family members, so no one will cry when you go. And down here, we won’t even be able to look at the pictures of your corps. Silently die, don’t scream. And stay right where you die, none of us is able to reach you, or to collect your remains from under the rubbles. None of us is able to know how many you are. None of us can protect you from the kind of death that they choose for you.

Baby , picture number one : go to sleep my darling , and don’t move. I’ll caress your hair through the night and hum your favorite tones, I’ll keep the wolves away .and in the morning , I’ll fix your ripped pants and wash your white shirt. Sleep my baby, I’ll hold you in my arms, bring your face close to my heart , and whisper to the angels , ask them to tell you fairy tales. Sing for him Fayrouz (the most famous Lebanese singer who lost a son when he was a toddler). Sing for him as you sang for your son. And sing loud, he’s afraid of the dark. “ya maymti, you’re still so young, you , like the roses , didn’t reach you first year yet…”

To Her , picture number two : why are your eyes open like this? What are you looking for? Here, there are the remains right in front of you. Your parents’ remains . Is this your mother’s arm? Take it , hug it , smell to find out whether it’s your mom’s or your dad’s … They’re not exactly open, your eyes. They’re half closed, as if you were getting ready to fall asleep. You seem to enjoy your nap. Doesn’t that piece of cement on your left foot bother you? Don’t you fear colic pains with your tummy uncovered like this? I’ll cover you before the night falls, and I’ll undo your pony tail so you don’t get a headache. Did you ever sleep in the open sky before, your body lying on thorns and rocks? Where do the poor sleep then? Your face is still white, and your cheek feels like silk. I know. I passed my fingers on it secretly , fearing I’d wake you up. You’re far from the rest of your family. Who threw you so far away? Who left you alone, in the middle of nowhere?

To Him , picture number three : Did you know , when you joined the small truck, and stretched your right arm comfortably behind the back of the person sitting next to you , that that hand was to remain there for ever ? And that feeling of relief that appears in the way your eyes are closed and your mouth is half opened, did you get it the minute you left your burning town? Did you know when you move your head backwards, that it will land on the remains of your loved ones ? And in your current sleep, and in the wildest dreams you might be having, does it occur to you that some of us would rather not have your pictures published , nor your story told, not to heart their “feelings”. Die, die deeply. Go as far away as you can from the poison their air fighters are dropping , and that contained in the words of some of your own people. And up there , when you meet your god, ask for victory for those who are working so this never happens to you again.
H...

2006-07-22T01:49:00.000+03:00

21-7-2006

Here's the latest , sorry for being late today:

From the AP:-Thousands of Lebanese civilians fled north on Friday after Israel warnedthem to leave border villages and called up 3,000 army reserves in apossible prelude to a major ground offensive against Hizbollah guerrillas - The siege on Lebanon is not letting humanitarian aid in,"said Hisham Hassan, spokesman for the International Committee of the RedCross (ICRC). "The south is isolated." Two ICRC trucks were on their way from Beirut to a hospital in Tyre, where staff began burying corpses temporarily in a massgrave dug in an army barracks to clear space in the morgue-

(Reuters) - Some of the world's major aidagencies said on Friday that British Prime Minister Tony Blair had got his policy on the crisis in Lebanon "horribly wrong" byfailing to call for an immediate ceasefire in the Middle East. Blair's stance has put his country at odds with the rest ofthe international community, seven agencies, including Christian Aid, Save the Children and Oxfam, said in a joint statement. "The situation on the ground is grim and getting worse,"said Janet Symes, Christian Aid's regional manager for theMiddle East.

GENEVA (AP) _ The first international Red Cross reliefconvoy to reach the besieged southern Lebanese city of Tyrearrived on Friday after a six-hour journey over war-damagedroads from Beirut, a spokesman said. The convoy's arrival indicated a new Israeli willingnessto allow the international community to respond thedeteriorating humanitarian situation in Lebanon following aweek of Israeli-Hezbollah fighting, said Vincent Lusser, spokesman of the International Committee of the Red Cross. it's the first response we've had to our request forbetter humanitarian access,¯ he said. Two trucks in the convoy brought 24 tons of food, medical supplies and other assistance to the port city in the relief effort coordinated with Israeli authorities, Lussersaid.
The country has been becoming more isolated because ofdamage to roads, bridges and other structures. Because of the destruction and the danger of being hit,people have been afraid to go out and relief has beendifficult to provide, U.N. and other officials said. The availability of safe water, sanitation and hygiene is vital for people affected by the emergency, UNICEF said.The U.N. children's agency said a third of people killedand an estimated half of those displaced were children. UNICEF will be delivering vital supplies of water kits, purification tablets, water containers and essential drugsover the weekend and says its immediate funding needs areUS$7.3 million (د5.8 million).

The World Health Organization said it was very concerned about the lack of electricity in hospitals, safe passage ofambulances and access to people in the south of thecountry. The exact situation and needs of the estimated 500,000people displaced or otherwise affected by the conflict was difficult to assess because humanitarian agencies werefinding it difficult to move around the country, saidElisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for theCoordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA. Although supplies were stockpiled to be sent to Lebanon,moving them was delayed because roads and bridges weredamaged or destroyed by Israeli air raids and shelling inthe southern part of the country, said officials of the United Nations and the ICRC. Even when trucks and ambulances could, they risked beinghit, ICRC officials said.
The initial convoy has enough supplies to care for 4,000people, said Lusser, adding that the agency hopes to follow with more aid. The U.N. refugee agency said it, too, is trying to getguarantees of safe passage from the warring sides. It is vital that there are safe corridors for" relief effort coordinated with Israeli authorities, Lussersaid.
The country has been becoming more isolated because ofdamage to roads, bridges and other structures. Because of the destruction and the danger of being hit,people have been afraid to go out and relief has beendifficult to provide, U.N. and other officials said.
The availability of safe water, sanitation and hygiene is vital for people affected by the emergency, UNICEF said.The U.N. children's agency said a third of people killedand an estimated half of those displaced were children. UNICEF will be delivering vital supplies of water kits, purification tablets, water containers and essential drugsover the weekend and says its immediate funding needs areUS$7.3 million (د5.8 million).
The World Health Organization said it was very concerned about the lack of electricity in hospitals, safe passage ofambulances and access to people in the south of thecountry.
The exact situation and needs of the estimated 500,000people displaced or otherwise affected by the conflict was difficult to assess because humanitarian agencies werefinding it difficult to move around the country, saidElisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for theCoordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA.
Although supplies were stockpiled to be sent to Lebanon,moving them was delayed because roads and bridges weredamaged or destroyed by Israeli air raids and shelling inthe southern part of the country, said officials of the United Nations and the ICRC.
Even when trucks and ambulances could, they risked beinghit, ICRC officials said.
The initial convoy has enough supplies to care for 4,000people, said Lusser, adding that the agency hopes to follow with more aid.
The U.N. refugee agency said it, too, is trying to getguarantees of safe passage from the warring sides. It is vital that there are safe corridors for
humanitarian aid to reach those in need, but we have no guarantees yet of safe passage to the mountain regions,¯said Ron Redmond, chief spokesman of the U.N. HighCommissioner for Refugees. "We are ready to release tonsof supplies, including shelter materials, from our emergency stockpiles in Jordan and Syria as soon as safetransport routes are worked out." Redmond said a UNHCR emergency team was assembling inDamascus, Syria, preparing to head to Beirut to reinforce the agency's staff and check on the needs of "tens ofthousands of displaced people who have fled to mountain valleys outside Beirut for safety." The needs of these people, particularly those living in communal buildings such as schools, will become critical ifthey don't get assistance," he added. French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told a newsconference in Beirut that France was dispatching urgent aid to Lebanon by air and sea. He, too, called for safepassage.
The U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which cares forPalestinians in Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East,said its main concern was the food supply for nearly 3,000 displaced people staying in 40 shelters it has set up inits clinics and schools. " The economic situation is worsening day by day" saidUNWRA spokesman Matthias Burchard. "Provisions are runningout." He told reporters that the prices of vegetables had goneup 400 percent in east Beirut as a result of thehostilities. UNICEF was to fly tons of health kits, sanitation suppliesand toys from its warehouse in Copenhagen, Denmark, this\nweekend to Damascus for road shipment to Lebanon.
In Geneva, UNICEF spokeswoman Wivina Belmonte saidchildren were bearing the brunt of the hostilities."They make up one third of the fatalities so far,"Belmonte said. Of the hundreds of thousands of internallydisplaced people, our estimates are that half of those are" humanitarian aid to reach those in need, but we have no guarantees yet of safe passage to the mountain regions,¯said Ron Redmond, chief spokesman of the U.N. HighCommissioner for Refugees. "We are ready to release tonsof supplies, including shelter materials, from our emergency stockpiles in Jordan and Syria as soon as safetransport routes are worked out." Redmond said a UNHCR emergency team was assembling inDamascus, Syria, preparing to head to Beirut to reinforce the agency's staff and check on the needs of "tens ofthousands of displaced people who have fled to mountainvalleys outside Beirut for safety" The needs of these people, particularly those living in communal buildings such as schools, will become critical ifthey don't get assistance," he added. French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told a newsconference in Beirut that France was dispatching urgent aid to Lebanon by air and sea. He, too, called for safepassage. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which cares forPalestinians in Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East,said its main concern was the food supply for nearly 3,000 displaced people staying in 40 shelters it has set up inits clinics and schools. ®The economic situation is worsening day by day,¯ saidUNWRA spokesman Matthias Burchard. ®Provisions are runningout.¯ He told reporters that the prices of vegetables had goneup 400 percent in east Beirut as a result of thehostilities.
UNICEF was to fly tons of health kits, sanitation suppliesand toys from its warehouse in Copenhagen, Denmark, this weekend to Damascus for road shipment to Lebanon.
In Geneva, UNICEF spokeswoman Wivina Belmonte saidchildren were bearing the brunt of the hostilities. "They make up one third of the fatalities so far,¯ Belmonte said. "Of the hundreds of thousands of internallydisplaced people, our estimates are that half of those are
children. She said the recreational kits being sent were notfrivolous. We're talking about kids that have suffered from scars that have been inflicted over the last few days that arelikely to last a generation. Finding some way to find somekind of normalcy in a completely abnormal situation isanother one of our priorities.
---------------------------
Associated Press reporter Sam Cage in Geneva contributedto this report.

2006-07-21T17:28:00.000+03:00

Dear all
These are bank accounts where you can send money to help out the displaced and the people in need.
Attached is a list of some local organizations and their account numbers. And below are the account numbers of another association of volunteers who are doing a great job, and of the Tayyar watani political party. I only allowed myself to send you their bank account because I know from the paper’s reporters on the ground that they are doing a great job with the displaced who seek shelter in the Christian areas. This is a very important sensitive issue in here, and there are lots of people in the Christian areas because west Beirut is almost “full” on the one hand, and considered more dangerous than east Beirut on the other hand.
However , and despite all what’s going one , some “local” politicians are not happy with this “bonding” between Christians and mostly Shiite Moslems. So they’re trying to cut off aids from the tayyar. I also need to specify these people are not (yet) or any country’s boycott list.
I was reluctant to send this before, but the situation on the ground is becoming unbearable and one can only guess it will worsen with time.
So, here are the lists .

For Zicco House :
C_O bassem shit
Societe general des banques au liban
Hamra branch
007004362092875014

C_O georges azzi
Credit lebanais
Agence sassine
0430012080006817356

Tayyar:

Société Générale de Banque au Liban (SGBL) Sin El Fil 001-004-361-236446-01-3 - SWIFT: SGLILBBXAccount Holder: FPM (Pierre Raffoul, Maurice Jreij & Elie Hanna)

France (rassemblement pour le Liban):
BNP PARIBAS PARIS CHAMPS ELY
RIB: 30004 00804 00010552302 36
IBAN: FR76 3000 4008 0400 0105 5230 236
Account holder: RPL - 63 rue Sainte Anne - 75002 Paris

H...

2006-07-21T17:14:00.000+03:00

Beirut , July 21st , 2006

I left the office early last night ; at midnight.
There was only one devastating picture yesterday : that of two people who were killed in air strikes on Akkar,(the poorer area) in the north, late Wednesday night.
Both corps were black, both were dismembered , both were “weird”. I don’t think it matters anymore to try to prove that Israel is using unconventional , forbidden weapons .. that would only prove that it should have used “allowed” weapons. Who cares, people are dying anyway. And whatever weapons are being used , the pollution they’re creating will kill the survivors from cancer later.
The rest of the pictures were less devastating, conventional : demolished houses, wiped out villages and towns, more refugees , some of them starving, lovely babes on board of US marines ships and colored people from poor countries lining up in front of embassies hoping they will get them out of this hell.
The really devastating pictures will came later , much later, some day when all this will stop maybe we’ll be able to visit the ruins of whole villages. But even then it might be too late : how long does it take corps buried under rubbles to disintegrate and vanish ?
Anyway , so I left the office early and went home with my friend who’s staying with us because his house is in the southern suburb of Beirut. I was a bit worried because my brother in law , Khalil’s brother, was there too and I was wondering if I’d be able to manage space for everybody to sleep comfortably. Raed, my brother in law, and his eight-month pregnant wife , had left Jebshit in the south yesterday morning. They reached Beirut by 5:00 pm. They had crossed a bridge in Habbouche who’d been targeted only once . It was destroyed but cars were still able to find a way through. Half an hour after Raed had crossed the bridge, it was bombed again and completely demolished this time (sounds like an Indian movie, right?). Of course Raed knew nothing about that , he trying to make out to Saida, then up to Baakline in the Shouf then way down back to Beirut. When I got home , I asked if they had dinner. I was a bit ashamed because my fridge is empty. I hadn’t had time lately to buy grocery and I’m “heavily” relying on milk to feed Kinda, my daughter. “Dinner ?” Raed asked , “we had 9 shawarma sandwiches, Rana (his wife) and I. Today was the first time we eat in 3 days”. He tells stories about Jebshit. Sad ones. No electricity , no water, no roads, no food, no newspapers. Some villages even run out of batteries, so they can’t even listen to the news on the radio. Funny, isn’t it, that in Beirut we know more about what’s going on than the people concerned. Raed only knew they blew the Habbouche bridge when he listened to the news after he reached Beirut.

Anyway , so I left the office early and went home with my friend who’s staying with us because his house is in the southern suburb of Beirut. I was a bit worried because my brother in law , Khalil’s brother, was there too and I was wondering if I’d be able to manage space for everybody to sleep comfortably.
Raed, my brother in law, and his eight-month pregnant wife , had left Jebshit in the south yesterday morning. They reached Beirut by 5:00 pm.
They had crossed a bridge in Habbouche who’d been targeted only once . It was destroyed but cars were still able to find a way through. Half an hour after Raed had crossed the bridge, it was bombed again and completely demolished this time (sounds like an Indian movie, right?). Of course Raed knew nothing about that , he trying to make out to Saida, then up to Baakline in the Shouf then way down back to Beirut.
When I got home , I asked if they had dinner. I was a bit ashamed because my fridge is empty. I hadn’t had time lately to buy grocery and I’m “heavily” relying on milk to feed Kinda, my daughter. “Dinner ?” Raed asked , “we had 9 shawarma sandwiches, Rana (his wife) and I. Today was the first time we eat in 3 days”.
He tells stories about Jebshit. Sad ones. No electricity , no water, no roads, no food, no newspapers. Some villages even run out of batteries, so they can’t even listen to the news on the radio. Funny, isn’t it, that in Beirut we know more about what’s going on than the people concerned. Raed only knew they blew the Habbouche bridge when he listened to the news after he reached Beirut.
The first three or four days were very strange. I was in Beirut , sitting in an air conditioned office, watching the devastation of the South and the southern suburb. It felt like when you watch news and pictures from Palestine and Iraq. You feel frustrated and concerned, but you know there’s not much you can do for them, for mere geographical reasons, at least that’s the excuse one uses to comfort one’s self. But “this“ was happening a few kilometers away and I’d still be sitting here watching. The other weird feeling was related to the first one: I felt that I was paying my dues. The guilt feeling I’ve always had toward Palestine, and later towards Iraq, has diminished a little bit. I felt like hugging Palestine and Iraq and screaming to them “We’re with you, like you: left alone, suffering and part of your cause, a great one.” Sometimes I just flip and cry. Cry because I’m so helpless and angry. And most of the time I turn on my “automatic engine on”. I wake up at six , come to the office, report hideous stories , feel nothing about them , do my job : double check , choose “fantastic” headlines , pick up the “best” pictures, try to be as professional as one can be. I do that for 12 to 14 hours. I’d then go home, pick up my daughter from my mother’s house , and go to bed at one. The Israelis love to start their raids at ten past one, sometimes at five past one. That’s when I’m in bed. Every night, when they start, I rush out to the balcony to see where the smoke comes from. I live on the twelfth floor. Every night , when I go out , I see the moon , my lovely moon , shyly hiding behind the clouds caused by the fires that are surrounding my Beirut."

I have to admit to all of you that I have very mixed, weird, sick feelings about all this.
The first three or four days were very strange. I was in Beirut , sitting in an air conditioned office, watching the devastation of the South and the southern suburb. It felt like when you watch news and pictures from Palestine and Iraq. You feel frustrated and concerned, but you know there’s not much you can do for them, for mere geographical reasons, at least that’s the excuse one uses to comfort one’s self. But “this“ was happening a few kilometers away and I’d still be sitting here watching.
The other weird feeling was related to the first one: I felt that I was paying my dues. The guilt feeling I’ve always had toward Palestine, and later towards Iraq, has diminished a little bit. I felt like hugging Palestine and Iraq and screaming to them “We’re with you, like you: left alone, suffering and part of your cause, a great one.”
Sometimes I just flip and cry. Cry because I’m so helpless and angry. And most of the time I turn on my “automatic engine on”. I wake up at six , come to the office, report hideous stories , feel nothing about them , do my job : double check , choose “fantastic” headlines , pick up the “best” pictures, try to be as professional as one can be. I do that for 12 to 14 hours. I’d then go home, pick up my daughter from my mother’s house , and go to bed at one. The Israelis love to start their raids at ten past one, sometimes at five past one. That’s when I’m in bed. Every night, when they start, I rush out to the balcony to see where the smoke comes from. I live on the twelfth floor. Every night , when I go out , I see the moon , my lovely moon , shyly hiding behind the clouds caused by the fires that are surrounding my Beirut.
This morning , I stayed home till 12:00. I played with Kinda. My poor little baby. She doesn’t understand what’s going on. She keeps asking about her cousins. She looks at their pictures and keeps repeating their names; as if it was an exercise not to forget them. I tell her they’re in the mountains, and that we can’t go there. When they call us, she refuses to talk to them. She thinks they abounded her. The first time she heard the bombing, she rushed to my arms asking me if this was fireworks . I said “ no , this is boum boum , ha ha ha “and started laughing. So now, every time she hears the bombing she starts singing “boum boum “ and she laughs. I left her at noon. She was sleepy, and wouldn’t go to bed. It took a few minutes to realize the reason : she wanted to fall asleep in my arms. Before July the 12th, I would not move at her bed time. I’d put her on my lap , sing to her until she sleeps. For 10 days now, she’s been sleeping in the stroller at my mother’s house: only to guaranty that I will come pick her up when I finish working. Two last notes: I feel ashamed talking about my daughter while other people’s kids were either killed or lack of food and shelter. But I feel so guilty towards her. Second : to all the Israelis who have been sending their comments on what I write , I say this : I agree with you , we are savages , blood lovers, we don’t have feelings, and we actually enjoy looking at the pictures of victims. Actually , each time we see one , we party and dance. And in my writings, I’m only pretending to have feelings , and being pathetically sentimental only to bluff. Here, I’m admitting it. And to all my friends in the west : don’t believe anything I say , cause I’m only viciously using you and trying toturn you into sympathizers of fundamental terrorism. "

This morning , I stayed home till 12:00. I played with Kinda. My poor little baby. She doesn’t understand what’s going on. She keeps asking about her cousins. She looks at their pictures and keeps repeating their names; as if it was an exercise not to forget them. I tell her they’re in the mountains, and that we can’t go there. When they call us, she refuses to talk to them. She thinks they abounded her.
The first time she heard the bombing, she rushed to my arms asking me if this was fireworks . I said “ no , this is boum boum , ha ha ha “ and started laughing. So now, every time she hears the bombing she starts singing “boum boum “ and she laughs.
I left her at noon. She was sleepy, and wouldn’t go to bed. It took a few minutes to realize the reason : she wanted to fall asleep in my arms. Before July the 12th, I would not move at her bed time. I’d put her on my lap , sing to her until she sleeps. For 10 days now, she’s been sleeping in the stroller at my mother’s house: only to guaranty that I will come pick her up when I finish working.

Two last notes: I feel ashamed talking about my daughter while other people’s kids were either killed or lack of food and shelter. But I feel so guilty towards her.

Second : to all the Israelis who have been sending their comments on what I write , I say this : I agree with you , we are savages , blood lovers, we don’t have feelings, and we actually enjoy looking at the pictures of victims. Actually , each time we see one , we party and dance. And in my writings, I’m only pretending to have feelings , and being pathetically sentimental only to bluff. Here, I’m admitting it. And to all my friends in the west : don’t believe anything I say , cause I’m only viciously using you and trying to turn you into sympathizers of fundamental terrorism.
H...

2006-07-20T21:20:00.000+03:00

Does anyone have an answer to this question..what kind of weapons is israel using?!!!
www.assafir.com/iso/israeli-aggression/

if anyone have an answer please let me know

2006-07-20T18:30:00.000+03:00

20-7-2006

Last night was terrible ( how accurate is his word, I wonder) for people inthe Bekaa , in the south , in the north and in Beirut. This leaves on the mountain area out. I have nothing to tell , the pictures will.Here in the newspaper we're trying to find out what kind of weapons arebeing used, we already contacted doctors in Brussels, we're talking todoctors at the American University Hospital in Beirut, and we're waiting for your help, if you can provide it.One small note : Srifa, the village that was almost wipped out yesterday(it's in the south ) , is being bombed again today. No one was able to gothere yet. Corps are still under the rubbles . No one knows what the death toll is there , or in any other village forthat matter. If this ends one day, I would not want to be here to know what really happened. No one , no one,is allowed to get away with all this hate , blood, and viciousness. They are children killers . And no one can stop them.
H..

2006-07-20T14:19:00.000+03:00

20-7-2006

The fear is growing in Beirut. Beirut is sad, scared, wounded and … left alone.
By yesterday morning, the UN said 150 000 people (foreigners and Lebanese holders of 2nd nationalities ) had already left Lebanon .Evacuations aresupposed to be completed by Friday . Today has been an exceptionally calm day : the US marines are evacuating Us citizens. By tomorrow , the country will be left to its own people and Israeli shelling. In Beirut , by Saturday , there will only be those who have nowhere else to go and the very few who deliberately decided to stay. There were also be those who managed to flee the south and the southern suburb of the capital.
What will happen to us on Saturday ?
A friend called a few minutes ago , scared and begging me to go hide with her in Baabdat in the mountains. She said her friend who works with the UN and lives in Washington called her to tell her to stay out of Beirut , because she heard that by Saturday , it will be hell , nothing will stop them. The city will be theirs : my city , my dearest city , my only home , is open to their warplanes and shells. Our kids , as of Saturday , will be the targets of Israeli fire. So it’s said.
What I fear the most is that by Saturday , July the 22nd, Beirut will be cut off from the rest of the country , and the world. Every morning , I rush to the office to make sure the internet is still working. Every day I ask myself : why didn’t they stop it ?
As of Saturday , I fear every city or region will be cut off from the rest of the country. Maybe they won’t bomb us. Maybe they will just leave us in our cities and villages to starve and rot to death. Maybe they will do both. Worse than not knowing what will happen is knowing that whatever the Israelis decide to do, nobody wants or can stop them.

H...:(

2006-07-20T14:05:00.000+03:00

19-7-1006

Ok , I have to admit the attached pictures are hideously gruesome, but you have to look at them . Help me find out what kind of weapons cause this kind of dismemberment and mutation. What kind of weapons cause this kind of damage? Do you know? Could you find out?
None of this is confirmed, or could be here and now. However, there are growing doubts that Israel might be using internationally forbidden weapons in its current aggression against Lebanon. News from "Southern Medical Center", a hospital in Saida( in South Lebanon) are not good.
Dr. Bashir Sham, member of "French Association of Cardiovascular Surgeons", explains that the way the corps look when they reach the hospital , especially those of the air strikes in Doueir and Rmayleih, is very abnormal."One might think they were burnt , but their colour is dark , they're inflated, and they have a terrible smell" All this , and the hair is not burnt nor do the bodies bleed.
Eight of the victims of an air strike on Rmayleih bridge, near Saida, on the 15th of July, were transferred to Sham's hospital.
Sham says that only chemical poisonous substances "lead to instant death without bleeding". And what indicates the power of these substances, is the high and unusual of number of dead victimes, compared to the number of injuries.
Sham thinks that whatever "abnormal " substance causing these features might penetrate through the skin, or another explanation would be that the missiles contained toxic gas that stopped the proper functioning of the nervous system, and led to blood clotting.
These toxic materials cause immediate death, within two to thirty minutes, according to Sham, who admits that these doubts can't be proven, not even by an autopsy.
The director of the same medical center, Ali Mansour, says that due to the strong smell of the
corps, he couldn't breath properly for at least 12 hours after the corps were handled.
\nHe explains that the center received eight bodies from Rmeileh last Monday, and none of them was bleeding.\nMansour tells us the hospital wrote to both the commissioner of the European Union for Foreign Affaires Javier Solana, and the United Nations Secretary general Kofi Anan. He said that dr Sham will communicate his doubts to the Doctors Order in Lebanon. CAN YOU HELP US , PLEASE!
H...

Ps: all the pictures below are from Reuters

2006-07-20T03:09:00.001+03:00

18-7-2006

So , this wraps it up for now.
Today was a weirdly calm day in Beirut, after a bloody dawn in the suburb. I think we owe it to the Western embassies evacuating their citizens.the evacuations will be completed by the end of the week. By then , all the bridges and roads linking towns and villages to each other will be completd. We were wondering why some roads were spared till now.
It was not that calm in the south , nor in the Beqaa. And in addition to the ongoing raids and bombings , people were still looking for the remains of those who were killed over the past days.
No need to try to keep updating the death toll. No one knows anymore...
The new thing is targeting army barracks and soldiers.
Something great is happening though . People all over the country opening their houses to the displaced who were able to make it to safe places .People helping out in organizing aids efforts. People giving food to those who need it.
H...

2006-07-19T22:24:00.000+03:00

19-7-2006

Hello everyone,
In addition to the pictures , here's some figures today ; and they're not
mine:

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) _ Lebanon's prime minister said Wednesday that 300 people have been killed, 1,000 wounded and half a million displaced in Israel's week-old onslaught on Lebanon and said he would seek compensation from Israel for the "unimaginable losses" to the nation's infrastructure
GENEVA, July 19 (REUTERS) - The scale of killing and maiming of civilians in Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territory of Gaza could constitute war crimes, the United Nations human rights chief said on Wednesday.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said international humanitarian law was clear on the need to protect non-combatants in any conflict. "This obligation is also expressed in international criminal law, which defines war crimes and crimes against humanity," she said.
"The scale of the killings in the region, and their predictability, could engage the personal criminal responsibility of those involved, particularly those in a position of command and control," she said, without directly accusing anyone.
- Also from the ASSOCIATED PRESS in GENEVA ":The Geneva-based humanitarian agency (International red cross ) is asking for aninitial 10 million Swiss francs (US$8 million) to help displaced and vulnerable people, as well as supporting medical services of the Lebanese Red Cross.
-UNICEF and the World Health Organization said in a statement that there was a serious psychological effectfrom the fighting, which has killed more than 200 people and injured some 550 in Lebanon alone.
"Civilian deaths include dozens of children, with many more injured," the joint statement said. "The psychological impact is serious as people, including children, have witnessed the death or injury of loved ones and destruction of their homes and communities."
The two agencies are working with Lebanon's Ministry of Health to provide emergency medicines and supplies for acute and chronic conditions, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes, as well as chlorine tablets to ensure safe drinking water and prevent waterborne diseases.
H...);

2006-07-19T22:19:00.000+03:00

19-7-2006

It’s the eighth day. It all started last Wednesday. It seems ages ago.
I didn’t sleep last night. Not because of the bombing, although my flat was shaking every time they bombed. They always start their air raids on Beirut around 1:00 am. To the other regions, they offer 24\7 services.
“Sleepless in Beirut”, thinking about tomorrow. Not the next morning, that is. The Tomorrow. Houses turned into rubbles, burnt bodies, families in the streets, embargoed cities and villages, people pleading for food and water … and the Electricite du Liban company sending its people to collect bills!
What would Tomorrow look like? What is this happening for? They say they want to extract terrorism. Why? Would terrorism do more than what they’re doing?
On my way to work, in the nearby public park , I saw Nour, a four year old open-heart patient , who fled with her parents the Ouzai area, south of Beirut. Her father wants to stay in an open-door area, he’s afraid the “over-populated” public schools won’t be suitable for a child with a heart condition.
“I’m having fun here “, she says, smiling to the camera, “we’re playing all the time and no one is giving us orders.”
Moussa, the guard outside the newspaper building was crying. His family had just called from their village Mayss el Jabal in the south. His wife told him she couldn’t find food for their children.Up to the sixth floor. Bahia, my dear friend and colleague , who left her house in Hadath two days ago, was on the phone. Someone was telling her that her house does not exist anymore. She had tears in her eyes when she said “ at least the kids are safe”. In my office, the France Press news agency confirms that the four trucks that were bombed yesterday on the Lebanon-Syria road contained food and medicine sent by Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. Reuters reports about Sel’a , a village in the south that was bombed overnight. It says 5 of ten bodies buried under the rubbles of an apartment building were found, and they’re still looking for the rest. They’re all the members of one family. Well , at least no one will miss them. Shall I go on? It’s still 11:00 am and I have to go see what happened in Ashrafieh, the Christian neighborhood in Beirut they just bombed.
H.. );

2006-07-19T18:02:00.000+03:00

18-7-2006

Last Tuesday , at 6:00 pm , I was sitting in a café in Verdun in West Beirut. Taxis, trying to pick up wealthy Arab tourists staying in the nearby hotel, were causing traffic jams. Kinda , my two year old angel , was having a great time coming up and down the escalator in the mall where the hotel and café are.

I was having a great time too. My best friend when I was 12 , Najwa , was visiting Lebanon after 26 years. Najwa’s father was the Moroccan ambassador to Beirut till 1980. I couldn’t believe we were meeting again. Her father was placed in several countries before they returned to Rabat. In 1981, my family and I left Beirut right before the 1982 Israeli invasion, and Najwa and I lost contact.

We sit in a café in Verdun , we both have tears in our eyes. We remember the old days, we tell the stories of the past 26 years , we laugh ,we cry, she tells me she’s surprised how much Beirut had changed .

Later in the evening , I picked her up and we went shopping , then we had some sushi and we agreed that the next morning we’ll take her seven year old boy and my Kinda to the beach.

Today is Tuesday. I’m in the office, watching villages being destroyed , burnt bodies, and trying to call the members of my family who are scattered all over the country seeking refuge in areas they think might be safer than others. This morning, I tried to get some cheese and tomatoes for breakfast for a friend who’s staying over after his house in the southern suburb was destroyed. I got the cheese , but the grocery shop has no vegetables. Beirut is under siege, Beirut will have nothing to eat or drink soon.

A colleague calls me from the nearby Sanayeh public garden , where people who fled the suburb are staying. “if you know of people who want to donate money , tell them to buy milk , diapers, bread and food and bring it over here”. I can find people who have money, but where would I get the bread from?

Last Tuesday seems so far away. Najwa managed to reach Rabat “at her own risk”. We still had so much to tell to each other. We might be able to do it soon. But one thing is certain : if she comes back soon, I won’t be able to take her to my village in the Bekaa, nor to the beach in Tyre. And Beirut will probably look the way it was some 26 years ago.
H...

2006-07-19T17:57:00.000+03:00

18-7-2006

The United Arab Emirates and Jordan sent aids to Lebanon (food, medicine, ambulances etc..). Air raids right at this moment are targeting the convoys on Dahr el Baidar (international road in the Bekaa) , already four jordaninas are killed, ambulances are burnt and it’s still going on …
H...

2006-07-19T17:44:00.000+03:00

17-7-2006

Some of these pictures are very strong.I can not confirm reports talking about the use of unconventional weapons , but for those of you who dare to look , you will notice the nature of wounds and burns is not very "familiar". Today the Israeli government said its "operations" will not end before at least one week. People are afraid the next few days will be worse than the past ones. They're expecting that as soon as the evacuation of the foreigners will be completed, the israelis will have a "freer" hand. So , the fleeing was at its atmost today. The people who were trying to flee the south and managed to get out of Saida were traped and killed when the Rmayleh bridge was air bombed. Tyre witnessed more raids and massacres today , but tens of people are still under the "remains of their former houses"

H..

2006-07-19T17:36:00.000+03:00

17-7-2006

I'm sending theses new pictures now. Last night , 60 raids were executed all over Lebanon , from Tripoli in the north to Baalback in the East ,and in
Beirut. Since Thursday 197 civilians were killed and 35o injured according to the health ministry , but this can not be a finel account since whole
villages and cities are completely cut off , there' s no way to reach them or know wht's happening there.
Now what happened in the south last night seems to be outrageous . People are fleeing in masses , there are humongous traffic jams in Saida , caused
by hundreds of people fleeing to Beirut through the South.
Those people have nowhere to go in here , and that's way they hadn't left their villages so
far. This morning, the streets of beirut were full with families carrying plastic bags in whivh they packed their belongings , or what's left of them.
Appartement buildings in beirut are either full or over priced.
People took in relatives and friends in their houses .
Now all this is fine, it's war , killing destroying , moving people ,
cutting off cities , destroying infrastructure , it's calssical.
But , please , take a minute and look at any of these pictures in a
different way. Some countries said they will help lebanon's reconstruction
(thanks) . Saudi Arabia said it will give 50 milion $ in aid. A small
calculation of the difference in oil prices between last Wednesday and today
will show how generous this offer is , especially that the Saudis political
stand almost gave the israelis a green light to go on.
Anyway , that was not my point .
The point is , if you take a real look at the pictures , you will see: a
house , a car , a shop... Destroyed ones. But , 6 days ago , they were
somebody's car , shop , and house. Inside the houses were toys for children
, books and music. All gone, and no one will pay for it.
The shops are all what these people own. The harbour that was burnt last
night , contained goods someone had paid for. People will go bankrupt.
Did I mention that the targeted areas are the poorer in Lebanon?
Oh yeah , and I forgot to mention all the people who died.

H...

2006-07-19T17:27:00.000+03:00

refugies in a school in Beirut

feeding his baby
just escaped to death

2006-07-19T17:18:00.000+03:00

17-7-2006

resting in Sanayeh garden

karim kobeissy (AP)

what left for them in Dahiyeh

The list is longer toady .the pictures are from everywhere . The scope ofshelling was terrible today. They're hitting everywhere, killing everywhere.Apologies if it turns out to be inconveniant and many thanks to all of youwho responded and offered to help.
H...

2006-07-19T14:53:00.000+03:00

16-7-2006

You will all have to excuse me for sending this. It's pictures of the bodies of babies killed by the israelis in South lebanon. They are all burnt. I need your help. I am almost certain these pictures won't be published in theWest, although they are associated press pictures. I need your help exposing them if you can. The problem is these are people who were asked to leavetheir village , Ter Hafra , this morning , within two hours , or else. ...So those who were able to flee went to the closer UN base where they wereasked to leave. I think that after the Qana massacres in 1996 when civilians were bombed after they took chelter in UN headquarters , the UN does not want to be responssible for the lives of civilians.A FEW MINUTES AGO , the Israeli asked the people of Al Bustan village in the south to evacuate their homes. I am afraid massacares will keep happening as long as Israeli actionsare uncheked. Please help us if you can
H....

PS: Israel said that she was targetting Hezbollah fighters... and here they are lighing dead!!
zzz