This week marks a year since the end of hostilities now officially called the Second Lebanon War by Israelis. A month of fighting — mostly Israeli aerial bombardment of Lebanon, and rocket attacks from the Shia militia Hizballah on northern Israel in response — ended with more than 1,000 Lebanese civilians and a small but unknown number of Hizballah fighters dead, as well as 119 Israeli soldiers and 43 civilians. EI contributor Jonathan Cook finds that many significant developments since the war have gone unnoticed, including several that seriously put in question Israel’s account of what happened last summer. Read more about Revisiting the summer war
Public health expert Michael Marmot underlines the relation between health and two fundamental human needs: autonomy and full social participation, adding that “deprived of a clean safe neighborhood, meaningful work, freedom from police harassment and arrest, and freedoms from violence and aggression, it is harder to have control over one’s life or be a full social participant.” [1] The values Marmot describes are ones that camp refugees in Lebanon — like Palestinians in many other places — do not have. Rosemary Sayigh analyzes the impact of the political situation on the health rights of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Read more about The ongoing Nakba: Sickness and health among Palestinian refugees in Lebanon
BADDAWIREFUGEECAMP, Northern Lebanon, 13 August (IPS) - Palestinians displaced by the fighting at the northern Lebanese refugee camp Nahr al-Bared have accused the Lebanese army of torturing and abusing civilians. As the fighting between the Sunni Islamist group Fatah al-Islam and the Lebanese army enters its 12th week, thousands of Nahr al-Bared residents have sought refuge in the nearby Baddawi camp. Many give detailed descriptions of days spent in detention under harsh interrogation. Read more about "Army torturing Palestinian refugees"
EINAL-HILWEH, 5 August 2007 (IRIN) - Ein al-Hilweh, Lebanon’s largest and most lawless refugee camp, has a street called Sharia Bustan Yahoudi (Jewish Park Street); the irony is a small instance among a litany of indignities suffered by the Palestinian refugees living there. “It’s named after the Jews who used to live around Sidon,” Khoder Abdel Aziz, a 24-year-old resident of the street, tells us, referring to the neighboring port city, 45 kilometers south of Beirut. Read more about Rival Islamist groups vie for control of refugee camp
This is the state of Lebanon today: deep sectarian anger that could boil over at any moment. In mixed Beirut neighborhoods, tensions rise between Sunnis and Shiites after each bombing. Tempers flare, small fights get out of hand, people start calling their friends and relatives to come in from other areas to help them and eventually the police have to step in. (A Shiite friend who lives in a mainly Sunni neighborhood told me that for several days after Eido’s killing, he found a broken egg each morning on his car.) And there’s no shortage of bombings to stoke tensions. Read more about Lebanon's bloody summer
BEIRUT, 11 July 2007 (IRIN) - Up to 150 people from the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp in north Lebanon fled on 11 July, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Witnesses said the army was preparing a final assault on the Fatah al-Islam militants holed up inside. ICRC spokeswoman Virginia de la Guardia said between 140 and 150 people, mostly men, had left the camp during a lull in fighting early in the day. By afternoon, the army had resumed heavy bombardment of positions suspected to be held by the al-Qaeda-inspired Islamist militants. Read more about Nahr al-Bared residents flee ahead of expected final assault
UNITEDNATIONS, Jul 6 (IPS) - Despite a massive boost in its peacekeeping force in Lebanon — from about 2,200 in July last year to some 13,700 last week — the United Nations has little good news to report regarding the politically-troubled country. “I am deeply concerned that Lebanon remains in the midst of a debilitating political crisis and faces ongoing attacks aimed at destabilizing and undermining its sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a report on the first anniversary of last summer’s conflict between Hizballah and Israel. Read more about Crisis persists despite beefed up peacekeeping
BEIRUT, 4 July 2007 (IRIN) - The demining agency tasked with neutralizing unexploded ordnance (UXO) from the six-week conflict between militants and the Lebanese army in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp has said the removal of immediate UXO threats will take at least a month. This raises the specter of further unrest among displaced refugees increasingly desperate to return home. “The operation should take around four weeks to eliminate the immediate threats, but there is bound to be UXO still found,” David Horrocks, Lebanon Country Programme Manager for the Mines Advisory Group (MAG), told IRIN. Read more about Deminers urge patience as Palestinians grow restless for return
Today, during the second day of a three-day peaceful protest in the Palestinian refugee camp of Baddawi in solidarity with Palestinian refugees from Nahr al-Bared, the Lebanese army opened fire on the protesters in Baddawi refugee camp, killing two people and injuring 25, seven critically. A peaceful protest began within the Baddawi Palestinian refugee camp in north Lebanon. The protesters had signs reading “Nahr al-Bared is in our soul” and “Nahr al-Bared, we won’t forget you.” The protesters were calling for an end to the violence. Read more about Lebanese army fires on nonviolent demonstration, kills two
As Mohammad trudged towards the Lebanese army checkpoint on the outskirts of the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp, he thought the nightmare of the last three weeks was finally over. Unable to flee as gun battles and shelling razed their neighbors’ homes, Mohammad’s family had been stuck inside the camp since fighting first broke out between the Islamic militant group Fatah al-Islam and the Lebanese army. The army checkpoint was supposed to provide a safe haven for these desperate Palestinian civilians. Instead, Mohammad claims, this is where his journey of torture began. Sophie McNeill reports for Electronic Lebanon. Read more about Collective punishment of Palestinian civilians in Lebanon
