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Cruising out of Beirut

Patrick McGreevy Beirut 19 July 2006


In the early evening, we watched from our apartment balcony as a huge white cruise ship glided past west Beirut toward Cyprus. Aboard were several groups of evacuees, including a number of US students from American University of Beirut. A few minutes later, another colossal cruise ship came by in the opposite direction; we heard it was a French ship that would be taking out more evacuees tomorrow. It looked like time for a Caribbean festival. At our apartment were gathered a group of about 10 AUB faculty and staff, and one young Filipino woman. The phone rang: it was an AUB official who needed immediate answers. The time had arrived: each of us had to decide whether to stay or go. 

The racist subtext of the evacuation story

Jonathan Cook 19 July 2006


On Tuesday, when at least 35 Lebanese were killed, we had the BBC’s Ben Brown in Beirut giving a blow-by-blow account of every facet of the evacuation of foreign nationals in general and British nationals in particular. If anyone doubted the racism of our Western media, here it was proudly on display. The BBC apparently considers their Beirut reporter’s first duty to find out what meals HMS Gloucester’s chef will be preparing for the evacuees. Lebanese and Palestinian civilians die unnoticed by the Western media while we learn of onboard sleeping arrangements on the ship bound for Cyprus. 

Day 6 of the siege: Notes on solidarity, Hezbollah, and Israel

Rasha Salti Beirut 18 July 2006


Most of Beirut is in the dark. I dare not imagine what the country is like. Today was a relatively calm day, but like most calm days that come immediately after tumultuous days, it was a sinister day of taking stock of damage, pulling bodies from under destroyed buildings, shuttling injured to hospitals that have the capacity to tend to their wounds more adequately. The relative calm allowed journalists to visit the sites of shelling and violence. The images from Tyre, and villages in the south are shocking. 

From Damascus

Leila Buck Damascus 19 July 2006


Every time you hear that Israel is “minimizing civilian casualties” with “surgical strikes”, know that the south of Lebanon and everyone in it, as well as those in the southern suburbs of Beirut, are decimated and continue to be bombed many times daily. Also know that Lebanon is the size of Rhode Island, or Connecticut - which one, I forget exactly - it’s small. So while bombing every bridge and road in and out of the country plus every port may seem to be better than targeting civilians, it is a slower and more insidious kind of targeting - a complete and knowing crippling of an entire nation’s ability to get help to those wounded or supplies to people who need them. 

Wondering who the terrorists are...

Tanya Nasr Jounieh 19 July 2006


I am a Christian Lebanese living in Jounieh, a city in central Lebanon. We have been under Israeli attack since last Wednesday, 12 July, 2006, following the capture of two Israeli soldiers for the purpose of exchanging them for 6 Lebanese prisoners who have been in Israeli prisons for 25 years. Where do I start? Do I talk about the monstrosity of Israel? Or even worse, of the American support of the ugly war and their refusal of any discussion of a ceasefire? Well, why should “Condi” care? It’s not her children who are being massacred while trying to flee from the chaotic Israeli fire! 

IOF Attack El-Maghazi Refugee Camp in Gaza and Raid Nablus

19 July 2006


From the predawn hours till the publication of this press release, IOF have killed nine Palestinians and injured 81 others, including 14 children and a paramedic. Six of the dead, including two children, fell in El-Maghazi refugee camp, and the others fell in Nablus. IOF had attacked Nablus and besieged governmental buildings, claiming that there were wanted people inside them. IOF continue to detain the bodies of the fallen in Nablus after taking them from an ambulance. PCHR is concerned over the continued Israeli aggression in El-Maghazi and Nablus, which could lead to additional casualties among Palestinians and to additional destruction of their property. 

Al-Jazeera reporters detained in northern Israel

17 July 2006


The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned by the detention of Al-Jazeera television crews covering Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel amid allegations that they were “assisting the enemy.” Walid al-Omary, Jerusalem-based bureau chief for the Arab satellite TV station, told CPJ that he had been detained by Israeli police three times in two days for his reporting on the location of rocket attacks. Al-Omary said he was detained yesterday evening with his crew for two hours at a police station in the northern port city of Haifa. 

Security Council delays, awaits high-level UN team

18 July 2006


The United Nations Security Council met Monday to discuss the current volatile situation on the ground in Lebanon, but the majority of council members have decided to delay any sort of reaction to the Israeli shelling of Lebanon and the Hezbollah rocket launches, until the UN high-level team reports back to the UN Secretary-General mid-week. “The Secretary-General expressed his intention to work with Security Council members on a package of actions that is practical and requires the parties to release their abductees, stop the rockets, and has Israel cease its retaliatory actions,” said top UN political affairs official Ibrahim Gambari after he briefed the council. 

World Food Programme sends emergency assessment team to Lebanon

18 July 2006


With tens of thousands of people fleeing the escalating conflict in Lebanon, WFP has sent an emergency team to conduct a preliminary needs assessment of the logistics infrastructure and particularly the feasibility of reaching the population in the affected areas. The agency has already drafted contingency plans to draw on existing food stocks within the area as well as its emergency response depot in Brindisi, southern Italy. Tens of thousands of displaced persons, including women and children, have abandoned their homes and taken shelter in temporary accommodation in schools and social institutions. Cut-off from the rest of their families, they may require food aid to survive the crisis. 

A New Middle East is Born: But not exactly the one Shimon Peres had in mind

Omar Barghouti 18 July 2006


Six long, bloodstained days have passed since Israel launched its barbaric attack on Lebanon without succeeding in exacting a significant military toll on the resistance itself. Six days are exactly what it took Israel to deal a crushing and humiliating military defeat to the largely inferior armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan in June 1967, and to subsequently occupy the Palestinian Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the Syrian Golan Heights, and the Egyptian Sinai peninsula. How the “Middle East” has changed in the past 4 decades! Indeed, thanks to the Lebanese resistance, and to an extent its Palestinian counterpart, this volatile zone is undergoing radical transformation.