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Why Are We the Story?

Patrick McGreevy Beirut 22 July 2006


The western media has been focused like a laser on the dramatic story of the evacuation of refugees from western countries. The Americans I know who are on their way out all have the same question: Why are we the story? With hundreds dead, thousands injured, hundreds of thousands displaced, Lebanon essentially turned into a Gaza with mountains, and the Bush Administration saying that talk of a cease-fire is “premature,” can we ever expect the western media to report what is significant rather than what will entertain its audience? 

Report of the Secretary-General on UNIFIL (21 January 2006 to 18 July 2006)

21 July 2006


Hostilities within and outside the UNlFlL area of operations have continued without interruption since 12 July. Israel continues to conduct large-scale airstrikes on infrastructure and strategic targets throughout Lebanon, including the Beirut international airport, which has since remained closed, the port, various Beirut suburbs and towns further north along the coast and in the Bekaa Valley. The Beirut-Damascus highway and other routes connecting Lebanon to the Syrian Arab Republic have also been bombed. Many fuel depots and petrol stations have been destroyed. 

"Didn't you watch the news? They started hitting Palestinians"

Mayssoun Sukarieh Shatila Camp, Beirut 24 July 2006


“People are starting to sell what they have to get bread; yesterday two people came to ask me if I buy their cell phones, they are selling all what they have. Yesterday, a father of five children who used to work in delivery came to sell me his cell phone, since I work in that area of telephones. Well. it was worth at least 50,000 liras — $32 — and he offered it for just 30,000 liras — $20 — he that 30,000 liras will buy 30 bundles of bread and, which will allow them to live for a month. He asked me, ‘what do I need with the cell phone? I needed it for work, but where is work now?” 

ADC Files Lawsuit Against Secretaries of State and Defense

24 July 2006


Today, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) filed a federal lawsuit claiming that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld failed to fulfill their constitutional and professional obligations and protect US citizens in a crisis or time of war. In the lawsuit, ADC alleges that the defendants placed US citizens in peril by not taking all possible steps to secure the safety and well being of US citizens in Lebanon. ADC is joined in today’s lawsuit by several American citizens who have returned from Lebanon after escaping the violence and others who remain in Lebanon. 

Letter from Palestinian filmmakers to Locarno International Film Festival 2006

18 July 2006


We would like to express our deep concern with the fact that the festival’s Leopards of Tomorrow program is co-sponsored by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Given the current belligerence exhibited by Israel in its ongoing brutal attack on Palestinian and Lebanese civilians and infrastructure, justified by the same Ministry of Foreign Affairs that is listed as a cosponsor of the festival, we demand that the festival organizers reconsider their relationship to the government of Israel, and withdraw the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs from the list of the festival’s sponsors. 

Five Palestinian Civilians Killed in Northern Gaza Strip

24 July 2006


Today, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) killed five Palestinian civilians, including two children and an elderly woman, in two separate attacks on Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip. Fourteen other civilians, including five children and a woman, have been wounded. In the early morning, IOF warplanes attacked a house in Gaza City after having ordered its evacuation. These latest crimes have come in the context of the continued IOF offensive on the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and have followed a statement by an IOF spokesman that IOF would attack houses under suspicion to prevent militant groups from accumulating weapons. 

An Emotional Rollercoaster

Efstratios Sourlagas Rejmeh 22 July 2006


Tonight I feel apprehensive. It has been almost two days now that I have not heard the alarming sounds of bombardment. Paradoxically, after an initial relief, this ‘absence’ has made me even more nervous as I (and many Lebanese) consider their imminent return. “From Sunday, when the Americans are gone, they are going to bomb us hard”, remarked a relative of a Lebanese friend of mine yesterday as we were watching from my friend’s apartment the US navy ships anchored near the port of Jounieh. All day long on Friday military helicopters were evacuating US citizens from the troubled Lebanese shores to the safety of the ships. 

Precarious conditions in mountain shelters for fleeing Lebanese

23 July 2006


Conditions for fleeing Lebanese seeking refuge in the mountain areas north of Beirut are precarious, with relief supplies needed urgently to cope with the growing numbers of displaced, says the top UN refugee agency official in Lebanon. The problem is getting those supplies into the country. UNHCR teams are buying supplies such as mattresses locally for the time being, but are increasingly anxious for a safe delivery route into Lebanon so relief supplies can be delivered from outside. Tonnes of relief items were moved Friday and were en route to Damascus, Syria, on Saturday in a convoy from the agency’s stockpiles in Jordan. 

TV crews hit by Israeli bullets in the West Bank

20 July 2006


The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned that members of two Arab television crews were wounded by rubber bullets during an Israeli army operation in the West Bank city of Nablus on Wednesday. Wael Tanous, a satellite technician with the Qatar-based channel Al-Jazeera, was hit in the left leg while standing near his uplink vehicle on a main road in Nablus around noon, Al-Jazeera reporter Guevara al-Budeiri told CPJ. She said Tanous, like all crew members, was wearing a vest labeled “TV.” Walid al-Omary, Jerusalem-based bureau chief of Al-Jazeera, told CPJ, “It was clear when they shot him that they knew he was press.” Tanous was treated at a local hospital. 

From Syria, with love

Leila Buck Damascus, Syria 23 July 2006


It has been demonstrated time and time again (Iraq, Palestine and now Lebanon come to mind) that demonizing people so you can feel better about destroying everything they hold dear is not the best route to peace in any region. Therefore, I would like to offer an alternative to counteract the fear-mongering demonization of Syria that seems to be the one thing our administration is now willing to stand for (besides doing the same to Iran): The Syrian people are some of the most welcoming, kind and forgiving people I have ever encountered. Some notes from today to illustrate this point follow.