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One-month anniversary

Zena El-Khalil Beirut 10 August 2006


It has been one month now. For one month, Lebanon has had bombs drop on her. In one month, I have aged 50 years. For one month, I have cried everyday. As the days unfold, the news is only getting worse. I find myself sinking … it has become so hard to write. How many times can I keep repeating, help, Israel is targeting civilians; Israel is blowing up the whole country; infrastructure has been hit; all the highways have been hit; roads and bridges, hit; food and wheat storages, gas and fuel supplies, communication towers, ports all hit; hospitals shutting down because they have run out of fuel … the whole country is slowly being choked to death? 

Searching for the truth under the rubble

Andy Young New Orleans, United States 10 August 2006


The first time I met someone who was not from New Orleans who understood why I wanted to return after the city was nearly destroyed by Hurricane Katrina was when I met Rim from Beirut. I was at a writer’s residency, offered to me in the aftermath of last year’s disaster, when I was discussing with one of the people who ran it my difficulty, both logistically and psychologically, in getting to the place. The logistical part was clear, but I did not understand why it was that I had a very difficult time leaving the city to come to that clean, safe place. “It makes no sense,” I remember saying. A woman nearby overheard us and said “It does to me.” 

Photostory: Refugees forced from their homes by Israeli shelling

Motasem A. Dalloul Gaza Strip 10 August 2006


On 3 August, United Nations humanitarian agencies issued a report on the deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip after six weeks of Israeli siege. The report noted, “UNRWA is currently sheltering 1,345 people from 289 families in four schools in the northern district of Jabalia. Almost all are refugees, fleeing the relentless shelling of the eastern edge of the neighboring town of Beit Hanoun and the area around the Al Nada housing estate in Beit Lahia. In addition to shelter UNRWA is providing the families with daily food parcels and medical supplies.” 

Words Fail as the Bombs Fall

Mayssoun Sukarieh Beirut 10 August 2006


I haven’t been able to write. Words irritate me these days. Words distorted and twisted by power, words re-used by journalists and analysts like parrots. A country waging a war becomes a country under siege, resistance groups become terrorists. I do not want to use the language the new rulers of the world are using. I get irritated listening to myself uttering a single word they use. I haven’t been able to write also because words fail. I sat yesterday in front of the TV set, watching a broadcast about the Shayyah massacre where 43 people died. It is at the funeral; there are interviews with bereaved mothers. 

The End of Lebanon?

Ran HaCohen 10 August 2006


The UN Security Council resolution draft on Lebanon reflects a new stage of Western colonialism in the Middle East, and perhaps a historic precedent: for the first time, the UN Security Council - should the resolution draft be endorsed - breaches the fundamental principle of the right of people under occupation to resist, and in fact legitimizes the violent partition of the sovereign state of Lebanon. The American-French draft reflects the interests of three central colonial powers in the region: the U.S., Israel, and France. No wonder that the draft, which pays lip-service to Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, in fact suggests a partition of this small land. 

UN agencies: 1,020 killed; 915,000 displaced

9 August 2006


According to the Higher Relief Committee (HRC) of the Government of Lebanon, 1,020 people have been killed and 3,508 injured. The number of displaced currently stands at 915,000 (45 percent are children). Most internally displaced persons (IDPs) are located in South Beirut, Mount Lebanon, Chouf, and Aaley, and others are located in and around Bekaa and northern Lebanon. Although some IDPs remain in the coastal cities of Tyre and Sidon in southern Lebanon, few people remain in southern Lebanese villages, and many who initially moved to southern cities have now fled further north. 

Weekly Report on Human Rights Violations: 26 Palestinians killed, including 6 children

10 August 2006


Twenty-five Palestinians, including six children and an old man, were killed by IOF. Three of the victims were extra-judicially executed by IOF in the West Bank. Fifty-nine Palestinian civilians, including 26 children and women, were wounded by the IOF gunfire. IOF launched a series of air strikes on a number of houses in the Gaza Strip. Rhree houses were destroyed after their residents were warned that the houses would be attacked. IOF have continued to shell the northern Gaza Strip and al-Shouka village near Rafah, and many families were forced to leave their homes. 

Cartoon: Defensible Borders

10 August 2006


The quest for defensible borders has been an axiom of Israeli governments since 1948. Defensible borders for Israel has been explicitly backed by Washington since the Reagan administration. The complete demilitarization of all countries around Israel and around those countries as well will not be enough. Defensible borders in the end would require Israel to extend its borders around the continents. 

Najdeh closes Lebanon nursery after Israeli attack on Ein Hilweh camp

10 August 2006


A Christian Aid partner in Lebanon has suspended work in a nursery it runs for Palestinian refugees after an Israeli missile attack last night. According to media reports, Lebanese and Palestinian officials said an Israeli gunship shelled the Ein el-Hilweh camp on the outskirts of the town of Sidon, south of the capital Beirut, killing at least one person. The Israeli military said the attack was an air strike that targeted a house in the camp used by Hezbollah guerrillas. Ein el-Hilweh is the largest of Lebanon’s 12 Palestinian refugee camps and is home to about 75,000 Palestinian refugees and their descendants who were displaced by the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. 

OCHA: 1,020 Lebanese dead; 3,508 injured; 960,000 displaced

9 August 2006


The Government of Lebanese’s (GoL) Government Higher Relief Committee (HRC) have reported that 1,020 people, 192 deaths more than at the same time last week, have been killed and 3,508 injured in the conflict to date. Information on the general displaced population from the HRC essentially remains static (960,000 displaced overall with some 700,000 still located in Lebanon). In the South, local authorities have estimated that 130,000 remain, including residents and IDPs in the Tyre area; 40,000 Palestinians in the Tyre refugee camp; and another 25,000 people along the border/Blue Line.