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Lebanon conflict hurting economy, experts say

27 July 2006


Economists say that the current conflict in Lebanon is having a negative impact on the Iraqi economy as most of its trade with Lebanon has been frozen and business with Syria has decreased. “Lebanon and Syria were Iraqi’s most important trading partners,” says Muhammad Rushi, an economic analyst and professor at Baghdad University. “Hundreds of contracts had to be cancelled or postponed due to the current violence in Lebanon.” There are no reliable statistics on the volume of trade between those countries but officials say that millions of dollars are exchanged every month in trade that includes medicines, vegetables and grains. 

Displaced families tell of horrors left behind

27 July 2006


Before they left in a convoy of cars filled with screaming children and fluttering white sheets, the women of Yaroun tried to organise a team to rescue the elderly and sick of their village that for two weeks has been caught up in the deadly crossfire of Hizbullah militants and the Israeli army just two kilometers from Lebanon’s southern border. They failed. “All the men are migrant workers and most of the summer visitors are dual nationality Lebanese who were told to evacuate,” said Leila Saad. “So the only people left behind are women, children and the elderly. I saw a grandmother who was trapped in the rubble of her house, and we left her to die.” 

Palestinians still stranded on Syrian-Lebanese border

28 July 2006


Some 200 Palestinians are still waiting at the Lebanese-Syrian border crossing at Masnaa for entry authorisation from the Syrian government. Having fled from some of the worst-hit areas of Lebanon, around Tyre and the southern Bekaa Valley, the stricken families have officially left Lebanese territory but are being refused entry into Syria. They now find themselves stuck in a virtual no-man’s land between the two countries. Almost all those waiting at Masnaa hold joint Lebanese-Palestinian travel documents, specially issued for the 350,000-400,000 Palestinian refugees who live in Lebanon but who enjoy only limited rights and restricted status. 

Israeli military operations continue to cause large scale displacement

27 July 2006


Large numbers of people continue to flee their homes every day, as Israel’s military operations in Lebanon have been going on unabated. Israel says that the operations and the air, sea and land blockade on the country are in retaliation for the abduction of two soldiers which occurred during border clashes between Hezbollah and Israeli troops. Israeli military operations were initially limited to south Lebanon and the southern districts of Beirut where Hezbollah is based; however, aerial bombing has targeted other parts of Lebanon as well, including Tripoli and El Abdeh in the north. Israel has heavily bombarded south Lebanon. There is no accurate information on the scale of the displacement crisis. 

ICRC: 150,000 Lebanese have taken refuge in Syria

27 July 2006


The ICRC today distributed a total of 3,000 family parcels to both residents and displaced persons in the villages of Naqura, Alma Ech Chaab, Dhaira, Yarine, Ramiyé and Rmeish. The parcels contained enough supplies for one week, including food, household items, blankets and other essentials. First aid workers from the Lebanese Red Cross (LRC) evacuated six injured people to hospital, along with 10 unaccompanied children and one elderly person. The situation was particularly alarming in Rmeish. People who had fled the village told ICRC delegates that people were drinking foul water from a pool used to collect water for irrigation. There was also a shortage of food, especially for babies. 

UN Palestine Committee expresses grave concern over ongoing Israeli military operations

27 July 2006


The Bureau of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People expresses its grave concern over the ongoing Israeli military operations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, which has resulted in many Palestinian civilian casualties and a major humanitarian crisis. Since Israel, the occupying Power, started its major military operation in the Gaza Strip on 28 June 2006, following the capture of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian groups, more than 130 Palestinians have been killed, many of whom were innocent civilians, including more than 30 children. Hundreds of Palestinians were wounded. 

Video: DC marches in mock funeral procession against Israeli assaults

28 July 2006


Hundreds of protesters, many carrying antiwar signs and fake coffins, marched quietly in a mock funeral procession Tuesday, July 25, through upper Northwest Washington to the Israeli Embassy to protest the bombings in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. Close to 400 protesters showed up for a spirited demonstration at the Israeli Embassy, 514 International Drive, NW, in Washington DC. Many of the protesters wore black. They carried 50 coffins draped in black. They began at 5:30 PM, at Van Ness and Connecticut Avenues, with a march done in silence. It then proceeded around the neighborhood and ended up in front of the Israeli Embassy. 

Security Council calls for comprehensive Israeli inquiry into killing of UN peacekeepers

27 July 2006


Voicing its shock and distress at the Israeli Defence Forces’ (IDF) killing of four unarmed United Nations military observers in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, the Security Council today called on the Israeli Government to conduct a full investigation. In a statement read out by Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sablière of France, its President for July, the 15-member Council stressed that “Israel and all concerned parties must comply fully with their obligations” under international humanitarian law on the protection of UN and associated personnel, and ensure that UN staff are not the object of attack. Meanwhile, in the past 24 hours there have been three incidents of firing close to UN positions from the Israeli side. 

Economic and Social Council adopts resolutions on repercussions of Israeli occupation on Palestinians

27 July 2006


The Economic and Social Council this afternoon adopted a resolution on the economic and social repercussions of the Israeli occupation on the living conditions of the Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and the Arab population in the occupied Syrian Golan. The resolution, adopted by a roll-call vote of 45 in favour to 3 against, with 3 abstentions, called for the lifting of the severe restrictions imposed on the Palestinian people; and demanded that Israel comply with the Protocol on Economic Relations between the Government of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization signed in Paris on 29 April 1994 and that it urgently transfer Palestinian tax revenues. 

How Do we Sleep While Beirut is Burning?

Hamid Dabashi New York, United States 28 July 2006


“The paramount mood of Beirut in late-June 2006 was the hustle bustle of a thriving cosmopolis. Ours was a privileged perspective — two foreigners familiar with the pulse of the neighborhood, embraced and welcomed by a constellation of friends and acquaintances, comrades and colleagues… Beirut was thriving. Lebanon could have been a model of productive ideological conflicts, of civil discourse, progressive politics, foreign investments, domestic contestations, intellectual diversity, moral variations. Beirut was civil, civilizing, cosmopolitan.” In part one of a two-part series, Professor Hamid Dabashi reflects on the beauty of a country reduced to rubble by the Israelis and into two dimensions by the news media.