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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. 

'Refuseniks' say they won't attack civilians

9 August 2006


Called up to serve in the conflict against Hezbollah, reserve soldier Israeli Tom Mehagel decided he couldn’t fight. “I don’t believe that Hezbollah has any goal but destroying Israel,” the artillery staff sergeant told IRIN. “But we shouldn’t use our force against civilians.” Mehagel is one of a small group of Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) reservists who have refused to fight against Hezbollah in Lebanon because they don’t think it is right. Soldiers in Israel who refuse to fight are known as ‘refuseniks’. Using disproportionate force, including attacks against civilians, is a violation of international humanitarian law. 

Families return to Tyre amid ongoing bombardments

9 August 2006


As explosions from an Israeli bombardment blew open the doors of her apartment and sent her two terrified daughters scrambling into her arms, Fatima Abbas explained why she had moved back home to Tyre in south Lebanon from the relative safety of the mountains near Sidon. “I wanted to come back from the first day we arrived in Ketermaya,” said the young mother, explaining her decision to leave the mountain town 20km northeast of Sidon, to which she had fled on the first day of the war between Israel and the armed wing of Lebanese political party Hezbollah. 

Shelters at maximum capacity in Sidon, charity says

9 August 2006


Relief workers are struggling to cater to the needs of increasing numbers of displaced people arriving in Sidon, a port city 40km south of Beirut. “People arrive here with only the clothes on their backs,” said Sheikh Khalil al-Solh, a member of local charity group The Islamic Gathering. “They have no money, no jobs and when they arrive they do not even have mats to sleep on. We’ve been able to absorb the displaced since the beginning of the calamity, but the moment Sidon is hit, there will be a catastrophe.” According to the Lebanese Higher Relief Council, a government body set up specifically to manage relief efforts during this conflict, some 50,000 displaced people have fled to Sidon.