On Thursday September 21, 2006, I returned to Bint Jbeil, guiding members of the Netherlands delegation from D4. We walked again through the streets and I searched for our friend from the scarves store. It was 3:30 and I remember her saying that she goes home at 3:00. I was sad to miss her. But I was glad to see more signs of life in the town on the main road and in parts of the old town. We walked through the old town and I searched more carefully with my eyes for the remains of family life in the neighborhood. I remembered the destruction in Jenin and I could see that here the destruction was more complete, more thorough. It was as though the neighborhood was put in its entirety into a monstrous machine which ground it to dust. We stepped in many inches of fine beige dust, dust as fine as talcum powder. Read more about Signs of life in Bint Jbeil 

In Bint Jbeil we saw almost total destruction and this destruction encompassed all parts of life. Yet in the middle of this damage there were a few amazing jewels of life bubbling open. In the south of Lebanon the landscape is covered with the dust of missiles and destruction. The trees, the weeds, and the cultivated plants are coated with a sickening yellow dust that immediately impresses a sensation of poison and death. Inside the villages, the dust and garbage spread through all parts of the town regardless of the damaged areas. Areas of massive destruction looked like strange cliffs and fields of broken cement chunks interspersed with bits of brightly colored cloth or plastic. Read more about Flowers in Bint Jbeil