After two weeks of waiting with my parents and brother at the Egyptian border crossing, I returned home to Rafah, Gaza from a trip. We waited because the Israelis didn’t allow us to cross the border. We spent two days outside the border terminal in Egypt and 12 days inside the border terminal. 4,000 Palestinians waited like this, some for three weeks. Sometimes we got food and water, sometimes not. I don’t remember if I really slept or not during twelve days inside the terminal. I didn’t eat a lot because really I didn’t want to go to the bathroom. It wasn’t a bathroom actually - four walls and a piece of plastic for the door. Nine Palestinians died there. Read more about "We suffer together, we leave together"
We visited Qana six weeks ago. To get there from Beirut, you pass through Tyre and then head southeast. The village clusters about a hilltop less than eight miles from Lebanon’s southern border, and about thirty miles from Nazareth. There is a scholarly debate about whether this was the site of the Wedding at Cana, where Jesus is said to have performed his first miracle, creating wine from water. The Roman historian Eusebius and St. Jerome both believed this was the place. There is no doubt that Qana was an early Christian site. For those schooled in Hollywood movies and religious picture books, this is a Biblical-looking landscape that exceeds all expectations. Read more about They Have No Wine
My love affair with Lebanon began when I left America in 1969 to settle in Beirut with my Lebanese husband, Michel, and our two small children, Naim and Nayla. In Beirut, I found my place to grow. My commitment to stay there through the first eight years of the civil war was a consequence of that deep love affair. I had married into a family that was loving and accepting. It was exciting to wake up every day as a foreigner embraced by a Lebanese family. This is the kind of love which develops a loyal Beirut heart, one which never dissolves. When war began in 1975 I chose for practical reasons to stay and fight. When I say ‘fight’ I mean fight in a way a housewife does. Read more about A loyal Beirut heart
1,500 members of the New York community, horrified at the senseless killing of Palestinians and Lebanese by the Israeli military, marched across the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan today to demand an end to the violence. The Israeli military has killed nearly 200 Palestinians in a matter of weeks, including dozens of children. In less than two weeks in Lebanon, Israel has killed nearly 500 Lebanese and made one million more refugees in their own country. In both Palestine and Lebanon, Israel has targeted civilian infrastructure, such as power plants, roads, factories, schools, airports, and bridges. Read more about 1,500 Protesters March Across Brooklyn Bridge
I have been feeling numb for a while; the overwhelming news in the past few days has focused on the displaced, the searing stories of people who fled in fear and left all their possessions behind. Calls on TV stations and on the radio of people who lost their loved ones … Stories of their anxiety about homes they left behind … Scenes of people murdered on the roads as they fled … And stories of the destruction they saw on those roads. I get confused: Am I seeing and hearing the stories of Palestinians who fled their homes in fear in 1948? No: I am in Beirut, it is 2006, and these are the stories of the Lebanese who have been rendered refugees, but by the same perpetrators of the 1948 displacement: the State of Israel. Read more about We have lost our faith
Salaam a’laykum - peace be upon you. The greeting used by Arabs and Muslims all over the world - and for the people of Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq, a poignant reminder that peace is a precious thing. Seeing the images of massacre at Qana today I don’t know where to begin - or how to stop crying. I feel I can only convey fragments - perhaps because my heart is breaking. I’m trying hard not to seem melodramatic, because I know how it is there - you read this in the midst of a long, exhausting, busy day and too many of these and it’s too much to bear, it feels so far away. Read more about A night at the symphony in Damascus
It is mid-morning here in Nablus and the sound of bullets are ripping through the air from somewhere very close by. Sirens are wailing in the distance. Yesterday, around midnight, special Israeli forces assassinated two activists near the old city of Nablus. The scattered volleys and the sound signatures of different caliber bullets are tell-tale signs of a funeral procession. But what I see in front of me on the television screen is much more disturbing. Videos of little boys and girls, all dead, being pulled out from under the rubble of a building. It is much too painful to look for more than a few seconds at a time. Read more about The recurring scenario of death at Qana
“The families will grieve. The children will grow up without their mothers. The memorial at Qana, already displaying the coffins of 106 civilian deaths, will swell by at least 55 more, at least 20 of them children’s sized. And the atrocities, tacitly and repeatedly permitted, will continue. ” Today in the Lebanese village of Qana, over 54 civilians, including at least 34 children, were killed in Israel’s most deadly strike on Lebanon since it began bombarding the country 19 days ago. The attack echoes Israel’s strike on the same village 10 years ago, when 100 civilians taking shelter in a UN base there. Here is a collection of posts made on Lebanese blogs in reaction to the massacre. Read more about "And still, it continues ...": Lebanese bloggers react to massacre at Qana
I had a really bad headache all day … we were driving on the coastal road, stopped every few minutes to document. The smell was so strong. When I got home, I blew my nose and the tissue was all black. I made sure to take a really good shower. We were going to send out the press release, pics and video today, but we got even worse news … There had been a massacre in Qana early this morning. History repeats itself. The Israelis dropped a bomb on a building that was sheltering refugees. The news at this point is that 55 were killed. It was only a few years ago that the Israelis did the same thing, except last time, it was a UN building that they hit and over 100 people were killed. Read more about Chasing oil and coming home to another massacre
Today, Palestinians in Gaza demonstrated against Israel’s military assault in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip in front of the European Union office in Gaza City. In Gaza Palestinian artists have painted a mural during the demonstration. The EU Council of Foreign Ministers will hold an extraordinary meeting in Brussels on Tuesday in order to assess the situation in Lebanon and to prepare further EU action following the International Conference on Lebanon in Rome on 26 July. Finland’s Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja, whose country holds the current EU presidency, and EU Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner will report on their visit to the region. Read more about Photostory: Gaza protests Israel's assault on Lebanon
