Lebanon

October 24, 2007

By Michael Birmingham in Nahr al-Bared

Something terrible has been done to the residents of Nahr al Bared, and the Lebanese people are being spared the details. Over the past two weeks, since the camp was partly reopened to a few of its residents, many of us who have been there have been stunned by a powerful reality. Beyond the massive destruction of the homes from three months of bombing, room after room, house after house have been burned. Burned from the inside.

By Frida Berrigan
(c) In These Times, December 11, 2006

In just one week in October, a series of bomb scares swept across Germany. Outside of Hannover, 22,000 people were evacuated when three bombs were discovered. A few days later in the same city, a weapons removal squad defused a 500-pound bomb found near the highway. Finally, a highway worker was killed when his cutting machine hit a buried bomb on the main highway into Frankfurt.

The bombs hadn’t been planted by terrorists, and they weren’t the opening salvos of the next war. The culprit was unexploded ordnance left over from a war fought more than 60 years ago. “We’ll have enough work to keep us busy for the next 100 to 120 years,” the owner of a bomb-defusing company told the New York Times.

August 28, 2006

by Ramzi Kysia

Yesterday, I shed my first tears for Lebanon.

Yesterday, I visited Houla, a stone’s throw from the Israeli border.

Yesterday, I was discovered by Zainab Fawqi-Sleem - a young, Lebanese woman who was killed in Houla, alongside her sister-in-law, Selma, on July 15th. Zainab is but one of over 1,300 innocents killed in this war, but she is the one who found me.

August 22, 2006

by Ramzi Kysia

lebanonsolidarity.org

Last week, I made my first trip to South Lebanon since the war began. Having traveled a fifth of the world, and been present during “wars” in Iraq, Palestine, and New York – I can honestly say that I have never seen such complete devastation in my entire life. The only thing that even comes close are the pictures I’ve seen from World War II. Much of South Lebanon simply lies in ruin.

In the South, Israeli warplanes occasionally break the sound barrier, rattling people as they fly off on God knows what missions. Israeli drones constantly fly overhead. The low, insistent hum of their engines serves as a continual reminder that Lebanon is not yet safe.

August 21, 2006

See also: Grieving Relatives of Qana Massacre Emerge From the Rubble to Bury Their Dead, (Aug 22), Kathy Kelly speaks with Ami Goodman on Democracy Now! Kathy attended a funeral that took place in Qana where an Israeli airstrike on the town on July 30th killed 29 people.

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Upon arrival in Beirut in early August, 2006, Michael Birmingham met Abu Mustafa. Michael is an Irish citizen who has worked with Voices campaigns for several years. Abu Mustafa is a kindly Lebanese cab driver.

Having fled his home in the Dahiya neighborhood which was being heavily bombed, Abu Mustafa was living in his car. Abu Mustafa joked that he sometimes went back to his home in the already evacuated area of the Dahiya, just to take a shower or sometimes a proper nap. His family was living with relatives in a safer area. Toward the end of the war, Israeli bombs blasted buildings quite near his home. He tore out of the suburb in his cab and made that his home until we met him again on August 15th.

August 19, 2006

Two days ago, driving toward the village of Qana, we saw men at work, creating neatly aligned rows of rectangular cement structures that would soon be ready for burials. On foot, we entered Qana, thinking we should at least identify the site where a massacre had taken place when, on July 30th, an Israeli bomb hit a building that sheltered children as they slept. It took five hours for ambulances to reach them. Statistics differ, but the most recent Human Rights Watch report estimated that twenty-three were killed.

Turning a corner, we saw men arranging white plastic chairs for guests who came to mourn with family members in the funeral tradition. The men sat in front of one home. Women were next door.

Aug 16, 2006

On Flashpoints: Beirut after the bombing: an extended interview with Beirut-based human rights activist Tina Nac’cach

August 15, 2006

Greetings from Beirut, where day 2 of the cease fire might signal very rapid change. If road passage is quickly repaired, many groups are ready to begin reconstructing areas in southern Lebanon, Beirut suburbs, and other areas destroyed by the past month of warfare. Hassan Nasrallah has vowed that Hezbollah will undertake reconstruction in southern Lebanon.

August 13, 2006

Here in Beirut, explosions rocked the city during one ten minute stretch in the afternoon and again this evening. Periodic distant thuds assured us that the approach toward a cease fire would be fiery, deadly.

Farah and I told our Irish friend, Michael Birmingham, that the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina should help all of us understand how it’s possible that profiteering and murderous forces would consider depopulating an area for mercenary gain. Michael is legend for being our most cynical companion, albeit our saint. “Come on,” he said, “don’t tell me you’re serious.”

Human Rights Watch
August 11, 2006

The United States should reject any request by Israel to transfer cluster munitions for use against targets in Lebanon, Human Rights Watch wrote in a letter to National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley today. Civilians in Lebanon have already died from Israel’s use of similar weapons, which blanket a wide area with deadly submunitions.

According to the August 11 edition of the New York Times, Israel has requested delivery of surface-launched M26 artillery rockets for use against locations in Lebanon where it believes Hezbollah fighters are launching Katyusha rockets into Israel. The wide dispersal pattern of submunitions from M26 rockets makes it very difficult to avoid civilian casualties if civilians are in the area. Moreover, because so many of the submunitions initially fail to detonate, M26 rockets leave behind large numbers of hazardous explosive “duds” that are akin to landmines, injuring and killing civilians long after the attack.