Two Pepsi's and the Wrath of Allah, please.

Earlier this week Hassan Deeb Nesrallah, a Lebanese shop-keeper from the Bekaa valley, along with his sons and neibours, was released by the Israeli Military into the care of the International Committee of the Red Cross. He had been taken, with his two sons Mohammad and Bilal and neighbors Mohammad Shukr, Ahmad Awta and Hassan Borji, on august first. So far no reason is evident for the daring raid involving air dropping commandos deep into the heart of Hezbollah territory except that the balding man, with neither a beard nor a turban, had the misfortune of having a name very similar to the Leader of the militant group Hezbollah.

The men were cuffed, and lead on a several hour long night march through the mountains in their slippers after which his younger son Mohammad (13) was released
And the rest were airlifted to an Israeli prison where they were held for questioning. "In the following days, the questioning became more frequent and with higher-ranking officials," Nasrallah told the Lebanese paper The Daily Star. The Israeli Military has made no comment yet about its raid deep into Lebanese territory to capture the Mini Market owner, his family and neighbours. However the accounts given by the temporary captives,and statements by their Israeli Attorney, imply that they thought he was some how related to the more famous man of the same name. His son Bilal was even accused of being the son of Hezbollah's leader when they had is actual father, purveyor of household necessities, in another cell nearby.

This doesn't fit well with the reputation for effectiveness of Mossad (the Israeli Secret Service) who have penetrated the white-house, been responsible for the assassinations of both Palestinian and Lebanese leaders, but apparently not realised that Nesrallah is about as common a name amongst the Shia as O'Brien is amongst the Irish.

Audio Slide-Shows

Hey guys... havent been posying for a while because i been working on "Multimedia projects" (audio and pictures) for news.com.au one is on the red cross and the other is on the childrens cancer centre here in beirut.


RED CROSS:
http://graphics.news.com.au/multimedia/mediaplayer/060811_beirutcrisis/index.html

CHILDRENS CANCER CENTRE:
http://graphics.news.com.au/multimedia/mediaplayer/060818_childrenscancercentre/index.html

check them out and let me know what u think
peace

Suffering Side By Side

Of the nearly a million of Internally Displaced Lebanese fleeing the conflict in the south an increasing number are finding temporary homes in the camps of the Palestinian refugees. They are also now receiving services from the aid organizations set up to care for their inhabitants. However, even now, more than 50 years after the establishment of the camps, which are dotted across Lebanon, the Palestinians within them are still denied access to government services including schools and hospitals, along with citizenship, the right to own land and the right to participate in over 70 professions.



That the aid organizations are providing for these families is remarkable. Along with the largely dependent residents of the camp they have also been caring, as best they can, for many Palestinians who have fled from camps further to the south, some of which have already been bombed and from those, such as Burj-el-Barajneh camp where the Israelis had been dropping pamphlets instructing the residents to evacuate as they intended to bomb in the coming days, closer to Hezbollah strongholds such as Dahiyeh and Chiyeh in the of south Beirut.



Approaching Shatila, one of the larger camps in Beirut's southern suburbs, infamous for a massacre carried out by the Phalange Christian militia here during the Israeli occupation in the Eighties, we saw a building burnt out and collapsed, our guide, Sanaah, a young Palestinian woman, explains that it was destroyed during the late eighties in the "Camp Wars" between the Palestinian Militias inside the camps and the Amal Militia's from the predominantly Shia suburbs which surround them. Inside we passed a mosque and were informed that the bodies of more than 750 people are interred beneath it. During a period of six month siege laid to the camps by the Amal militia's, when many died of starvation and disease as well as from the violence, not even bodies could be moved form this crowded patch of land which, thought it does not cover more than a square kilometer is home to more than 17,000 people. These, other burnt out buildings and the bullet holes which mark the walls serve as physical reminders that the tension between the Palestinian's who arrived in this country after 1948 and the Lebanese community has often flared into violence.



Despite this however, over the years increasing numbers of Lebanese, particularly poor Shia form the south, have moved into these camps and the largely Palestinian areas directly surrounding them. Since the current conflict they have been joined by hundreds more mostly relatives of those who had already moved into the areas. We spoke to Mrs M'uallam from the Nabatiyeh region in the south west of the country, who along with her teenage son Haadi, is now staying with her brother in the camp. She told us of her gratitude, mixed with embarrassment, at taking aid from the organizations set up to care for the Palestinian residents of these camps. While not rich, she had felt her self financially secure with a house and land. Though when she left three weeks ago, the windows had already been blown out and cracks were appearing in the walls from the bombing of the region and she has not heard since if it is still standing.



In another apartment in Shatila we met brothers Aymad and Jihad Ali Ali, who along with their wives Iklus and Ra'eda, and a combined total of ten children, had fled their home in the Rashidiyeh camp in Tyre. They are staying now with their mother and two other brothers – a total of seventeen people in the tiny flat, with its kitchen bathroom and one small living/bedroom. They too have been receiving food and hygiene aid from the numerous NGOs who work to provide for the camp.



While on all fronts these organizations are being stretched, the most pressing issue is that of medical care. The United Nations Relief Works Agency which is charged with caring for the Palestinian refugees here and in other Arab countries provides the camp with one doctor who will often see up to 200 patients in a day. The short fall is some what met by organizations such as the Red Crescent and smaller, Palestinian run. However these organizations can offer little more than first aid due to a crippling lack of resources. One aid worker told us of Hamza, a nineteen year old Palestinian man who broke his jaw when running from an explosion in Tyre. He has spent three painful weeks seeking medical treatment to no avail. With no access to government hospitals, his family, must some how raise $2000 (US) to have it re-set. Money they simply do not have.


Technorati Tags: Lebanon,

Israel Batting for Civil Strife

Along with physical infrastructure, political unity appears to be a target of the Israeli air campaign against Lebanon.

On Friday morning, along with many other targets, the Israelis bombed a bridge the main Highway north from Beirut where it passes through the Maronite Christian suburb of Jounieh in the north of Beirut. This strike was, according to many, along with the bombing of other Christian areas, intended to trigger a Christian retaliation against the Shi'a for allowing their leaders to bring this grief upon them.

As you follow the coast around towards the site of the blast, from predominately Muslim west Beirut, through the predominantly Christian areas in the east and the north you notice the difference in the scenery. There are crosses and statues of the Virgin Mary dotting the hillside. The women are dressed more provocatively and none are veiled. Both women and men, even those who are not religious, often wear conspicuous crosses - reminding themselves and every one else of their unique identity. All these are indicators that the divisions within Lebanon, which were made painfully clear during its fifteen years of civil war, are still present. It is these divisions that Israel seems intent on igniting.

The Israelis have dropped fliers on the city with this purpose in mind. Not the ones telling warning people to leave their homes in the southern suburbs. The ones depicting Nasralla's head on the body of a snake and sporting slogans in Arabic like "The Resistance defends the country, but the country will pay for the resistance" and "People of Lebanon, you have a snake behind you and in front of you".

At the moment the disintegration of Lebanon's unity looks unlikely. Any public condemnations of Hezbollah by public figures or sectarian leaders have been gentle in their language and usually focus specifically on the cross border raid and abduction of two Israeli soldiers which triggered the conflict. The residents of Jounieh we spoke to, all Christian shop keepers sweeping up the glass broken by the blast, held no one but Israel responsible for the damage to their businesses.

When asked why, in their opinion, Israel had stuck the almost exclusively Maronite area they sited two reasons, to destroy the roads to prevent supplies reaching Hezbollah and to turn the Christian community against the Shi'a. "They want us to blame the people from the South" said Charbel Khouri, an employee of Michaels Restaurant only a hundred metres or so from the blast. He, like the others we spoke to, told us he did not think it would work, saying the Christian community as a whole shared his opinion and blamed Israel "one hundred percent". Lebanon has, however earned a reputation of appearing far more united than it is in reality, and if the bombing continues it is possible that this kind of national solidarity could dissolve as the non-shi'a population tires of paying the price for Hezbollah's defiance. And there are many signs that this conflict may still be in it's early stages.

While diplomatic efforts to resolve the Israeli-Lebanese conflict have gone into overdrive and it seems every one is speaking of an imminent ceasefire, Lebanese Prime minister Foad Siniora has brushed such talk aside saying "I do not want to promise the Lebanese people a cease fire unless I have concrete evidence".

Neither Hezbollah or Israel appear prepared to return to the "status quo" that existed before the most recent conflict, let alone give ground. Both want to gain something for the blood they have spent. Israel is determined it seems to push forward into Lebanese territory at least to the Litany River and Hezbollah to free the Sheba Farms. The Lebanese and Israeli prisoners who were once at the centre of this conflict seem to have fallen by the wayside.

Hezbollah's Leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has perhaps come the closest to offering an olive branch, saying that if Israel stopped its bombing of "Cities and Civilians" Hezbollah would in turn stop its rocket attacks on the north of Israel and keep the conflict as a battle between their soldiers and the Israeli military. The Israeli foreign ministry responded to Nasrallah's statement by labelling the offer of de-escalation a ruse designed to give the militant group time to " rearm, regroup and once again be in a position of strength".

Nasrallah, However, also stated that if Israel were to strike Beirut proper that Hezbollah would respond with rocket attacks on Tel Aviv. The Israeli response to which was a statement that if Tel Aviv was hit then their attacks on Lebanese Infra-structure would dramatically increase in their intensity. The rhetoric on both sides refers to escalation of the conflict. Nether side has mentioned a ceasefire plan that the other is even remotely likely to accept.

Beirut Documentary Makers Call "Foul" on Italy.

In a testament to the strength of the human desire to laugh A team of two young documentary makers living in Beirut, Tarek Kandil and Montasser Bayoud from "Grey Mog" studios, have produced a short documentary called "Foul" which, under the pretence of investigating the possible link between Italian victories in the world cup in 1982 and 2006 with the coinciding Israeli invasions of Lebanon, explores the lives and attitudes of a variety of Beirut's residents. Some (including one Australian and one Italian) are foreigners, some lifetime Beirut residents. Some are people who have set up temporary homes in Beirut to escape the bombing in the south.

While most of those who have seen the movie have enjoyed it, the film makers have had one person who after seeing it was "ticked off", apparently telling them "you guys should be talking about the people dying". I do not concur.

The film is an exercise in simplicity and in all honesty, quite hilarious and touching. Each interviewee is asked the same questions, starting with who they are and where they're from and culminating with the question "Do you see any link between the Italian world cup victories now and in 1982 and the Israeli invasions of Lebanon in the corresponding years?" Everyone interviewed bursts into laughter at this point bar one, a teenage refugee from the south, in an Italian flag T-shirt, who replies in a flat even tone. "No, it was just a coincidence". For him this is no joking matter. It is on this note that the documentary ends. The effect of this is more powerful than one would first assume. The boy's face and words are burned into my memory more deeply than the images of destroyed homes, coffins and corpses that a more conventional pair of documentary makers would have gone for.

I asked Raed Habib, partner in De Prague a trendy west Beirut Café/Bar which will be hosting the documentary's first public screening, and where a large chunk of it was shot, why he decided to show the film and he replied "I think we owe it to Beirut." These guys are not alone in the feeling that Beirut deserves to laugh at its own plight, a comedy show is due to open soon in Beirut theatres called simply "Laughter Under Shell-fire". Stay tuned for a review.

Australians Escape Fighting in South

In the 48 hour “halt to aerial attacks” (which has been in reality no more than a reduction in the intensity of bombing) announced by Israel there has been a flood of people rushing north to escape the fighting in the south. Among them was a convoy of 24 Australian citizens and 16 other foreign nationals including Americans and Germans that arrived Tuesday evening in Beirut from the southern city of Tyre. Where they will be going from here is as yet unclear as a passage out of the country has not yet been arranged for them. Embassy officials declined to say when they would leave, how, or to where, saying only that at this stage "all options are being considered". For now they are staying in the relative safety of the plaza hotel in West Beirut.

Here they joined a handful of other Australian citizens who had made their own way to Beirut in the previous days and been instructed by the embassy to stay at the hotel as well. All are now here awaiting further information about where they will next be headed. While some are having their accommodation and travel costs payed for, some will be expected to foot the bill themselves. "We’re doing things on a case by case basis" one official said.

One woman, who chose to remain anonymous, spoke of being stuck with her husband and their four children in the border town of Rmeich for the whole three weeks of fighting, hearing bombing every night, and often during the day as well, once more than 50 bombs within earshot in the space of a few hours. She handed me her digital camera and showed me the pictures of he bombing they had taken from their house, explosions clearly visible only a stones throw out their window. Only once had the bombings killed any body in the town. A Hezbollah fighter had, in a remarkably cowardly attack, fired a rocket from the street then run into a house no more than a hundred metres away. Israeli aircraft had spotted him and struck the house immediately in retaliation. According to the rumours circulating in his town he had survived but his brother’s two daughters had been killed.

Early Tuesday morning she and her children had been notified by mobile phone that they were to be picked up by a UN bus which was moving those stranded in the village to the port city of Tyre. Here they met the Australian convoy and headed north to Beirut. While the woman had been living in Lebanon, where her husband ran a dairy farm for roughly fourteen years, her two eldest children were born in Australia and the whole family was eligible for evacuation. She had planned to come back to Australia some day soon, “but not like this. Not without money or a place to go.” When asked what she thought of the Embassies evacuation program she replied, “Well they were a bit slow, but we’re here and we’re safe now.”

Sam, an 18 year old man now staying in the hotel waiting for evacuation back to Australia had made his own way to Beirut the day before from the costal town of Adlou, between Tyre and Sidon. He had come to Lebanon to visit family after completing year twelve at Condell Park in Sydney’s west, and hopes now to return and do a TAFE course in electronics. Five days ago he had received a call from his worried parents in Australia who had encouraged him to leave and he had headed to Sidon, staying there five days before organising a ride to Beirut. Three rockets had destroyed bridges in Adlou only “two or three hundred metres” from his house. He had been in the street at the time and had run inside in such a fright that he kept on running strait into a wall.

More than four thousand Australians have been evacuated from Lebanon in the three weeks since the conflict began and more than three thousand of them have already returned to Australia. The flow of evacuees has now slowed to a trickle, mostly those who, like those who arrived today, had been stuck in the south unable to move for fear of getting caught up in the fighting.

Tragedy within Tragedy

Like many foreign journalists in Lebanon, I decided on Monday to take advantage of the halt to aerial strikes in south which Israel announced on Sunday to travel and see the damage first hand.

The drive down from Beirut would have weeks ago taken only an hour or two but took us more than five on Monday as we were forced through narrow mountain roads and dirt roads across farms. The roads were full of cars, busses and trucks full to the brim with displaced people. These vehicles were often sporting white flags to avoid being struck from the air (as has already happened to dozens of refugees fleeing their homes on Israeli orders). These are the only roads that open for aid to be distributed to those trapped in the south and for the wounded moved to medical attention.

Our destination was Qana, where an Israeli air-strike has killed roughly sixty people in a tragic repetition of an almost identical attack which left over a hundred dead during the grapes of wrath campaign in 1996. 53 bodies have so far been extracted from the rubble over half of them children, many of the adults either old or infirm. Seven people remain unaccounted for, but every now and then, when the wind changes, you could smell their bodies baking beneath the slabs of concrete in the summer heat. There are no reports of any armed men or weapons being found amongst the dead.

I spoke to Qudai Chalhoub, a resident of the town who told me that all those killed in the most recent attack on Qana were from either his extended family or the Hasham family who also occupied the hilltop village. He has lost in this one massacre most of his extended family. Three of the seven still unaccounted for (and in all probability rotting under the rubble meters from where we stood) were children from his family. He does not speculate about their well being. He tells me of a family of eight, his cousins, who were wiped out with the exception of one young woman. Being one of the wealthiest members of his family, as demonstrated by his fashionable attire and his diamond studded Nokia, he had been doing his best to move his relatives to safety in the north but could only arrange spaces for so many each day.

Dr Jawad Najem of the Director of the Najem hospital near Qana would later inform me that the majority had died from asphyxiation, having been trapped in the rubble for nearly eight hours. "If they could have been reached sooner we could have saved many more lives". He described also the on going struggle of his hospital, the second largest of the four hospitals in the area with its 80 beds and 30 staff, to deal with the influx of wounded. They have been relying on the Red Cross and on civilian cars to bring them their supplies down from Beirut. His family, who owns the hospital, has been buying these from their own pocket hoping to one day be reimbursed by the ministry of health. The wounded that are transferred from here to the government hospital in Beirut are transported almost entirely by their own families as they flee to the north. His policy is to try and keep 25 to 30 beds free as more wounded could arrive at any time.

Dr Najam also described to me, as had Dr Marina El Hajj, the deputy director of the American University hospital, in Beirut the presence of "strange burns" which both suspected of being the result of phosphorus bombs. Such burns as well as people dying from suffocation caused by spasms of the larynx, another symptom consistent with the use phosphorus and reported to me by Dr Najam, have been reported at hospitals and clinics across the country. The use of such weapons, a modern and more powerful version of napalm, is illegal under international law.

Dr Salaam Ismael from Doctors for Iraq has recently arrived in the country in the hope of setting up field clinics in the south as he feels his experience working in places like Fallujah would be helpful. He described the situation in the south and the situation he had seen in Iraq as "almost the same". Once we passed Tyre and entered the south proper on our approach to Qana we saw for our own eyes what he meant. We could not drive more than a kilometer or two without passing the site of a recent Israeli bombing. Craters and destroyed buildings, most of them appearing to have been houses. As in Qana there were smashed children's toys and clothing mingled with the rubble. A reminder that the tragedy at Qana represents only a fragment of a much broader tragedy unfolding in Lebanon which has claimed hundreds of lives already and will claim a thousand soon if not checked.