Report Number 2 from Lebanon: Attack and Defense or War? By Samia A. Halaby

Report Number 2 from Lebanon: Attack and Defense or War?

By Samia A. Halaby

Al-Jazeerah, September 22, 2006

We visited the hospital at Bint Jubail and were easily given an immediate opportunity to talk with the director of the hospital who told us about the injuries and death of people in the village and showed us where the hospital was hit. The Israelis hit the hospital in three locations damaging the central electric exchange of the buildings, the generator, and the operating theatre.

In Bint Jubail we passed a school building whose entire curtain wall had fallen revealing rooms with children’s school chairs and tables. Near Khiyam we saw a primary school damaged beyond use. In Khiyam, we saw a museum bombed to uselessness. Everywhere we saw homes, whole neighborhoods, and even whole towns bombed to shreds.

In Sur (Tyre) our delegation met with a doctor at the largest hospital and we received detailed information about civilian injuries, deaths, and the fact that injuries continue on a daily basis due to cluster bombs. He also explained to us that there were two wars: one was of fighting between defenders of the south and the attacking Israelis, and one was a large scale attack on the civilians of Lebanon who were represented and defended by Hizbullah.

We have been told by the environmental expert and AUB (American University of Beirut) professor, Rania Masri, that one million and one hundred thousand cluster bombs are spread throughout the southern landscape and that they represent a manifold expense and danger that will not be solved for at least ten years. This cost will be, first that of homes and infrastructure, then that of the economy, and lastly that of agriculture. Agriculture will be the last to be fixed as it will take that long to diffuse the cluster bombs that explode unpredictably. This will create extreme economic pain for the farmers of the south and impoverish the area further.

We could easily see that the Israeli attack on Lebanon of July 2006 was a criminal attack on civilians and civilian infrastructure. And we heard from the people that this was something even a donkey could figure out – western media notwithstanding. So why do those who read the western press insist on being so mystified? Of course, me dummy, their interest! Instinctively, everyone knows the direction whence their interest is served. So who is it who support Hizbullah and who attacks it? Those who benefit or lose by it, of course, dummy! Donkey! At the base is our pocket that pays to fill our stomach. The one thing that I do wonder about is why no one has built a huge stomach for us all to worship! Or maybe I am a blind donkey! Maybe the dome of the senate in DC is just that.

But, hey, even people of Dahye have a joke – Dahye, the worst hit civilian neighborhood of southern Beirut. There in Dahye they say that their apartments have gotten hugely more valuable now after the virtual rain of US missiles and bombs; because, finally, in spite of all the crowding of poverty, they have an ocean view.

This article was submitted by Naim I. Farhat on behalf of Samia Halabi, who is touring and writing from south Lebanon.

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

Apartheid Wall


The Israeli Land-Grab Apartheid Wall built inside the Palestinian territories, here separating Abu Dis from occupied East Jerusalem. (IPC, 7/4/04).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python. (Alquds,10/25/03).

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