Saturday, July 15, 2006
People of Lebanon and the Cedars of Lebanon
Facing Destruction
The BBC reported that Israeli air strike on a convoy of civilians fleeing from Southern Lebanon killed 13 of them on July 15th. And there went President Bush's message to Israelis for restraint against civilian population. No one believed in his sincerity. American forces have killed more than 40,000 Iraqi civilians in the past 3-1/2 years of war. The current situation in Lebanon and Gaza is such that even with good intentions civilian casualties cannot be avoided, and good intentions are notably absent.
- Local residents told al-Jazeera TV the villagers were targeted after being ordered to leave Marwahin, and refused shelter by the UN forces.
- Ahmad Ali Ubayd said many did not own vehicles and a main road has been under continuous bombardment.
- "Where is the international justice when children, women, and the elderly are killed?" he said.
- Correspondents say there is nowhere safe to go for many trying to flee the south.
- In past hostilities much of the mainly Shia population of the south has sought refuge in the capital Beirut's largely Shia southern suburbs, but this time they are under attack too, the BBC's Jim Muir reports from Damour, south of Beirut.
- On Saturday, Israeli warplanes also hit the southern suburbs, which are a Hezbollah stronghold.
- Earlier, Hezbollah's al-Manar TV says three civilians were killed in an Israeli attack in Hermel, on the border with Syria.
- They also carried out raids in the north and the north-east of the country for the first time on Saturday.
- A number of bridges, petrol stations and key roads have also been hit, including the main road linking northern Lebanon to Syria.
The Lebanese were just beginning to rebuild their lives, society and infrastructure after decades of being in the middle of a war zone. Beirut, the capital of Lebanon (once called Switzerland of the Middle East), was the epicenter of violence that raged between 1975 and 1990. The marks are still visible. Now it is back to ground zero. The Hezbollah remains adamant about their position and so do the Israelis in use of their vastly superior military prowess. Ordinary people die and each death leaves scars, causes ripples. The Hezbollah gains new recruits; the power of Israeli hard-liners grow. Sane voices drown in the clamor for blood and revenge. The recently elected Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel has unleashed the full force of Israel's army against Gaza and Beirut. It appears that dead and injured civilians, if they were given any consideration at all, were shrugged off as the cost for retaliation. Scott Wilson in the Post: "JERUSALEM, July 14 -- Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, elected just months ago on a promise to ease Israel's grip on the occupied Palestinian territories, now is fighting a two-front war on battlefields the Jewish state has occupied and abandoned before in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. The outcome will determine not only the fate of three captured Israeli soldiers and the northern Israeli towns under rocket fire, but also his own goal of defining Israel's permanent borders."
Efforts were underway for reforestation of the famed Cedars of Lebanon. North Lebanon, where the cedar groves are, has also come under air strikes. The fate of the famed trees is as uncertain as that of the Lebanese people.
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