Report Number Ten from Lebanon: Nearing the end of our trip

September 24, 2006

It is now near the end of our trip. One delegation left and the second will leave soon. Some work will be left on behalf of Al Jissere Group in obtaining attention to the destroyed studios and libraries of the many artists of the south of Lebanon and the south of Beirut.

Our delegation’s trip to Lebanon was inspired by the D4 sub-delegation that pushed us in New York to raise our heads from the heavy activist work and organize the trip.

In the end, I as a member of the New York Committee to Defend Palestine organized and led this delegation to Lebanon. This is the fifth delegation of the NYCDP (New York Committee to Defend Palestine), with the support of Al-Awda members and NJSolidarity, that has gone to Palestine and now to Lebanon. The first two were of activists visiting Palestine to learn about the situation – a situation that pushes activists huge distances forward. The third delegation took two experts on Depleted Uranium to examine sights in Bethlehem, Beit Jala, Beit Shour, Bireh, and All of Ghazze for use of depleted uranium. The 4th one was composed of museum curators who then created the “Made in Palestine” exhibition shown in New York by Al Jisser Group.

This most recent and Fifth delegation led two sub-delegations to Lebanon to investigate the results of the Israeli attack on the southern regions of the country and of Beirut. The first delegation was the “Demand Accountability” delegation organized by Ramsey Clark in cooperation with the International Action Center. Their fact finding mission will aid the “Demand Accountability” campaign by increasing the effectiveness of educational materials and by building enthusiasm though the realism of reporting of all delegates. This sub-delegation was composed of Sara Flounders, Leilani Dowell, and myself, Samia Halaby who played the double role of general organizer and member of this sub-delegation.

The second sub-delegation is composed of three members of the D4 organization in Amsterdam, an organization concerned with collecting information on weapons and possible use of depleted uranium in order to combat attitudes in the Netherlands. Their delegation was made up of Ed Hollantis, Sjourd Bosch, and Henk Vd Keur who is also staff member of the Laka Foundation.

Our first day was in Amman on September 10th, 2006, with only the IAC delegation, and we had the good fortune of being able to listen to Leila Khaled talking about her very recent visit to Lebanon. She reminded us as a preliminary that this was an attack on Lebanon, a country whose lands have already been occupied and re-occupied by Israel, and that there are parts that are still held illegally as for example the Shab’a Farms. Leila reminded us that the Shab’a farms are an important water resource and that many small rivers emanate from there.

She also reminded us that this was the fifth attack on Lebanon by Israel. Her conclusion from what she saw in Lebanon was that the Israeli attack had the deliberate intention of killing Lebanese civilians, destroying their homes and possessions, their economy and ruining the environment. She reminded us that Dahye had at least one million residents. She said she was staying near Dahye on the last day of bombing and she heard them drop the last twenty bombs just a very short time before the cease-fire agreement took effect and that they had a sound unlike anything else that she had heard, and that she has heard many US made bombs.

She said that the bombing implicitly aimed at dividing the towns from each other by destroying bridges and bombarding the roads. It was a war of hatred aimed at women and children. It was an obvious war of hatred like none she had seen or heard of before. Many people could not be evacuated because Israel was targeting evacuees and hitting anything that moved.

The strategic bombing was done in a way that would turn the people of the south against Hisbullah. She added that they did not bomb the Palestinian camps for the reason that they wanted them and the people of the south to resent each other.

Leila talked about Ghazze and how the Israelis have been calling families as they have all their names and numbers. They call and order them to evacuate their homes because they plan to strike their homes. When the families leave, nothing happens, so they go back. When they do, the Israelis call them yelling at them saying that they warned them and now they only have five minutes to leave. And then they bomb them whether they left or not.

Israel also called many people in Lebanon during the war and played recorded messagtes in Arabic declaring formally that this was the state of Israel calling them then detailing Lebanese war reversals and declaring Israeli victory.

Leila talked about the smarts of Hibullah mentioning their call for face-to-face talks among all the political and religious groups and their careful detailed preparation. She described them as highly educated, enlightened, and wise in their leadership.

Leila then talked about the social services that they provide the families of the south including hospitals, schools, and cultural activities.

One of Leila’s primary observations was the visit she made at the beginning of her trip to the camps of Lebanese refugees in Syria. She described that they were all from the Beka’ valley as refugees from the south had not been able to get to Syria. She also detailed for us how well cared for they were by the Syrian government. Finally, she pointed out that they would have all been permanent refugees like the Palestinians had not Hisbullah won the victory of defending Lebanese soil.

[Report Number Six to come]

Report Number Seven from Lebanon

September 24, 2006
Samia A. Halaby

On Thursday September 21, 2006, I returned to Bint Jbeil guiding members of the Netherlandish delegation from D4. We walked again through the streets and I searched for our friend of the scarves store. It was 3:30 and I remember her saying that she goes home at 3:00. I was sad to miss her. But I was glad to see more signs of life in town on the main road and in parts of the old town. We walked through the old town and I searched more carefully with my eyes for the remains of family life in the neighborhood. I remembered the destruction in Jenin and I could see that here the destruction was more complete, more thorough. It was as though the neighborhood was put in its entirety into a monstrous machine which ground it to dust. We stepped in many inches of fine beige dust…dust as fine as talcum powder.

In Jenine, I saw puddles of shoes and clothing, or batches of kitchen ware, or large bits of wooden furniture in specific sections of rubble. Here in Bint Jbeil’s old town, there were no such things. There were, however, strange bits of colored cottony clumps of fiber. I conjectured that the explosive power of missiles had blown things into clouds of dust and fiber and that the clothing, turned to fiber, had coalesced in the roiling air into these twirls of colored fiber with bits of stubborn woven parts. Only in a few places, I saw complete shards of things like a fragment of a decorative lamp or a piece of a fork or metal button.

In the old town, the structural facts behind the architectural style, that of arches and domes, was revealed. Arches, cross vaults, domes, holding floors above them, revealed the stone filling between the underlying structure and the floor above. I remember my father telling me that in his childhood, the builders, once they completed a dome would build the side walls up to the next floor then fill the hollows with rubble. The children would then be invited to stomp it so that it would be compacted before the floor of the next level was laid. While this was a lesson in Byzantine building methods, it was also an indication of the precious old homes of the old town now ground to talcum and rubble. Israeli crimes against civilian life extend to crimes against the art and culture of ancient civilizations.

In the old town and up the hill of the old town, I saw and photographed several mosques which were damaged. I saw cars on the main road burnt and bent, melted metal carcasses now kooled, tossed askew against remains of walls.

As we were leaving the old town, we asked directions from some men clearing rubble and collecting scrap metal. They asked us if we wanted to see a spot where 45 people jammed together, taking refuge from the bombing, and we said yes. I tried to photograph the dark spot where they lit a faint little lamp for me. I saw clothing, pillows, toys, blankets, and children’s books. The place was low, a cellar open on one side as it was on the incline of a mountain. The ceiling was low and they warned me not to strike my head. They said everyone stuck it many times each day. I said that I would not and I walked around with my head down but in the end, as I exited, I did strike my head on the cement.

I asked the men, how it was that the town was defended and that the Israelis never got inside. They said that they were not there and had no idea how it was done, and one of them smiled as he said that leaving us to conjecture what we might.

We finally found a cab out of Bint Jbeil. It was hard as it was evening and no one wanted to go out of town at that late hour. Still yet there were taxis available and the price was tourist high. We finally found a reasonable man who for a bit extra took us to Et Tire for us to see the family who had waved a white flag but was bombarded by a helicopter nevertheless.

Before we could go to the site where the 95 year old mother had died after her daughter had waved a white flag, we had to get approval from Hisbullah. This was done via human telegraph – a method invisible to us. The dirver stopped and asked someone who ran off o ask someone and we waited till someone ran back with an OK. As we waited In Tire we watched men clearing rubble and trucking it out of town. Jihad al Bina’ was at work.

On the way back, our driver offered to take us to see the sites of the old and the new Qana massacres. We took a quick look at the old site and saw the long graves with the many names. At the new site, we were amazed to see that it had been completely floored over and had become a collective grave with special stone burials above it for the bodies of those who were killed. Arround the graves were families with children siting in chairs surrounding the graves receiving messages of condolence from those who came to give them. Some were reading from the Koran over the graves. Along the remaining wall of he building were place large cards holding the name of each one of the victims. Some had photographs of the victims in the beauty of living. Children came and went to some of them and arranged and rearranged the flowers or added some.

We saw the photograph of a fighter who had been martyred elsewhere and we saw the pictures of his children who died at Qana – pronounced Anna in Arabic.