Monday, July 31, 2006

The current situation: Balad Mankoob

Here's a sample of how the situation is today in Lebanon:

  • more than 750 people killed, among them almost 70% were civilians


  • Our prestigious, and only commercial Airport is nothing but ashes, they bombarded at first the fuel tanks then they the building itself then everything else, the Airplanes were smuggled out to Cyprus mainly (they probably had the authorization from the Israeli troops to smuggle them). Rebuilding, if the money's available, will take at least a whole month


  • All the other airports are in the same situation


  • All our ports were bombarded too, resulting in a total maritime isolation


  • Almost every bridge is destroyed... They even destroyed the bridges connecting the small towns!


  • The South and Bekaa are isolated and divided to a serie of several isolated towns (for those who don't know, the rural towns are usually a couple of hundred person living in total dependence to other towns


  • more that 120 000 individuals have already left Lebanon, mainly to Syria (DUH! it's the only country that has land borders with us, except for Israel of course). Many of the people that have left are Syrians that had entered the Lebanese borders illegally, lol, now they are too scared to stay, some are going on foot because the connection between Lebanon and Syria was destroyed


  • More than 800 000 Lebanese people left there homes, most of them fled the bombs in Beirut and the south of course. Most of them have no where to go and have simple taken refuge in the open schools, the public schools have been instructed to open there doors for any refugees and the teachers have been instructed to come to there posts everyday in order to organise the aid distribution and other logistic details. Private schools have also opened there doors for refugees, but that is an individual option that obeys the personal conviction of each school. Another home for some refugees are the churches, the churches are of course safer at this moment than mosques, but a church was bombarded too the other day killing those inside. The churches however suffer from one disadvantage, they have no direct connection with the public services, and there fore a lot of additional effort is being deployed to make sure no one starves to death for example.
    But take a second and revisit the number: 700 000 refugee! Just for the record:
    - The Lebanese population is only 4 000 000.
    - The cedar revolution that forced the former government to quit and the Syrian troops to withdraw, that revolution mobilised 1 000 000 individual (some say a little more but that's the a good approximation).
    - The 1996 events (a rather similar situation) forced only 250 000 individual out of there homes, most of them fled to Beirut.


  • Beirut itself is empty, this hasn't happened since the end of the civil war. Now the population concentration is not homogeneous in Beirut because the attacks are not, but in general people that have the chance to leave have done so


  • Transit trucks are under attack! The message is clear, the Israeli part is simply trying to totally isolate the Lebanese population, to literally force us to attack Hezbollah ourselves. I don't blame the Israelis for doing whatever it takes to achieve there goals, but I don't know, I secretly admired the Israelis now I wonder if they are anything better than Hezbollah? Even though I know that Hezbollah is simply much less human, and even though Israelis have proven to be more reliable

  • The Humanitarian aids are suffering just as much (if not more) as Hezbollah. The international Red Cross spokesman in Lebanon spoke about the difficulty of aids in Lebanon, even Hospitals are isolated, coordination with fighting parties is practically impossible, the Lebanese Red Cross is saying that the international links are failing to get an Israeli permission for the Red Cross. In fact the other day 4 trucks, carrying humanitarian and medical aids to Lebanon from Kuweit, were attacked.


  • The radars are put to ashes


  • Our archeological treasures are in danger, especially in the South.


  • The Ecological situation is no better, fuel's floting in the sea and we can't even do anything about it

  • I know that the last couple of points are of less importance if you see the human damage, but once the war will stop this more permanent damage will be very heart breaking I can't think of what Lebanon would be like tomorrow, but it's an ugly Lebanon.

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