'You Reach A Place Where You Look At Life Like It's Nothing' By Dahr Jamail 8-2-6 Walking into the scene of the massacre yesterday in Qana felt like entering a bottomless pit of despair. A black whole of sadness, regardless of the fact that the bodies of the women, 37 young children, the elderly, and what few men were there had been removed. Mohammad Zatar, the 32-year-old Lebanese Red Cross volunteer I spoke with down in Tyre, after we'd been to Qana, described the scene and the feelings better than I can. "I worked to rescue people after the first Qana massacre in 1996," he told me as we stood in front of the Red Cross headquarters. "But this one was so much worse. It was the ages. So many baby kids, unlike last time. Four months to 12 years. Only six adult bodies! Only 8 injured survivors. The rest -- all kids. There were no scratches on the bodies because they were all buried in the rubble. It was a bad scene." He told me he used to be gung-ho. That he'd always worked to be the first on the scene, take the big risks. But yesterday he shook his head often while we talked. "This makes you feel so pessimistic," he continued, "You reach a place where you look at life like it's nothing. I've cried and cried and cried, all because of the babies. This is the worst." Israeli jets roared overhead in the afternoon heat, the thumps of their distant bombs audible during the lulls of the crystal blue waves that crashed upon the nearby beach. "We entered the place, and we could only use our fingertips," he said, holding up his hands to underscore his point. "Your fingers. You had to use all your senses. When I found a tip of a finger poking up through the rubble, I would start to shake like I was shocked by electricity, because I knew it was another child. I'm still shocked." He told me of his three year-old girl. "I can't sleep, I keep checking her in her bed to make sure she's still alive. I go in and just hold her. I pick her up and hug her. Just to touch her and hold her and feel her breathing. And now while I must keep working, every 20 minutes I'm calling her. This has shattered me. I was never scared before, but now I am." He saw me looking inside the headquarters at several of the other volunteers as they stood around. All of them seemed to move in slow motion, tired, lost. "If you look in the eyes of all the rescue workers here, you see the sadness, the badness of war," he said, then held my eyes for a very long time. We just stared at each other. I gave him a firm handshake and put my left hand on his shoulder. I wanted to give him a hug, but didn't want to embarrass him. Instead I told him, "Thank you for what you do. Please take care of yourself Mohammad." I traveled to Qana and Tyre with my friend Urban, a Swedish-Iraqi journalist. He and I were unable to work today. We had plans to interview refugees in Beirut who've been arriving by the thousands from the south, and just agreed after lunch to wait until tomorrow. We're both shattered. My photographer friend from Holland, Raoul, also went to Tyre yesterday. He sits downstairs at his computer. "I'm so tired, I feel like I can't continue here so I'll leave tomorrow," he told me. "How do you say it, in English, when there is no more room for any more feelings?" Yesterday's trip was difficult, driving through so many empty villages atop the rolling, rocky hills of southern Lebanon. Like small ghost towns, inhabited by unattended dogs, cats, and the odd wandering herd of goats. One blasted building, shop, house after another. We followed small paths swept through the rubble of the streets, around the larger chunks of concrete, to make our way through and out, then on to the next village to repeat the process. In Qana I spoke with two men, residents there who'd dug through the rubble of the shelter to look for their loved ones, only to find them dead. One of the men lost his parents. His mother was 64, his father 70. The second man, Masen, lost his 75-year-old uncle, and his aunt, who was 70. "They bombed it twice," he said, "After the first bomb we heard the screams of the women and children. And moaning. Then a minute later they bombed it again. After that we heard no more screams. Only more bombs around the area." Down at the Red Cross afterwards, I also interviewed Kassem Shaulan. He was in an ambulance hit by an air strike. He pointed out the hole from the rocket--an inverted flower of blooming metal, straight down the cross-section of the cross painted in red atop the white ambulance. He still couldn't hear well, his vision was blurred, and he had several scars and stitches. "We had an old man in the back on a stretcher whose leg was blown off," he told me, "And a young child who is now in a coma." The ambulance near them was hit by an air strike as well--severely injuring everyone in it. Kassam told me that it took them three times to reach Qana after the shelter was bombed. "We got the call at 5 a.m. and had to turn back because three bombs barely missed our ambulance," he said, "Then, the second time, we were bombed and they missed again. So that is why we weren't able to reach there until 9 a.m. So most likely people died because the Israelis kept us away." Driving home we had one of our few moments of levity of the day. A frazzled looking young British man, covered in dust and sweat and wearing shorts and ruffled shirt, drove up to our car on a motor scooter. We were heading back towards Sidon from Tyre through plantations of banana trees. "Hi," he said. After we replied, "hello" he smiled and continued, "Oh great--you speak English. Can you tell me, which way is it to Tyre?" We pointed behind us and drove on as he revved his little engine and continued south. Urban and I looked at each other, he smiled, and I said, "What in the hell was that?" We both laughed. "Maybe he's a tourist who rented his scooter in Beirut," I suggested. Urban replied, "He may as well ask, 'Hey guys, can you tell me which way the war is?'" Most of the drive we were quiet. Just driving, and watching the magnificent changing of colors just before sunset. The nearby hills to the east bathed in orange. The green palm fronts seemed to glow, thanking the sun for the light. The turquoise waters of the Mediterranean shimmered as the afternoon breeze began to pick up. Just driving. And trying to take deep breaths. (c)2006 Dahr Jamail All images, photos, photography and text are protected by United States and international copyright law. If you would like to reprint Dahr's Dispatches on the web, you need to include this copyright notice and a prominent link to the http://DahrJamailIraq.com website. Website by photographer Jeff Pflueger's Photography Media http://jeffpflueger.com . Any other use of images, photography, photos and text including, but not limited to, reproduction, use on another website, copying and printing requires the permission of Dahr Jamail. Of course, feel free to forward Dahr's dispatches via email. More writing, commentary, photography, pictures and images at http://dahrjamailiraq.com
'No Hezbollah Rockets Fired from Qana' By Dahr Jamail Inter Press Service 8-1-6 QANA (IPS) -- Red Cross workers and residents of Qana, where Israeli bombing killed at least 60 civilians, have told IPS that no Hezbollah rockets were launched from the city before the Israeli air strike. The Israeli military has said it bombed the building in which several people had taken shelter, more than half of them children, because the Army had faced rocket fire from Qana. The Israeli military has said that Hezbollah was therefore responsible for the deaths. "There were no Hezbollah rockets fired from here," 32-year-old Ali Abdel told IPS. "Anyone in this village will tell you this, because it is the truth." Abdel had taken shelter in a nearby house when the shelter was bombed at 1 am. When the bombings finally let up in the morning, he went back to the bombed shelter to search for relatives. He found his 70-year-old father and 64-year-old mother both dead inside. "They bombed it, and afterwards I heard the screams of women, children, and a few men -- they were crying for help. But then one minute after the first bomb, another bomb struck, and after this there was nothing but silence, and the sound of more bombs around the village." Masen Hashen, a 30-year-old construction worker from Qana who lost several family members in the air strike on the shelter, said there were no Hezbollah rockets fired from his village. "Because if they had done that now, or in the past, all of us would have left. Because we know we would be bombed." Qana had been a shelter because no rockets were being fired from there, survivors said. "When Hezbollah fires their rockets, everyone runs away because they know an Israeli bombardment will come soon," Abdel said. "That is why everyone stayed in the shelter and nearby homes, because we all thought we'd be all right since there were no Hezbollah fighters in Qana." Lebanese Red Cross workers in the nearby coastal city of Tyre told IPS that there was no basis for Israeli claims that Hezbollah had launched rockets from Qana. "We found no evidence of Hezbollah fighters in Qana," Kassem Shaulan, a 28-year-old medic and training manager for the Red Cross in Tyre told IPS at their headquarters. "When we rescue people or recover bodies from villages, we usually see rocket launchers or Hezbollah fighters if they are there, but in Qana I can say that the village was 100 percent clear of either of those." Another Red Cross worker, 32-year-old Mohammad Zatar, told IPS that "we can tell when Hezbollah has been firing rockets from certain areas, because all of the people run away, on foot if they have to." While IPS was interviewing people in Qana at the site of the shelter Monday, Israeli warplanes roared overhead. Vibrations from nearby bombing rattled many buildings. At least three villages in southern Lebanon were attacked in Israeli air strikes Monday. Following the international outcry over the air strike, Israel declared a 48-hour cessation of air strikes in order to carry out a military probe into the Qana killings. Despite the false Israeli statement that it was halting its air strikes, Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon told Army Radio that the stoppage "does not signify in any way the end to the war." Israel has rejected mounting international pressure to end the 20-day-old war against Hezbollah. The United Nations has indefinitely postponed a meeting on a new peacekeeping force for southern Lebanon. While defending the Israeli air strike on the civilians in Qana, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations Dan Gillerman told the UN Security Council that Qana was "a hub for Hezbollah", and said that Israel had urged villagers to leave. Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres said in reply to questions in New York Monday that the bombing was "totally, totally its (Hezbollah's) fault." (c)2006 Dahr Jamail All images, photos, photography and text are protected by United States and international copyright law. If you would like to reprint Dahr's Dispatches on the web, you need to include this copyright notice and a prominent link to the http://DahrJamailIraq.com website. Website by photographer Jeff Pflueger's Photography Media http://jeffpflueger.com . Any other use of images, photography, photos and text including, but not limited to, reproduction, use on another website, copying and printing requires the permission of Dahr Jamail. Of course, feel free to forward Dahr's dispatches via email. More writing, commentary, photography, pictures and images at http://dahrjamailiraq.com
Nursey, What is your point to posting those stories? are you trying to inform me that a war is going on? or that Israel is not playing fair? I would like to try understand your intention of the information you are trying to disseminate. What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?
Is happening on both sides of the border. Just because Hezbollah has crappy rockets doesnt mean they arent killing people. You think those rockets are aimed at 'military' targets?
No it sucks on both sides. The problem is Hezbollah is launching rockets from civilian areas, the Israelis are heat tracing back to where the rockets come from, then they bomb the shit out of it. Killing lots of innocent people. A lot of times, if not all the time, they launch the rockets from a truck, or trailer, As soon as its gone they haul ass. So when the Israelis come in they are gone and no-one is left but the civilians. Its common to see the same thing in Afghanistan. They are cowards who hide behind women and children. Winning the war of public opinion and making the Israelis out to be the evil doers. Which is funny, because Israel wouldnt be doing had not palestine killed and kidnapped Israeli guards.
Nursey, I hear the point you are trying to make, but it is drowned out by the fact that war is an esstial part of the human condition. It is impossible not to make war with one's neighbors at some point. There aren't 2 people in the world who can get along perfectly, forever. Also, war is not meant to have rules. No matter how many rules you make, they will always be broken. The United States, which I love with all my heart, has never obeyed the rules for war for any period of time, and likely never will. We play the nicest, but we are not unlike those we fight. To think so, is to fool one's own. Finally, don't allow yourself to be taken in by any propaganda at all. Yes, the killing of women and children is horrifying. If they would like to have it all stop, there is a story in French history about a place called the Bastille. You may know it. If you do, then you know what those women and children should do if they don't like war anymore. If you don't know it, I would google it soon. TheStreaker
Since when in war were there not horrifying acts of brutality? or are you refering to that these acts were perpetrated by Israel so they in fact are worse than similar acts carried out by Hizbollah?
Well, if you people really think that destroying a whole country's infrastructure, 'precision bombing' to death hundreds of innocent civilians (and still counting) - a third of whom were children...as well as creating an enormous humanitarian disaster and plunging the whole planet - already in danger of erupting into all out war - into much deeper chaos is a price worth paying for a couple of Israeli soldiers (who, depending on who you believe, were either kidnapped from Israel or captured inside Lebanon), then there's not much point in me discussing it any further with you. Maybe when gas prices start soaring as a result you might be a bit less gun ho about Israel's unwillingness to negotiate the soldiers' release. But seeing as this land grab has nothing to do with the soldiers, that was never an option in the first place. Here's an article from Haaretz, Israeli news: Morality is not on our side By Ze'ev Maoz
I like how you post the opinion of an extremely small minority as though it were clinical fact. You are the Yin to Joeslogic's Yang Nursey.
In a time of war there are no innocents or civillians, Rockets from hizbollah fighters are not guided and are cabable of killing just as many innocents and civillians. As far as gas prices soaring, current gs prices are a result of a much more competitive international market, which is where gas prices are set. The expanding economies of China and India, and there reliance on oil and petroleum products drive the cost and consumption up. War never determines who is right, only who is left. And in this case it looks like Israel is about to get a whole lot bigger. Sun Tzu the art of war: Never leave a wounded enemy on the battle field, that enemy may come back to hurt you. I would imagine that both countries are thinking along these lines.
The extreme opposite of Joe? So, that would make me the most fanatical variety of Islamic fundamentalist. For posting the article from Haaretz? I see. Well thankyou for answering Barry's question "Does any rational person tthink that Israel would purposely target an "innocent" Red Cross vehicle? What could they possibly benefit?" I suppose the same can be said about the four U.N. international observers and the shelter full of women and children.The answer is obviously 'precision bombing ambulances/UN observers/women and children by one of the richest, well equipped, technologically advanced armies the world has ever seen is of benefit to the Israelis who wish to use force to terrorise into submission those whose land it wishes to steal'. She still doesn't answer the question - why aren't they using their capability to do that? And Hezbollah rockets wouldn't be falling in Israel in the first place if Israel had exhausted all means to reach a non-violent solution to the situation.
The extreme opposite of Joe? So, that would make me the most fanatical variety of Islamic fundamentalist. For posting the article from Haaretz? I see. Well thankyou for answering Barry's question "Does any rational person tthink that Israel would purposely target an "innocent" Red Cross vehicle? What could they possibly benefit?" I suppose the same can be said about the four U.N. international observers and the shelter full of women and children.The answer is obviously 'precision bombing ambulances/UN observers/women and children by one of the richest, well equipped, technologically advanced armies the world has ever seen is of benefit to the Israelis who wish to use force to terrorise into submission those whose land it wishes to steal'. She still doesn't answer the question - why aren't they using their capability to do that? And Hezbollah rockets wouldn't be falling in Israel in the first place if Israel had exhausted all means to reach a non-violent solution to the situation.
Apologies for the double post. Hizbullah's attacks stem from Israeli incursions into Lebanon By Anders Strindberg NEW YORK – As pundits and policymakers scramble to explain events in Lebanon, their conclusions are virtually unanimous: Hizbullah created this crisis. Israel is defending itself. The underlying problem is Arab extremism. Sadly, this is pure analytical nonsense. Hizbullah's capture of two Israeli soldiers on July 12 was a direct result of Israel's silent but unrelenting aggression against Lebanon, which in turn is part of a six-decades long Arab-Israeli conflict. Since its withdrawal of occupation forces from southern Lebanon in May 2000, Israel has violated the United Nations-monitored "blue line" on an almost daily basis, according to UN reports. Hizbullah's military doctrine, articulated in the early 1990s, states that it will fire Katyusha rockets into Israel only in response to Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians or Hizbullah's leadership; this indeed has been the pattern. In the process of its violations, Israel has terrorized the general population, destroyed private property, and killed numerous civilians. This past February, for instance, 15-year-old shepherd Yusuf Rahil was killed by unprovoked Israeli cross-border fire as he tended his flock in southern Lebanon. Israel has assassinated its enemies in the streets of Lebanese cities and continues to occupy Lebanon's Shebaa Farms area, while refusing to hand over the maps of mine fields that continue to kill and cripple civilians in southern Lebanon more than six years after the war supposedly ended. What peace did Hizbullah shatter? Hizbullah's capture of the soldiers took place in the context of this ongoing conflict, which in turn is fundamentally shaped by realities in the Palestinian territories. To the vexation of Israel and its allies, Hizbullah - easily the most popular political movement in the Middle East - unflinchingly stands with the Palestinians. Since June 25, when Palestinian fighters captured one Israeli soldier and demanded a prisoner exchange, Israel has killed more than 140 Palestinians. Like the Lebanese situation, that flare-up was detached from its wider context and was said to be "manufactured" by the enemies of Israel; more nonsense proffered in order to distract from the apparently unthinkable reality that it is the manner in which Israel was created, and the ideological premises that have sustained it for almost 60 years, that are the core of the entire Arab-Israeli conflict. Once the Arabs had rejected the UN's right to give away their land and to force them to pay the price for European pogroms and the Holocaust, the creation of Israel in 1948 was made possible only by ethnic cleansing and annexation. This is historical fact and has been documented by Israeli historians, such as Benny Morris. Yet Israel continues to contend that it had nothing to do with the Palestinian exodus, and consequently has no moral duty to offer redress. For six decades the Palestinian refugees have been refused their right to return home because they are of the wrong race. "Israel must remain a Jewish state," is an almost sacral mantra across the Western political spectrum. It means, in practice, that Israel is accorded the right to be an ethnocracy at the expense of the refugees and their descendants, now close to 5 million. Is it not understandable that Israel's ethnic preoccupation profoundly offends not only Palestinians, but many of their Arab brethren? Yet rather than demanding that Israel acknowledge its foundational wrongs as a first step toward equality and coexistence, the Western world blithely insists that each and all must recognize Israel's right to exist at the Palestinians' expense. Western discourse seems unable to accommodate a serious, as opposed to cosmetic concern for Palestinians' rights and liberties: The Palestinians are the Indians who refuse to live on the reservation; the Negroes who refuse to sit in the back of the bus. By what moral right does anyone tell them to be realistic and get over themselves? That it is too much of a hassle to right the wrongs committed against them? That the front of the bus must remain ethnically pure? When they refuse to recognize their occupier and embrace their racial inferiority, when desperation and frustration causes them to turn to violence, and when neighbors and allies come to their aid - some for reasons of power politics, others out of idealism - we are astonished that they are all such fanatics and extremists. The fundamental obstacle to understanding the Arab-Israeli conflict is that we have given up on asking what is right and wrong, instead asking what is "practical" and "realistic." Yet reality is that Israel is a profoundly racist state, the existence of which is buttressed by a seemingly endless succession of punitive measures, assassinations, and wars against its victims and their allies. A realistic understanding of the conflict, therefore, is one that recognizes that the crux is not in this or that incident or policy, but in Israel's foundational and per- sistent refusal to recognize the humanity of its Palestinian victims. Neither Hizbullah nor Hamas are driven by a desire to "wipe out Jews," as is so often claimed, but by a fundamental sense of injustice that they will not allow to be forgotten. These groups will continue to enjoy popular legitimacy because they fulfill the need for someone - anyone - to stand up for Arab rights. Israel cannot destroy this need by bombing power grids or rocket ramps. If Israel, like its former political ally South Africa, has the capacity to come to terms with principles of democracy and human rights and accept egalitarian multiracial coexistence within a single state for Jews and Arabs, then the foundation for resentment and resistance will have been removed. If Israel cannot bring itself to do so, then it will continue to be the vortex of regional violence.
I suppose posting the opinion of an extremely tiny minority (the U.N) : "Since its withdrawal of occupation forces from southern Lebanon in May 2000, Israel has violated the United Nations-monitored "blue line" on an almost daily basis, according to UN reports." ...as though it were clinical fact will put me in a similar category as Nutjobslogic.
As I read these posts I am convinced of one thing - human nature causes us to cling to information that supports our beliefs and to reject information that counters our beliefs. We are programed by our genes to be unable to come to the truth. That said, Nursey is just dead wrong. So is Joe, so am I, and so is whoever is reading this. Our own biases and genetics prevent us from knowing the whole truth of anything. So I conclude - Israel is no more innocent than the Islamic radicals are guilty. Maybe the world would be better place if they ALL were gone. Yeah, that's it - the US should nuke the entire middle east. A "cleansing" of the land. Get China and Korea while we are at it. They are irrational and violent people as well. Then when only us "good" English types are left, the world can be a happy place, because everyone knows that Brits and 'mericans are peace loving and non violent people. Barry
