Eilon, Friday, August 25, 2006
Hello friends
I traveled to Qiryat Shemona yesterday to visit my Lebanese friends, who spent the entire month commuting from their third floor apartment to the nearby shelter which serves two apartment buildings in their complex. On the last day of the war a bus was organized to evacuate the Lebanese [all South Lebanese Army veterans] to Eilat. The entire week at a hotel was organized and funded by an anonymous donor. This seemed to be the case as the war entered its third week and a minority of the population remained stuck in the town, without the means to evacuate or any particular southern destination in mind. So while our friend Butrus and his daughter Shareen managed to get out of the hazy town, where smoke from the numerous forest fires ignited by rocket attacks was all too pervasive, his wife Hasiba remained behind, minding the home, and communicating with friends at the entrance to the shelter, until the sirens sounded.
Now Butrus and Hasiba had other concerns beside the daily barrage, the noise of Israeli artillery and the thickening smoke and smoldering Naftali hillsides in the sweltering heat of the valley. Their own home in their native Lebanese village had been struck, and that of friends and family. The village came under bombardment from both sides. The Maronite Christian village also was a recipient of some 7000 Shi'ite residents who found refuge in its public buildings.
After the cease-fire went into effect a number of former neighbors managed to reach Qiryat Shemona, most with intentions of remaining, if possible, in Israel.
According to our companions, their friends and family quite frequently are harassed by Hezbollah operatives. After the recent fighting, fear of reprisals or punitive action based on suspicion of their activities, real or imagined, has animated a few dozen families to flee to the frontier, where Hezbollah's presence is no longer felt and where the IDF operates.
Last night fifteen such Lebanese managed to clear through the border where the standard security fencing had been removed to accommodate the onrush of troops into Lebanon. Among them was a young girl who spoke fluent Hebrew [she was born in Israel] who was inexplicably separated from her parents at an earlier date. She pleaded for the Lebanese, who feared severe reprisals if they were returned to their homes in Lebanon. According to the report they huddled on the Israeli side of the frontier under the watchful but bewildered eyes of young Israeli conscripts that were dispatched to the scene to guard them. They were later temporarily moved to an army base pending a future decision permitting them to remain or be repatriated.
Despite the month long rocket attacks, no-one could complain that life was better in Lebanon. Our friends implored family to make the journey to Israel, since the intervening years in which Hezbollah established itself as the primary power in south Lebanon has confined their family and friends to their village with little or no work and no prospects for a better future. There is a concern that if the family was to entirely uproot itself, all of their property; their homes and real estate would be entirely lost to them.
I concluded my visit with a brief tour within the immediate neighborhood to survey some of the damage caused by the rocket fire. One need not have strayed far. Scorched pine trees could be seen from the apartment windows on the soft, rolling, tawny hillside. I discerned less damage than my hosts, who had a better idea of what the area looked like before the rockets began falling. Two doors down, Butrus led me to the shrapnel splotched masonry of the entrance to one residence. Across the street a fourteen story apartment house had been struck on the eighth floor. A worker was busy peeling away large flakes of masonry that fell the length of a vertical scaffold eight stories below into an open dumpster filled with debris. Across the street from the police station, two shops with large display plate glass windows stood shattered. Down the street another house's tiled roof was exposed by the force of an explosion. In the other direction, we noted the temporary roofing on the indoor shopping mall where a rocket had penetrated.
I left my friends declaring that I hoped that my next visit would not come in the aftermath of yet another war, which we all conceded is a fair possibility.
Love-Barry