Accounts from Lebanon

I arrived in Jordan at 5.30am this morning. As ever the Hashemite Kingdom is a little oasis of peace in the region. I'm only about 100 miles from Beirut but of course there is no immediate sign of that conflict here. I haven't yet had a chance to talk to many Jordanians, but I intend to do that and join in with any demonstations happening here in the coming days. I emailed a dozen friends in Lebanon and have heard back from only four so far of them saying they're safe. It seem communications are difficult, with one friend saying he had to try 30 times to make an international phone call and another mentioned that even the phone and email for the UN offices in Beirut are all down.

A Lebanese Indymedia activist writes: "The Israeli offensive against Lebanon is an act of aggression against the whole Lebanese people. The IDF claims to be attacking an “infrastructure of terror”, but the attacks on bridges, roads, airports and ships are cutting the country into pieces, threatening to create a disastrous situation by impeding the transportation of food and medicines, and terrorizing everyone. Besides the hundreds killed and injured, thousands of people are fleeing the country, and thousands of people are fleeing from the areas where the bombing is heaviest into central Beirut. Even here in the “safe” parts of the city we can hear the bombs throughout the day and night, and electrical and water supplies are tenuous. Political and civil society organizations here are organizing to help people deal with the effects of the invasion, but there is only so much we can do on our own. We are calling on our brothers and sisters in the rest of the world to do two things to help us. First we call on you to protest at Israeli embassies and consulates, as we hear some groups are already doing. The Israeli government must be held accountable for its criminal and terroristic actions here and in Palestine. We also ask you to send us information about any such protests you carry out. Secondly we are asking you to help us with our work with displaced people here in Beirut. The group we are part of, the Relief Center - Spears, is working in 23 schools in the central areas of Beirut, which were housing more than 5,000 people as of the night of July 15th (we don’t know how many thousands more are in other areas). People there are sleeping 10 or 15 to a room without enough mattresses, and they are only receiving food and water irregularly from the government. Many are children or elderly, and except for trauma centers the only medical care is being provided by volunteers organized by the Relief Center. These volunteers are lacking the medicines and other supplies they need to care for people. Media activists here will shortly be distributing videos documenting the situation in these schools, which will only get worse if nothing is done. Besides the humanitarian aspect of the situation, helping displaced people is crucial to the reconstruction of Lebanon after this crisis ends. One aspect of the Israeli offensive is an attempt to foment tensions between different cultural groups in Lebanon. This is the only way they can hope to achieve their goals without an all-out war, but in the end it would do more damage to Lebanese society than any amount of physical destruction. A broad relief effort is an essential part of avoiding such a disaster. We urgently need money to buy the supplies we need to help the internally displaced population here." We ask everyone who can to send donations, however small, the Relief Committee – Spears in the care of the following two people by bank transfer.

c/o Georges Azzi:
- Bank Name: Credit Libanais SAL Beirut – Agence Sassine
- Swift Code: CLIBLBX
- Client Name: M. Al Azzi Georges Chaker
- Account Number: 0430012080006817356

c/o Bassem Chit:
- Bank Name: SociÈtÈ GÈnÈrale de Banque au Liban – Hamra Branch
- Swift Code: SGLILBBX
- Client Name: Bassem Chit
- Account Number: 007004362092875014 or 007004367092875014

Here is a petition you can sign which a Lebanese friend asked me to publicise. It seems to have been started by the Free Patriotic Movement of Michel Aoun.


An American university professor married to a Lebanese lady writes: "Greetings from a country on the verge of total destruction! I am in Beirut for a few hours this morning because my wife needs to do some medical tests that they only can carry out properly at the American University Hospital. We spent the last four days outside of Bhumdoun, at 1,000 metres, overlooking the burning capital city. For some reason it has been very foggy, so we were spared the sight most of the time. All the alpine resort towns were emptied of Gulf tourists on Thursday and started filling up with refugees from the south and Beirut on Sunday, so supplies are now starting to get tight. If any of you are wondering what you can do to help the Lebanese people, there is really only one way. The country's infrastructure is being systematically destroyed by sea and air, and we expect Israeli land expeditionary forces sometime soon. This week will be hell for us. Please contact your respective governments, local, regional and national, as well as the EU if you live there. The only way to slow down the Israeli war machine and prevent them from totally destroying Lebanon is to make them aware that the world is not only watching them, but also sincerely cares about the Arab populations in the Middle East, Muslim, Christian and secular. There must be an international tribunal for war crimes and crimes against humanity after this carnage. Please do whatever you can to make the Israeli government and Israeli people aware that they (along with everbody else) will be held accountable for their actions. There must he no impunity in this war."

Some more links: A Lebanese discussion forum on the war - already there are 190,000 posts on it. ShoofiMafi is a youth-orientated webzine with some coverage. Human Rights Watch explains the relevance of international humanitarian law to this situation. Finally my journalist friend Dahr Jamail arrived in Syria a few days before this all started and is producing some excellent reports on his blog.