Plight of the Displaced
BEIRUT -- Here's the story I did for the San Francisco Chronicle last night.
As Israeli jets screamed overhead and the resounding booms of bombs and shells echoed across the city Saturday, Ahmad Nanou, his wife and their 11 children clung together in an old school in a Beirut neighborhood as war raged around them.Israeli jets and naval gunships unleashed a furious pounding of the Lebanese capital on Saturday afternoon, killing at least 33 people during the fourth day of the Middle East's latest war.
Nanou comes from the ancient southern Lebanese city of Tyre, where until Wednesday he and his children sold lottery tickets in the street. That night, as Israel launched its attack on the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in retaliation for the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers, he and his family -- four of the children still in diapers, he said -- fled north by using back roads and crossing open fields. The Israelis had already bombed the bridges and main highways north to Beirut in their initial assault.
Soon after the family fled the area, the Israeli air force bombed the back roads, too.
"The planes scared my children," Nanou said as he waved his hands around the family's new quarters in a Beirut school.
One of his children lay on a foam mattress without moving, staring straight up. "My 3-year-old is in shock and can't walk."
I'll be doing a lot of my posts like this, as much of my energy has to go into the freelance work. I hope y'all don't mind these shortcuts right now.
Comments
We like whatever we can get! Thanks for sharing this stuff with us.
Posted by: The Liberal Avenger | July 16, 2006 7:02 PM
Thought I feel certain it wasn’t your intent, I think it diminishes the situation to say the Israeli attacks are “in retaliation for the kidnapping of two soldiers.” That the kidnapping was the last straw, would be more accurate, in a continuous seige upon the Israelis who have undergone years of intermittent rocket attacks from both Hizballah and Hamas. I hope you’ll get a chance to report about the night terrors experienced by children consigned to bomb shelters in Northern Israel, as they have been so many times over the years since Lebanon promised to disarm Hizballah. If we allow the real axis of evil — Hamas, Hizballah, Iran and Syria — to prevail there we will all be in trouble.
Posted by: nathalie | July 16, 2006 9:20 PM
Thanks for the updates— whenever you can. In our paper, yay! SF is nice, if you ever wish to take in a different ocean, or once your adrenals are exhausted. Take care. Please take care.
Posted by: jess | July 17, 2006 6:41 AM
Nathalie,
Hizbollah shells Israel when Israel violates Lebanon’s sovereignity, such as flights over Lebanese territory or border crossings into Lebanon by IDF troops. Similarly, Hizbollah attacks Israeli civilians when Israel attacks Lebanese civilians, as is now the case with Operation Just Reward. Those have always been the “rules of the game” between Israel and Hizbollah.
Hizbollah, whatever else can be said about it, has survived as a political and regional force because it understand concepts like “deterrence” and “balance of fear”, concepts that are totally incomprehensible (or anathema) to the IDF.
Posted by: Peter H | July 18, 2006 4:26 AM
Peter H.:
Your source(s)?
Posted by: Nathalie | July 19, 2006 3:17 PM