TYRE — Greet­ings every­one. I’m in Tyre at the moment, about as close to the front line as you can get if you’re not an active fighter. The growl of Israeli jets over­head is con­stant, as is the whine of the sur­veil­lance drones. Every morn­ing since I’ve been here, I’ve heard the thump-thump sound of the pam­phlets being dropped by jets.
To the south, along the curve of the coast, Hezbol­lah is launch­ing Katyushas, but I’m loathe to say too much about them. The Party of God has a copy of every journalist’s pass­port, and they’ve already has­sled a num­ber of us and threat­ened one.
Most vil­lages across the south are now inac­ces­si­ble because the Israelis have turned many of the roads around the cities into kill zones. “Two ambu­lances were hit Sun­day night”:http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/07/25/MNGJCK4N0A1.DTL&hw=allbritton&sn=001&sc=1000. Last night, the Israelis hit the United Nations post at Khiam, site of an infa­mous prison run by Israel’s proxy army dur­ing its occu­pa­tion, the South­ern Lebanese Army.
With all that, I’d like to pro­vide some links to recent sto­ries I’ve done. My inter­net con­nec­tion is very bad here, and I’m unable to get online much. My apolo­gies. I’m also not able to get the larger story, as my access to the wires and what’s hap­pen­ing is lim­ited. But here they are:
* “War with Israel helps bridge sec­tar­ian divide”:http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/07/23/MNG98K42651.DTL&hw=allbritton&sn=002&sc=420
* “Road to Nowhere”:http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1218556,00.html
* “Flee­ing Bint Jbail”:http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1218838,00.html
* “Hezbol­lah Nation”:http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1218049,00.html
More later, inshal­lah. I am well, and Tyre would be beau­ti­ful under bet­ter conditions.