Lebanon's war: One Year Later

My latest column is up on Spot-on and -- surprise! -- it's about the one-year anniversary of the Lebanon War.

Today, a year ago, I was witness to what U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would come to call "the birth pangs of a new Middle East."

I was in Jerusalem, covering the abduction of the Israeli solider, Gilad Shalit, by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip for TIME Magazine. Word soon came filtering down from the north on July 12, 2006. Hezbollah, the militant Shi'ite group, had captured two soldiers and killed three others. Three other reporters and I rushed up to Israel's Northern Command. On the first day, Israel had launched a fierce series of airstrikes against Hezbollah positions and infrastructure, bombing three to five bridges "and more," said Col. Boaz Cohen, chief of operations for Israel's Northern Command. I remember asking Cohen if the list of targets would grow, to include targets in Beirut.

"Wait and see," he said.

The next morning, I woke up to Katuysha rocket strikes just a few hundred meters from the bed and breakfast where we'd found rooms and the news that Beirut's airport had been bombed.

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