Day 19 - The Massacre

Today Rice was supposed to arrive to Beirut, she was however not granted entry. It was the first real position taken by the Lebanese Prime Minister, he announced that if she is not coming for an immediate seize fire then she should not bother.

This morning the massacre of Qana was the event that shook the whole country. How much does a Lebanese life cost? Nothing? People went to the UN headquarters in the downtown of the city, it was supposed to be a small gathering like the one held everyday. Tension was much more intense than usual and the crowds which grew rapidly began to break the gates of the HQ, they were enraged, they were angry, they were more than outraged. They broke in and expressed their anger by destroying what their hands could break.

In fact I understood what they felt. No one can protect them from the Israeli crimes; no one even bothers to ask about those who die. This alone gives the Hezbollah a reason to be, this alone is enough to fight back. In 19 days 750 Lebanese civilians have been murdered, every Lebanese soul is worth an Israeli one. Before the Hezbollah kills 750 Israeli civilians no one has the right to call them terrorists. Until now the military casualties on the Israeli side are much higher than civilian ones.

The Israeli explanation was simple; we asked them to leave the town, as simple as that, they forgot however that the roads out of town are destroyed and these people had no way out.

More than half of the Lebanese casualities until this moment are children, the second highest percentage is women and there are some men killed. What does this insulting phrase that the Hezbollah uses civilians as human shields mean? How can they use them as shields when 99% of killings are due to air strikes or artillery shells? If one hides behind a woman during an air strike will it really help him? Do they really think that the Hezbollah fighters are afraid to die? Or that they don’t care about their families? Or even that they are cowards? Don’t they know anything about pride and Shiite culture?

There were confrontations between the Hezbollah fighters and the Israeli troops in the southern villages near the borders. The Israelis were humiliatingly defeated; yesterday they retreated. Today 8 elite soldiers from the Golani regiment were killed in the southern village of Taybeh. The Hezbollah fighters who killed them were not using shields and not to mention human ones. This is not terrorism; this is military confrontation between an invading force and a defense guerilla.

When I saw the pictures of the massacre this morning I couldn’t help noticing how the bodies – those who were still in one piece – were stiff. This is usually due to crisped muscles at the moment of death; they were terrified before they died. Some children had their eyes and mouths open, they were screaming for help when they died. Some of them died after the explosion. Witnesses were talking about hearing screams for many minutes after the explosion. Help could not arrive on time to help those who were wounded and trapped under the rubble – always the roads. The Lebanese Red Cross in the south has now a new mission: to find spaces to burry the dead, to transport them from one grave to another.

This is not the first time, nor is it the worse crime; it is one of these silly things that make these ‘terrorist’ Hezbollah have the will to fight. It is one of the silly small Israeli mistakes that make a whole people in need of protection. It is one of the Israeli self defense episodes that fill these people with hate. I can’t help remembering these images of Israeli kids signing the shells that are fired on Lebanon. Today another gift from the Israeli childhood was received by at least 32 Lebanese kids. They should wish they were able to thank them, however the only thing they are allowed to do is die in silence.