The End?

Finally it was on the 33^rd day that the war was to end – ironic perhaps. Of course many still do not believe it ended – myself included – however one thing is over and it is the daily menu of air raids all over Lebanon. 8am was the hour zero and some hours before the last massacre was to be committed just to remind those who thought they can forget the savagery of the Israeli air force. Before 9am many refugees had packed their few belongings, their hopes, themselves and their loved ones and were heading back to their villages where they might find some trace of their homes. Many had no gas to be able to get there, so – like myself – they lingered behind watching the long trails of cars going south. It was frustrating not to be able to go. The traffic was exceptional since the highway was destroyed; people had to take side roads which sometimes are found to be blocked by some earlier air strike. The journey towards Tyr would take something like 5 hours (it usually takes no more than 1 hour and a half).

The main danger was in the form of cluster bombs left behind by the Israeli army; until now 2 people died and 7 were wounded because of incidents of the sort. And another danger is the potential Uranium pollution in the Suburbs of Beirut since yesterday’s bombing (the most violent during the war) was attributed to a potential enriched Uranium weapon, tests are however still to be carried away to confirm or not.

It was somewhat surreal to see the morale of those who were heading south – hands out of the car drawing the victory sign, and the everlasting cheer to the resistance and its Siyyid. Those who found their homes in rubble did not cry, they would say ‘all for the sake of the resistance, we can rebuild stone but we cannot rebuild dignity”. It was an overwhelming atmosphere of pride that one can witness in the streets of Beirut and more so on the way south. At night we went out like always to the Barometre, this leftist pub in a small alley in Hamra street. It was crowded like expected and we had to sit on the table outside like many others. Every now and then a convoy of cars horning and cheering for the Hezbollah would pass on the street nearby and the drinkers sitting outside like ourselves would run towards the street and raise their glasses and voices to those passing in their cars – the V sign was to unite them.

The whole night convoys like these kept passing all over Beirut. Today I woke up early and went to the Suburbs with my camera and a friend. We stopped the car somewhere close and carried on foot. The spectacle was breathtaking. The moment you cross to the Suburbs you can look for a building that still has traces of glass but you will find none. That was the entrance; we were far away from the real disaster. Moments later here it was: a square that used to be composed of some 7 10 floor residential buildings was now nothing but a huge whole. Books, toys, pieces of cloths were scattered all around the dusty ground. Those who used to live here were searching for remainders of there belongings amongst the rubble. They were not devastated, they were joking, saying that this is where I used to live and I gave it for the resistance – ‘all for the sake of the resistance’. A sentence I heard so much these last days. In his speech yesterday the Siyyid promised those whose houses were destroyed that they will get enough money to rent an apartment for 1 year and to buy furniture for it, until their houses are rebuilt. Those who had their houses partly destroyed will have a visit from the party’s engineering department to start the restoration process starting today. Indeed teams of Hezbollah volunteers were found everywhere in the Suburbs working on taking out the rubble and cleaning the damage that struck our own little Hiroshima.

We latter went to check our friend’s house which was supposedly destroyed; she was now in France. We arrived to the crossing, and the smell which filled the whole region until the edges of Beirut was so heavy that one could see the damage before one’s eyes would. Her street was no longer there; it was turned into a pile of rubble, maybe 5 or 6 buildings were completely liquidated around it we could not even know were the building was. Smoke was still going out from under the broken concrete.

As I was walking in yet another of those highly hit areas, I looked at the floor and found a magazine that survived the blast of the building nearby, it was open on a page where the title ‘the history of the Arab Israeli conflict’ appeared. I looked at the burnt edges of the page and then at the grounded building in front and saw the perfect illustration of this conflict.

It is perhaps impossible to describe with words or images the destruction that is found around the Suburbs, however it is even more impossible to describe the sentiments that one can grasp while walking among these people who are the ‘supporters of terrorism’, all of them working together, celebrating a victory that did not come without a price of blood and fire. ‘All for the sake of the resistance’ today I understood that this slogan is not only about words.

Some of my photos from the Suburbs: