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Israel's latest attack on the poor
It was one in the morning in New York when I was finally able to speak to my cousin in Dahiyeh today. On the phone from California, my mother's voice permeated with exhaustion and anxiety as she connected us. My family throughout the U.S. has been trying to get through to my cousin since Friday, only to find that the phone lines were out as we watched footage of her Beirut neighborhood ablaze.
It has been difficult not hearing her voice over the pass few days when all I see on the news is that Dahiyeh has been bombed repeatedly since Israel's attack began on Wednesday. Yesterday I read that eighteen civilians were killed while trying to escape the Beirut suburb and became even more frantic and worried. I spent the entire day recalling the bombings I had witnessed while living in the occupied South.
I was relieved to learn that she was unharmed, but saddened to hear that she was still in the lower level of her apartment building. There had been reports that her neighborhood had been evacuated, as residents sought refuge in the North, but she hadn't been able to escape. She, her family and neighbors are experiencing the heaviest bombings in Lebanon. Unable to sleep or eat, they are fatigued and traumatized.
Today she will try to leave with her one year old son to a city south of Beirut. She will join my grandmother and aunt in a village just north of Sidon (that's if the bombings cease for a short period of time). She is scared to travel on the road between Beirut and Sidon, as it has already been bombed in several places. My voice shook as I spoke to her; petrol stations, pharmacies, shops, banks, apartment buildings and roads all around her have been hit by Israeli bombs. At a loss for words, I told her that I had written a piece about her and posted it on the Web. She asked if I thought she would be famous. We laughed then fell silent. We've always joked at the worst times; it's the Lebanese way of coping.
With much difficulty, my grandmother and aunt were able to leave the South yesterday. It pains me to think of how many wars my grandmother has seen and escaped in her lifetime. During the occupation, her southern village was leveled to the ground and used as a base for the Israeli Defense Forces. Israeli soldiers have now crossed the Lebanese border.
More
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5055.shtml
I was relieved to learn that she was unharmed, but saddened to hear that she was still in the lower level of her apartment building. There had been reports that her neighborhood had been evacuated, as residents sought refuge in the North, but she hadn't been able to escape. She, her family and neighbors are experiencing the heaviest bombings in Lebanon. Unable to sleep or eat, they are fatigued and traumatized.
Today she will try to leave with her one year old son to a city south of Beirut. She will join my grandmother and aunt in a village just north of Sidon (that's if the bombings cease for a short period of time). She is scared to travel on the road between Beirut and Sidon, as it has already been bombed in several places. My voice shook as I spoke to her; petrol stations, pharmacies, shops, banks, apartment buildings and roads all around her have been hit by Israeli bombs. At a loss for words, I told her that I had written a piece about her and posted it on the Web. She asked if I thought she would be famous. We laughed then fell silent. We've always joked at the worst times; it's the Lebanese way of coping.
With much difficulty, my grandmother and aunt were able to leave the South yesterday. It pains me to think of how many wars my grandmother has seen and escaped in her lifetime. During the occupation, her southern village was leveled to the ground and used as a base for the Israeli Defense Forces. Israeli soldiers have now crossed the Lebanese border.
More
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5055.shtml
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