Mideast crisis – Blog from Jerusalem
"We got a call from someone in Germany who told us that the owner of a kennel in Beirut is abandoning the city and leaving the dogs behind," said Tamara More, the voluntary CEO of the organization. "We're trying to find a way to evacuate the animals."
Unfortunately, fear of Hezbollah is preventing the rescue operation from taking place. "We told him we'd send a boat to the coast of Beirut," More told me, sounding somewhat harried over the phone. "But the man said he was afraid Hezbollah would kill him if they saw him transferring them [to Israelis]."
While people across northern Israel, southern Lebanon, and Beirut leave their homes for other parts of their country to save their own lives, many are concerned about the animals they left behind during the sweltering heat of a Middle Eastern summer. In Safed, a town in northern Israel that has been hit by Hezbollah's Katyusha rockets, families who are now staying in underground bunkers called the local police station from their cellular phones to ask the policemen to go to their homes and feed their pets. The policemen agreed.
In Haifa, the streets are practically empty. Most of the city's residents are staying in their homes or bunkers. But the employees of the Haifa Educational Zoo continue to go to work to feed the animals, which are now being kept around the clock in their cement sleeping quarters in order to prevent possible injuries from falling rockets.
"We play with them and try to keep them calm," said Etty Ararat, the zoo's director. "But, the baboons are going stir-crazy. They look at us like they are asking 'What is going on?'"
Many Israelis who raise livestock refuse to leave their homes, praying the Katyusha rockets won't fall on them. "We have 150 calves," said Geula Feldinger, a tough mother of four from Sde Yaakov, an Israeli farming community. "One of our neighbors has a dairy farm and another has a chicken coop. No one is leaving. If we do, our animals will die."
In south Lebanon's villages, farmers don't have much choice. The Israeli military has called for them to leave their homes in order not to be injured by the attacks on Hezbollah targets. AHAVA is now asking the Army not to bomb pastures, stables, and dairy farms. "We are very worried; their situation is difficult," More told me.
AHAVA, which has done many cross-border rescues in the past, plans to coordinate with the Israeli Army the transfer of Lebanese animals across the border. "The animals are not terrorists," said the overworked volunteer. "If people will be willing to come to the border to pass their animals to us, we will take them—even the injured ones—and return them whenever they want."
July 18
Jerusalem — Attempting to deny Hezbollah any information useful for better aiming at targets, Israeli authorities have instructed the media not to identify the exact locations where the Katyusha rockets fall.
But driven by competition, ratings, and the Israeli public's appetite for information, TV networks and newspaper photographers are racing to the site of the latest hit. Israel's military censor is aware of the problem. "We are flexible," said Yehezkel, a worker at the censorship headquarters who declined to give his full name.
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