Lebanon Journal: Scenes from a war zone
It's a moonscape in Haret Hreik. Hezbollah fighters are the only ones staying inside the neighborhood, while some families come in during the day to check on their apartments and get clothes covered in dust and rubble. The Hezbollah guys are getting less friendly about access; early on they acted as if they were winning. Not so much anymore. They have bunkers underground they stay in, and that's what the Israelis continue to try to hit.
On Tuesday, they don't even let us out of the car and tell us to keep moving. Unlike the previous visits, they look tired and a little worried. The sense is that the bombing is getting on their nerves. While they looked defiant before, today they look resigned. They're not ready to quit, but they hardly have the "bring it on" attitude. And winning sides usually want the media around. They don't.
To the west of Beirut, the Bekáa Valley is a beautiful area, lush with vineyards and farms as far as the eye can see. But as you cross the mountains now, you can look out over the valley and literally watch the airstrikes from afar. They were pounding the daylights out of it Tuesday when I went. Smoke plumes rise up and, after a few seconds, I hear giant roars.
As I draw closer to the city of Baalbek and its famous roman ruins, there are destroyed buildings on either side of the road. Gas stations, homes, a dairy production center, offices. Craters in the road, which is deserted except for occasional motorists speeding out of there. It's completely eerie, with the smell of smoke and shattered concrete. Five civilians are killed; everyone else has fled for the mountains or for Christian villages.
I encounter Abu Ali (father of Ali) as he loads his SUV with boxes outside a restaurant. Everything is closed except for one small fast-food stand selling shawarma and hamburgers to police and Hezbollah guys. Abu Ali is the area commander for Hezbollah. We chat, mostly about security issues, such as when are more airstrikes coming and where can we go to not die, etc. He says they evacuated civilians but many went up smuggler trails to get into Syria and were killed in airstrikes. Others went to Christian villages.
The trails are covered with burned-out cars and he'd take us there but, really, it's way too dangerous. Israeli jets are up and periodically pound targets in the distance. We pass on the offer. He says that so far they have only hit Hezbollah offices and facilities in the town.
Another Hezbollah man, who won't give his name, tells me that many people who work the fields and tend the animals during the day then sleep in a series of caves in the surrounding ridges. I can come back and sleep with his family if I want, but the caves are full of Hezbollah fighters, and the Israelis are trying to hit the caves themselves at night. Again, I pass on the offer.
Mitchell Prothero is a freelance writer in Beirut.
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