Lebanon Journal: Scenes from a war zone
BEIRUT--The refugees come in hundreds of cars along the twisted mountain roads in the Chouf Mountains. The ride from Tyre to Beirut is normally 45 miles along a major highway that takes, even with traffic, maybe an hour or so to drive. But the highways now are almost completely cut at each overpass or bridge south of Beirut. From Tyre to Sidon, you can use the highway with long detours and impromptu dirt paths around the destruction, but once you hit Sidon, just 30 minutes south of Beirut, the cars have to wend their way through the mountains, through Druze and Christian villages that have not been targeted, for more than three hours.
The traffic jams stretch for miles on this day last weekend, but the refugees appear resigned and annoyed more than scared. Many tell me that taxis drivers are gouging the residents in the south for rides out of danger? $100 per seat in a taxi for a ride that normally costs about $3.50 is common. Others tell of $1,000 fares for rides from some remote villages to Beirut for entire families. People talk of the bombings and leaflets telling them to flee.
I get only as far as the power plant outside Sidon before we have to turn around. On this day, the road is too jammed and we could be forced to spend the night or get caught in the dark on the roads around Beirut's airports and southern suburbs, which are nighttime targets.
Just outside the southern suburbs of Beirut, in the parking garage of an underground mall, more than 1,000 people from the southern suburbs have taken refuge. Hezbollah runs the shelter and I am granted access on the condition that I not reveal the name of the mall or its precise location. "They will bomb us here. They hate us and will kill us and our children," explains Abu Abbas, the Hezbollah official in charge of the facility, which adjoins a grocery store.
People are shopping at the store--not looting it--and the famed discipline and organization of Hezbollah is evident. Unlike scenes from other conflicts, these refugees aren't freaking out and carrying huge bales of possessions. They have been instructed what to bring: a children's toy, a lantern, bedding, a change of clothes, water, some cooking pots.
Other than the volunteers patrolling with their handheld radios(who readily admit to belonging to Hezbollah), there is a noticeable lack of fighting-age men. There is no point in asking why. The common response is that the son or father is a "mujahideen" or holy warrior. "Mr. Hassan Nasrallah [the leader of Hezbollah] has said that this is a war and we will never stop fighting it," says Ali, 18."It is uncomfortable but we do not mind it. They will not make us quit."
As he speaks, an older woman in a headscarf appears,wanting to talk. "If America and Israel want to do this to us, there is nothing we can do about it," she says. "We don't care about staying here as long as the boys who are fighting and Sayeed Nasrallah and the leaders are OK. We can withstand anything as long as we don't have to bow to the Americans and Israelis. Death is normal to us and it means we will go to heaven."
In the mountains around Beirut, Christian villages normally full of tourists from the Gulf and Europe have seen their populations swell up to 10-fold. Entire villages in the south have decamped for places normally associated with luxury and sin: Broumana, Zahle, Jounieh. The Israelis Wednesday finally lifted the blockade on humanitarian relief supplies into Lebanon and some planes and ships have begun to arrive. Most of the supplies are headed south in convoys to Tyre and its surrounding villages, but soon these areas around Beirut will need supplies as well because their infrastructures are being badly taxed by the refugees.
Gasoline, bottled water, and most food items are holding out for now. Beirut has power and telephone service most of the day, but clearly the power plants are conserving fuel and shutting down for most daylight hours. Hezbollah TV remains on the air, broadcasting a combination of news shows and long, music-video-like documentaries about its fighters with lots of footage from battles in the 1990s.
Al-Hur, Hezbollah radio, is jammed by an Israeli voice speaking nearly perfect Arabic. "Where is Hassan Nasrallah? Why does he hide in a cave while you die?"
The approach to Tyre is littered with abandoned cars. The south ran out of affordable gasoline days ago, according to taxi drivers willing to stop even for a minute or two. The road into Tyre itself is cut, and a long detour through farmland shows dust-covered vehicles,more than a few of which look as though they were driven into walls and other roadside structures. Maybe from panicked driving, maybe to avoid artillery and air strikes. Some are burned.
The road resumes about 1 1/2 miles outside Tyre itself. It's deserted and punctuated with a 50-foot-plus crater maybe 15 feet deep. People can drive slowly around the outside of the crater. I can hear the hum of Predator drones overhead. The road runs along the sea where the string of beach bars and resorts have been closed. Israeli gunboats patrol this coastline, often shelling civilian traffic.
The crater is a good place to judge traffic out of Tyre and the refugee flow. It comes in spurts, flying down the straightaway out of town, slowing at the crater edge and then speeding away for the relative safety of Sidon and Beirut. "I will never come back. The country, it is not for us any longer!" shouts one man. "Nothing, there is nothing."
Nabatiya, some 15 miles north of the Israeli border, is a ghost town. It's been bombed heavily overnight and, by 11 a.m. Tuesday, the strikes are resuming on the low-lying ridges around the town of about 150,000.
Ragheh Hareb Hospital has an Iranian flag outside and is obviously run by Hezbollah and its humanitarian offices. Talking to Dr. Ahmed Tahir, we both duck when an Israeli jet swings low over the town and shoots a missile into the opposing ridgeline. It's apparently targeting a school affiliated with Hezbollah; we are told by some men that the school is used by fighters, or was. This is the third time it has been hit in the past couple of days.
The few people remaining in town have limited supplies. The hospital is running low on generator fuel and has less than a week's supply of antibiotics left.
Shirin Hamza sits in a hospital bed across town in Gondour Hospital. Her home was hit the night before, killing her father, mother, and brother. The apparent target was the next-door neighbor's house, where three Hezbollah fighters were killed, according to some of the men hanging out around the building. They all have short beards and carry walkie-talkies, the hallmarks of Hezbollah members. There are no guns to be seen.
The basement is filled with refugees; just about everyone remaining in the area sleeps here. Maybe 100 to 150 pack in at night. Kids play and demand that photographers take their pictures, but the adults do not want to talk to westerners.
A man outside the hospital says that the villages surrounding the town are completely controlled by Hezbollah's military wing. "Do not go there," he cautions. "They will arrest you."
A local stringer for a wire service photo agency says: "The Hezbollah guys will only let you shoot pictures of hurt civilians. Do not leave the town. Take pictures of what they tell you to and get out of here."
July 19
BEIRUT — There had been a tide of refugees into the Beirut area, taking shelter in schools and in parks. But now, that has stopped since all the roads and bridges to southern Lebanon have been cut by Israeli airstrikes and artillery. There are still many more who want to flee, but there is no way out and the roads are considered far too dangerous to use there, even if they were passable.
I visit a school in central Beirut packed with Shiite families from the south. (There are no fighting-age men around) They vent their emotions on me: "This is between two armies, not civilians," says one. "But they target us anyway. We only want the return of our prisoners and the Israelis to stop the occupation of the Sheba farms."
Mohammed, 15, is with his mother, two sisters, and a grandmother. They are living in a classroom. He is from the town of Haret Hreik in Beirut's southern suburbs, which is Hezbollah land. He will not say where his father is—he probably doesn't know as he likely is a Hezbollah fighter. "We go home during the day sometimes to get some clothes and food. Our apartment is not bombed."
On several visits to Haret Hreik, it looks much like it does on TV news. Apartment blocks near one of the many Hezbollah compounds and Hezbollah's al-Manar TV studios are destroyed. On Sunday, Um Ali (Mother of Ali) stands in the debris of her home, crying and looking through the rubble for articles of clothing. She begins to scream at the air as if there are Israeli jet fighters above. "Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar" (God is great). She pumps her fist over and over again. An unidentified woman with her in a black abaya and headscarf of the devout Shiite begins to chant: "With our blood and souls, we will redeem you, Sayeed Nasrallah." Hassan Nasrallah is the leader of Hezbollah; Sayeed is an honorific given to clerics who trace their direct lineage from the prophet Mohammed.
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.