24 July 2006

Eyewitness

SIDON: In better days this port city was a main attraction on Lebanon's tourist map. Now it is an overcrowded gathering point for refugees fleeing a war that is demolishing the country. The days when this city was blanketed with the colorful flags of countries fighting for the World Cup are but a memory. Now white flags sheets of cloth are flown from car windows and roofs in a silent plea.

The drive from Beirut to Sidon, only a few weeks ago a 30-minute affair, now takes two to three hours, as the coastal highway has been decimated by Israeli warplanes. The route now zigzags through the Chouf Mountains and long-forgotten side roads.

The entrance to Sidon, where a crumpled bridge now rests, continues to be bombarded, with another hit early Sunday.

The nakedness of the roads outside Sidon provide a stark contrast to their cramped counterparts inside the city, as cars and taxis from southern towns and villages line Sidon's streets with mountains of luggage piled atop each vehicle.

"Beirut! Beirut!," more taxi drivers shout as refugees from the South sit on the pavement on mats or in the shade, sharing bread and sipping tea.

"At least it is quieter here than Tyre, where the bombardments are constant," said one exhausted woman carrying a newborn child. She said she had just arrived from a trying five-hour drive from the ancient coastal town.

But the quiet in Sidon was shattered early Sunday when Israeli warplanes struck the Fatima Zahara Center. The strike on the complex, which includes a mosque and medical clinic, was touted by Israel as part of a "sweeping operation" of Hizbullah's funding, religious and social centers.

"They bombed my future along with the building of offices they destroyed," said Mahmood Saleh, whose truck was set ablaze Saturday as Israeli warplanes blasted a five-story building containing a charity office linked to Hizbullah.

Ghaziyyeh, the predominantly Shiite neighborhood in Sidon that housed the charity, is now deserted and desolate, scattered with rubble and burned-out buildings.

Pharmacies, gas stations and restaurants are all turning away customers as the shortage of supplies slowly creeps throughout the community.

"We are out," repeated Sidon pharmacist Imad Sabah Ayoun as customers continuously called about much-needed medications.

"While we have some stock now, we are running low on the chronic medication for diabetes, heart failure and hypertension," Ayoun told The Daily Star.

"If supplies are not allowed in this week, it will be disastrous," Ayoun said.

Sidon is now home to 35,000 refugees, with more displaced and wounded pouring in by the hour. Some 60 wounded were being cared for in the Labib Medical Center and the Hammoud Hospital on Sunday alone.

Ikhlas Hamzeh and her 6-year-old son Jaber were two of the war's casualties.

"We were escaping from Tyre to Sidon in a taxi, and then Israel hit us," Hamzeh said as she lay with a broken leg and chest wounds.

Jaber was noticeably still for a small child, with two broken legs and terror written across his face.

"We are from Bint Jbeil, and we saw people being burned alive as they tried to escape in their cars and others blown to pieces as the bombs kept coming down," Hamzeh said.

Thousands of such refugees are being given aid, most by the Rafik Hariri Foundation, while they wait in limbo, not knowing what their future holds but glad to be alive.

"We had to get refrigerated trucks to keep bodies in them as it wasn't safe to even conduct funeral procedures," said Sidon MP Bahia Hariri.

The MP and her daughter Ghena have been involved in humanitarian efforts for the displaced Lebanese and foreigners stranded in the South.

"If we sat and just waited for those 'humanitarian corridors' to be officially opened, most of our people would be dead by now," Hariri said.

"So I am not waiting and neither is Lebanon."

The MP is coordinating efforts at 30 centers to provide three meals a day to the displaced. She is also personally overseeing lists of the displaced and making phone calls as to their whereabouts.

"Israel is destroying everything we have rebuilt and is trying to divide Lebanon, but it won't succeed as we are all united against Israel and its massacre of civilians and rape of Lebanese land and its civilization," she said.

"Bringing in an international force will just burn the South further as meeting force with force never brings peace," the MP added.