LAT: Dazed Refugees Flood Beirut: Lebanon faces vast humanitarian crisis

[DeepModem Mom]

Dazed Refugees Flood Beirut
Lebanon is facing a vast humanitarian crisis, with the displaced estimated at 500,000.
By Megan K. Stack, Times Staff Writer
July 19, 2006

BEIRUT — Nonstop battles between Israel and Hezbollah have wreaked a massive humanitarian crisis in Lebanon, driving as many as 500,000 people from their homes, according to United Nations estimates.

The frazzled refugees who have flooded Beirut are struggling to find food, water and medicine. They sleep chockablock in city parks, abandoned basements and sweltering schools in the capital.

Traumatized and disoriented, many of them stagger in from the country's south or Beirut's southern suburbs. They are safer here in the capital, but they are also living without clean drinking water, showers or a change of clothes....

***

Lebanon's government has opened the schools of Beirut to the sudden wave of refugees, but many of the shelters are being run by the cadres of Hezbollah, along with a few nongovernmental organizations. Across the city, vignettes of despair play out against a backdrop of playgrounds, blackboards and lunchrooms....

***

Isolated by its crippled airport, blockaded seaports and bombed roads, Lebanon has seen its food and medical supplies dwindle to dangerously low levels. Officials are struggling to accommodate the massive waves of the displaced and reach people left in warfare-racked areas. They are also keenly aware that even towns that have escaped the bombings will soon run out of basic commodities....

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-havoc19jul19,0,314217.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[oasis]

1. Corporate media is reporting that only 5,000 U.S. citizens want to leave.

Only half of the 10,000 they first reported.So, it's getting worse, and now only 5,000 of 25,000 want to leave that mess.:eyes:

[Kagemusha]

2. So the only group these people can turn to is Hezbollah.

Thanks, Israel!

[liberalhistorian]

3. And does anyone think Israel will

even make a token attempt at assisting the very refugees it's created and whose lives it's destroyed? Anyone? Anyone?

[liberalhistorian]

4. And considering that Israel is

bombing the shit out of milk, food, paper, etc., factories, I imagine it will get ten times worse.

[partylessinOhio]

5. I am outraged and sorrowful. Why isn't the world? I don't see any

appreciable humanity left in the world.

If the world is going to end, this would be a good time. And I don't believe in the rapture crap.

The silence while the bombing continues for eight days is insanity.

[liberalmuse]

This is horrific...

There isn't a real response from world leaders to this. Normally, the U.S. would lead the way, but we are a decrepit, morally bankrupt nation under Bush. Then again, the world is allowing the genocide in Darfur to happen, too. So what is the difference between Hezbollah and Israel? Both are targeting civilians, except Israel has the capability of murdering many more civilains than Hezbollah right now. This is utterly disgusting, and I have ZERO sympathy for Israel for this atrocity.

[mom cat]

14. This is a war crime ... a crime against humanity.

Please write or call your congress critter and let them here your outrage!

[rodeodance]

6. No . Bush said Israel has another week.

[LeftistGorilla]

7. going according to plan....

:puke:

[mccoyn]

8. Thats what I thought.

I wasn't sure how bombing roads and blockading ports was going to hurt terrorists. Now I see it, this is a siege and the defenders have no way to surrender. Without humanitarian aid, this is the only way the world should interpret it.

[bemildred]

9. Gee, who could have predicted this? nt

[leftchick]

10. I am so glad Israel is "protecting herself"

at the expense of so many innocent people. This is criminal. :grr:

<snip>

An old man and his grandchildren arrived at a crammed schoolhouse near central Beirut with injuries suffered in the air raids, but there was no doctor. An old woman fainted; an ambulance was summoned but it never came. There were no ambulances left to come.

"They came here with the clothes on their backs, and the crisis is deepening every day," said Mazen Ismael, a teacher who volunteered to run one of the shelters on behalf of the family of the late prime minister Rafik Hariri. "The situation has gotten so bad that we're truly afraid of disease."

The country has fallen so deep into chaos that it's almost impossible to know the extent of the humanitarian troubles. Entire neighborhoods have been drained of their residents.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on Tuesday released an estimate of 500,000 displaced Lebanese. The agency, which did not explain how it arrived at the figure, also said it was sending as many as 11 more staff members to Lebanon.

[melnjones]

11. "As the crisis deepened this week, Lebanese officials said Israeli bombs h

"As the crisis deepened this week, Lebanese officials said Israeli bombs hit the nation's largest milk factories, a major food factory and an eagerly awaited aid convoy that was making its way toward Beirut from the United Arab Emirates."

Is the Israeli army blind? I don't understand. Gather some freaking intelligence so you know what you are bombing.

[jonnyblitz]

13. it was probably intentional. I can't help but think the worst

anymore based on what is transpiring.

[lpbk2713]

12. No comment necessary ----->

[Malva Zebrina]

15. Surely, if these reports are true, Israel is continuing it's quest to

annhilate those they consider enemies. The innocent people of Lebanon and perhaps Syria and on to Iran. This is the return to it's biblical boudaries, granted by some mythology, in a time when science was merely in an ignorant stage. The onus for peace is on Israel. It must admit it's barbarism amd it's quest for land and more land--but that will never happen as long a religious views pervail. You got land--you got it through mythology and religion. Israel was dispersed by the Romans, while the Palestinians stayed and worked their land to suvive. Obviously, they were doing well, until the return of the Jews to theuir biblical land, which is called "holy land" by some other religious group.


There can be no peace and frankly, I am sick and tired of it--the killing of little children, the diaspora and the irony of it all coming from the Israelis, who indeed have a "right to defend" their country by killing at will anyone, and everything that is in their way. "Defend oneself" against little three year old children--right, and justify it by saying "they started it" so killing the old, one notable example, confined to a wheelchair, the babies the young children, and if there were rocks nearby, they, the soldiers on the ground would be, I suspect, bashing the babies , the terrorist enemy so hated, against the rocks bashing their brains out.


Israel needs to grow up and take an adult stand against what is happening in their war oriented surroundings. It is all out war, and no doubt, the United States will be expected to support this slaughter, and why not? We supported Bush's slaughter in Iraq, and many still do--including some senators, on the left side of the aisle,who are as greedy for empire as the Israelis.

[DELUSIONAL]

17. Well said!

Not much we can do except write our congress men and women -- and boycott anything made in Israel.

[donkeyotay]

16. Doing more of what hasn't worked, expecting a different result.

The Israel/American military-intell complex is going to sink the world under a faulty philosophy. Basically the chimperor's stance is that we (the good guys) can pummel the world into acceptance of our right to rule. Bush doesn't even want to have to accept criticism let alone disobedience, and he thinks he can beat the world into submission. The kneejerk response to Sept 11th has refused to let us consider that we could be partly to blame, that some of these issues result from poverty, and that our best option was to continue to get the world do adopt a westernized attitude and thus isolate extremists. Problem is that our country is also being run by religious fanatics, and democracy has been abandoned by bush abroad before it was even dry.

For those who missed it, many warned of dire consequences to the latest assault on democracy in the occupied territories. They cited 2 reasons for Hamas winning, 1) Abbas was kicked around by Israel who claimed they could make progress if they just got rid of Arafat, but Abbas was seen as unable to deliver, thus radicalizing the Palestinians, and 2) the moderate party had 2 candidates and thus split the vote, allowing Hamas to win. If King George had taken a deep breath and told Israel to remain calm and continue to work for peace, we would not be here today. But our clueless preznit seems to need painfully simple, written in crayon policies. I suppose we're supposed to imagine it's because he's so holy, what with having to veto stem cell research because life is so precious.

The man is an unmitigated disaster. He will go down in history has a tragic figure, quite possible the demise of our country.

[jseankil]

18. Killing a nation of people to stop a group of terrorists?

Contact you congress men and women. Let's not just talk to ourselves about how unjust and tragic it is, let your voice be heard by those can do something.

[bemildred]

19. Lebanon's refugees turn to Hezbollah for shelter from the storm

THE battle between Israel and Hezbollah has caused a massive humanitarian crisis in Lebanon, driving as many as 500,000 Lebanese from their homes, according to United Nations estimates.

Frazzled refugees flooding Beirut are struggling to find food, water and medicine. They are sleeping in city parks, abandoned cellars and sweltering schools in the capital.

Traumatised and disoriented, many staggering in from the country's south, they are living without clean drinking water, showers or a change of clothes.

---

Her husband was hurt in the attack, along with several other family members. "We're not getting medicine," she said. "They come and ask what we want, write it down and leave." The Government has opened the schools of Beirut to the sudden wave of refugees, but most of the shelters are being run by the cadres of Hezbollah, along with a few other non-governmental organisations.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/lebanons-refugees-turn-to-hezbollah-for-shelter-from-the-storm/2006/07/19/1153166455522.html