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Here's the article from the Penticton paper... he pretty well said all of this in the interview.
By TRACY CLARK
News Staff Reporter
Jul 14 2006
A Penticton couple vacationing in Lebanon this month have been caught in the middle of what the United Nations has deemed a crisis in that country.
Penticton Western News reporter Brian Jonson and his wife Maya Bou Chedid Jonson, a Lebanese immigrant, were in Lebanon this week for a family wedding when Israel began its attacks on Lebanon pressuring for the release of two kidnapped soldiers.
“Hezbollah forces, not the official military forces of Lebanon, control the Lebanese side of the closed border between Lebanon and Israel,” explained Jonson in an e-mail from Lebanon. “It was those same forces, acting independently of the government, who captured the two Israeli soldiers and provoked the Israeli air attacks, including the one on the Rafik Hariri International airport. These were ostensibly aimed at making sure the two Israeli soldiers can’t be moved out of the country.”
The Jonsons are at an apartment in Ain El Roummaneh, a district of Beirut. The apartment is about 15 minutes away from airport.
“Around 6 a.m. local time (around 8 p.m. Wednesday in Penticton), I was awoken by the low roar of fighter jets followed by the dull boom of an explosion and the chattering thud of anti-aircraft guns. In a few minutes, everything went quiet and I assumed the noise was a sonic boom created by Israeli jets flying overhead. Israel has regularly done such flyovers to annoy and intimidate the citizens of Lebanon in the past, so I actually just went back to sleep.
“It wasn’t until I went upstairs to Maya’s parents’ apartment later that morning that I learned how serious the situation was. The first news was that two of the runways were damaged and that they would be repaired quickly. Later I learned all three were hit, which in practical terms means the country is cut off from international travel.
“The areas attacked in the south are far enough away that we could not hear or see them and the attacks have had little direct impact on life in Beirut.
“Although people were still out and about during the day, the number of cars was down dramatically. Lebanese traffic is usually a snarled mass of cars crawling through congested roads. Today the streets were not quite deserted, but you could get around in record time.
Many stores, especially in downtown Beirut, were either closed all day or closed early. One store had removed its merchandise from its downtown Beirut location in case bombs shattered the windows and left it vulnerable to looting. Early in the day we heard gas prices had gone up and there were line-ups of about an hour and a half. By the time we went out later, the line-ups had subsided, but were still several cars long in many cases, which is not common here.
“Most shopkeepers in the stores that were open had a radio or television tuned into the news. The news coverage here is extensive. In addition to coverage of the structural damage of destroyed homes and bridges, there are a lot of pictures of the dead and wounded — extremely graphic and bloody images, many taken in the hospital as the patients are whisked away to medical treatment.
“Although it was the Israelis who did the bombing, much of the resentment I’ve heard is focused on Hezbollah, the group which captured the Israeli soldiers and provoked the attack. Lebanon is like Penticton in that the summer months draw thousands of tourists from oil-rich countries to the country. Hezbollah is being blamed for the Israeli attacks, which will hurt one of the main industries in a sector that is struggling to recover after the assassination of Rafik Hariri, after whom the airport is named. Many believe that because of Hezbollah, the whole country is being made to suffer for the actions of a few.
“At this point, people appear to be more stressed out than fearful. It seems unlikely that all out war is on the horizon, but nobody really knows. People are waiting nervously to see what will happen, especially since Israeli planes dropped pamphlets warning residents in the Hezbollah-populated suburb of Beirut near the airport to leave the area. This was taken as a sign more attacks can be expected. The psychological worry of wondering about what will happen is a greater burden than the fear of personal injury.”
This is not the first time either of the Jonsons have been in war situations. Maya was born and raised in Lebanon. She lived there during the nearly 15-year occupation of the south of Lebanon by Israel.
She met Brian while working for World Vision in Europe.
Brian, a Lower Mainland native, was the youngest aid worker during the Kosovo crisis and spent several years overseas working in war-torn countries. The tension in Lebanon is reminiscent of the situation in Kosovo right before the North Atlantic Treaty Organization bombing campaign, he said.
However, he said, trying to plan for a wedding while the country is under fire is a different a very different feeling.
“The family is arranging the delivery of bouquets of flowers while the fuel depot burns on live T.V. They have considered trying to move the wedding to a church outside Beirut, no easy feat the night before the wedding.”
In the meantime, the family is both preparing for the eventuality that it will have to leave Beirut.
“I don’t think one ever is prepared for a situation like this. The backup plan for me and the family I’m staying with is to go to their summer home in the mountains outside Beirut. The residents of two apartments in this building have already evacuated it. People who have chosen to stay in Beirut are staying at home and only travelling outside when absolutely necessary. News is on all the time -- the bombing of the depot and subsequent fire was on TV within minutes and we watched it burn live.”
The Jonsons are also trying to stay prepared for their flight home. Brian is scheduled to return on Sunday, July 23, while Maya is scheduled to return a week later.
“I don’t know about my chance of returning yet, and probably won’t have a good idea until shortly before I try to fly out a week this Sunday. Tonight (around 7 a.m. Penticton time) the Israelis bombed the fuel depot at the airport, so even if the runway is repaired I’m not sure how planes will be able to refuel.
“Travelling to Damascus in Syria, the next closest major city with an airport by land seems like a risky proposition under the circumstances. There is an Israeli naval blockade off the coast and in any case no passenger boat travel between Lebanon and the island of Cyprus, the next nearest airport, under normal circumstances.
“I’ve registered Maya and I with the Canadian embassy. We have not heard from them, but I have kept posted on their travel recommendations: avoid crowds and demonstrations, avoid travel by highways that could be military targets and stay out of the south of Lebanon, which is Hezbollah-controlled and the focus of most of the Israeli attacks to this point. Because Maya is a permanent resident (in Canada), assuming that travel out of the country is logistically possible, there shouldn’t be any problem for her to get back into Canada. We won’t know until closer to that time.”
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