A novel expression of people power By Michael Jansen
The Jordan Times :: 17 August 2006
The thousands of Lebanese who packed their belongings into their cars and drove home after Monday’s ceasefire have
made it impossible for Hizbollah and the Israelis to resume full-scale hostilities. The more timid Israelis driven from northern settlements and cities took an extra 24 hours to trickle home, but by their presence they bar their own army from resuming its attacks on Lebanese civilians.
With their bodies these civilians have implemented the ceasefire the UN Security Council refused to declare for nearly four long, destructive weeks. By their thousands, Lebanese civilians led the way, preempting international activists who were trying to convince local political organisers to stage an organised march to the south and the other areas depopulated by Israel’s merciless bombing campaign, which has left more than 100,000 Lebanese homeless. The Lebanese civilian response to the ceasefire was a novel expression of people power. They not only went home but also risked their lives by ignoring Israel’s prohibition on vehicle traffic in the zone between the Litani River and the Blue Line border. Once the people did
this, the UN and relief agencies followed suit by mounting convoys of aid trucks with the aim of getting supplies to
the people as soon as they arrived.
Now that displaced civilians are returning to their devastated homes in villages where fighting raged over this period, they must now survive and rebuild. There is now in Beirut an assemblage of UN agencies, aid bodies and foreign and local non-governmental agencies that are trying to help the Lebanese. Their requirements are many:
Shelter, potable water, food, electricity, medical care, money, and treatment for trauma and psychiatric disturbance. The fighting may be over, but the cruel impact of the war on its victims will take a long time to heal.
A major priority is clearing the tens of thousands of unexploded bombs, bomblets, bullets and shells that litter every targeted area. On Monday, the initial day of the return, at least one child was killed and several people were wounded by munitions. Dangerous chemicals must also be removed. Buildings that are unsound must be identified and either shored up or demolished.
But the returnees are so eager to learn the fate of their homes, villages, relatives and livelihoods that they have forgotten about the dangers they still face from the residue of the war.
The flow of aid to Lebanon is still being obstructed by Israel, which continues to enforce a sea and air blockade of the country on the pretext that Iran and Syria could smuggle weapons to Hizbollah through the ports and airport. This is nonsense because if anyone wants to send arms to Hizbollah, it can be done across Lebanon’s long border with Syria. Although the ceasefire resolution calls for the lifting of the blockade, Israel continues to enforce it. Israeli sailors on ships off Beirut port even search ships carrying aid, delaying their arrival by many hours. Israel is also preventing the delivery of fuel oil for the Lebanese electricity plant, thereby reducing on a daily basis the number of hours the capital and the
hinterland have power and putting patients at hospitals at risk because there is also a shortage of fuel for generators.
Once the blockade ends, humanitarian agencies will be able to bring staff and supplies into UN designated “hubs” at the ports of Tyre, Sidon, Beirut and Tripoli and distribute food, medicines, building material and clothing throughout the country.
A fifth “hub” will be established at Zahleh to handle supplies brought overland for the Bekaa Valley. According to Chief Humanitarian Coordinator David Shearer, tracked vehicles are being brought in to handle the transport of goods to villages and hamlets isolated by Israeli bombing of roads and bridges.
As soon as the UN peacekeeping force is deployed alongside the Lebanese army, engineers will be able to patch up
roads and build temporary bridges to facilitate the movement of aid.
Local councils, civil society non-governmental organisations, and international and Arab donors are doing a great deal to help Lebanon mitigate the suffering of the victims of the war and rebuild for the future.
A Jordanian army field hospital is serving displaced persons at a school in Beirut. The hospital, set up on July 28, provides a variety of services including general surgery, plastic surgery, paediatrics, and psychiatric care for traumatised people. The hospital is equipped with its own labs, a X-ray unit, ultrasound, and 25-40 beds. Colonel Farhan Kasasbeh, the head doctor, said the hospital is operating 24 hours a day seven days a week. He has a team of 100 doctors, nurses and administrators. The medics see an average of 550 patients a day, mostly elderly people and children. Before the ceasefire took effect, a great many came from the 400 families living in the school behind the hospital. “We see everyone who comes,” he said. “We don’t ask for identity papers. Most of the patients need psychiatric support.” Dr Kasasbeh, who has taken part in seven missions outside Jordan, said he has not seen such psychiatric problems since he was in Jenin in the West Bank after Israel attacked the town during its reinvasion of the West Bank in 2002.
Although many of the people displaced during the fighting have gone home, thousands will still need care and comforting until they can get on their feet. The task before Lebanon and the international community is immense. But it must be tackled if the country is to recover and its people are to regain their lives, lives taken because Israel insisted on waging an unnecessary war of choice against Hizbollah, an enemy Israel misjudged. An enemy Israel could not subdue. An enemy that defeated Israel’s regular army in spite of its overwhelming size and armoury.
Several Israeli columnists commenting in the liberal daily Haaretz have been making the point from the outside of the war that Israel was losing. But the politicians and generals took no notice. Now it is all too clear that Hizbollah is the victor. Gideon Levy, for one, welcomed Israel’s defeat. He said that Israel had the “lower hand” — rather than the upper hand — in this conflict. This, he wrote, may “influence us to change our ways and language, the language we speak to our neighbours with violence and force.”
Nadim Shehadi, a Lebanese academic, wrote in the same vein, asking, “What is the logic that will emerge from this war? If Israel can exist only by destroying the neighbourhood, then it is time to declare it a failed state.”
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