Sep
4
2006
Beirut (Part 1): The eve of the ceasefire
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*To see a slideshow of the following photos, and of many more that I was not able include in the post, click here
IT WAS NOT your everyday airplane announcement: “Attention: due to bombings in Beirut, we will wait over the sea.” But the French military plane—which was loaded with pallets of humanitarian aid, two Handicap International employees, a Dutch embassy entourage, two journalists including myself, and a dozen armored French soldiers—must have only circled over the Mediterranean a few times. Twenty minutes later the C-130 touched down on one of the remaining intact strips at the Beirut airport. Only minutes after we had disembarked a plume of smoke mushroomed in the distance. The final day before the ceasefire—the 33rd day of Israeli air strikes—was not panning out to be a quiet one. Continue reading
Aug
4
2006
The Man with the Bad Leg
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ONE OF THE most disturbing sights one can experience in a wartime evacuation is that of a disabled old man or woman trying to flee a conflict zone.
The young have their sturdy legs and their health, and when lacking those, a constitution th at can endure, even thrive, in the changes and uncertainties of a refugee’s plight. Even the sight of young mothers being evacuated with their children gathered about them is somehow not as gut wrenching as we feel it should be.
Of course in the actual war zone it is different; there we lament the huddled family trapped in the shelled house or the hospitalized child staring unblinkingly out of a face pockmarked with shrapnel wounds. But in the evacuation it is the laborious stilted movements of the old that most upsets us. Continue reading
