Southern Lebanon: Complex destruction, complex borders

This is the route I took on my Southern tip. Saida (Sidon) and Beirut are further north, by the coast.


Went to Southern Lebanon today. All the way down to Bent Jbeil, all the way to the Lebanese Israeli border (interesting sight!). Partly for pure tourism (Tyre, Saida, and their ruins... beautiful!) and partly to see with my own eyes the amount of destruction after the July war. I’ve been so far confined mostly in Beirut, since this is where all my interviews were held anyways: all organisations have their HQ in the capital.

On the way, we stopped in Qana - along with Srebrenica, home to perhaps the biggest shame on the face of the United Nations Peace Keeping dept. The massacre of Qana occurred in a UNIFIL (United Nations Forces In Lebanon) camp, where people sought refuge after 7 days of severe Israeli shelling on Southern Lebanon.
On the eighth day, they bombed the UN refugee camp.
For more details on the Qana massacre, click here.


(On a less tragic note and FYI, Qana is also thought to be the Cana mentioned in the gospel of John, where Jesus turned water into wine.)








Overall, the amount of destruction goes from 'mild' to 'total', and Bent Jbeil probably got the share of the lion in this division. It’s insane. Walking in town you could see the house destroyed, and those that still stood bore huge halls in their walls - and I could see people’s living rooms, their couches, their beds, sometimes even the photos of their children on the wall. Chilling.

The only thing that got me out of my contemplation was my guide shouting at me: "Hey, be careful where you step - there are cluster bombs out there" at which point I TOTALLY froze. Felt awkward.
Felt like the war isn't over yet.

Then I asked my driver to take me to the Lebanese-Israeli border. Why is something I don't know how to answer right now. But it was surely worth it.
My driver, a Southerner, knew the area well. And as we drove past the Lebanese army checkpoints - who have only been there for a couple of months - I began to see the horizon, dominated by the beautiful snow-covered Mount Al-Sheikh, Lebanese territory, that overlooks Lebanon, Israel, and Syria. Here is the funny part: from where I stood and all the way the mountain, the valley in between is Israeli territory.

But as we drove closer to the border, we suddenly took a turn and I found myself driving past an Israeli road, so close I couldn't believe it. That's it? No huge barrier with a gazillion soldiers on each side, no (visible) pointed weapons, no flags defiantly staring at each other? Nope. Just a metallic barrier. A couple of Israeli army vehicles drove by, and I took a peak at some surveillance post on the other side of the border.
As I was driving past, chewing on my chicken sandwich, I was wondering what the heck was the point of it all. Of the border, of the destruction. It took a couple of UNIFIL cars driving by, and Israeli army vehicles destroyed (on the Lebanese side of the border, a souvenir from last war) to remind me. Because one country needs to be protected from its expansionary neighbour. Because people need to be able to go on with their daily lives without fearing tanks shelling their children’s school.




We started hearing that violent clashes were occurring in Beirut, and that all roads were being closed down by demonstrators. So we decided to zap Saida (Sidon) which I was planning on visiting, and we decided to head directly to Beirut. But this ride, my friends, is another story.