New urgency for Lebanon cease-fire
An Israeli bomb kills at least 54 civilians in Lebanon, adding pressure on US diplomacy.
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Shalhoub's cellphone rings constantly. He answers and reels off a list of names of people who died or survived.
"Najwa was injured, Zeinab was martyred," he says. On mentioning the name of Zeinab, his daughter, he chokes and begins weeping while a woman places a comforting arm across his shoulder.
The full version of this article appeared in the April 22, 1996, issue of the Monitor.
QANA, SOUTHERN LEBANON – White UN bulldozers tore at the twisted iron frames of two huts where most of the 101 Lebanese refugees were killed at the peacekeepers' base.
Above, an Israeli Apache helicopter gunship hung like a dragonfly to the west. Surrounding hills and valleys rumbled to the sound of incoming Israeli artillery shells. Hizbullah was continuing to fire Katyusha rockets into northern Israel. Another tragedy did not seem impossible.
The fighting entered an 11th day yesterday, as Secretary of State Warren Christopher shuttled across the Middle East trying to broker an elusive cease-fire.
Nearly two weeks of fighting have left more than 150 Lebanese dead, most of them civilians. Another 400,000 Lebanese civilians have been displaced. Some 50 Israelis have been wounded. The ferocity of Israel's disproportionate response has inflamed Arab opinion and endangered the already fragile peace process.
Militarily, Hizbullah – the Party of God, which is backed by Iran and Syria – has survived the onslaught virtually intact. Most people in impoverished southern Lebanon view Hizbullah as courageous "freedom fighters" struggling to liberate a broad swath of territory there occupied by Israeli forces as a self-styled security zone in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 425.
For the UN's spokesman in Tyre, Mikael Lindvall, Qana was "a disaster waiting to happen." He accused Israel of deliberately hampering the UN's mercy missions to some 6,000 civilians marooned by the fighting: "We are constantly issuing protests to the Israelis over the shelling of civilian areas. They keep boasting about the accuracy of their artillery radars. But they don't seem to be working too well."
In Tyre's Najem Hospital, where most casualties from Qana were taken, Shawie Balhas, a father of 12, was slamming his hand on the wall and waiting in a room where two of his daughters lay. Two of his sons were in another hospital. "I can't find the others; there are eight more, and my wife, Tamimi. They must all be dead," he sobs. He had sent them to Qana for safety.
After the Qana massacre, Lebanon was united in grief. Saturday, on Hamra Street – an exclusive shopping area in Beirut – Hizbullah workers were collecting money from motorists to feed the refugees.
A Christian woman in a Pontiac lowered her window and shoved a bundle of notes into the hands of a surprised young Hizbullah man. A businessman sipping beer at a pavement cafe applauded her generosity. He was reading Beirut's French language L'Orient Le Jour newspaper where the lead article predicted that after the "crucifixion" at Qana would come the "resurrection of the nation of Lebanon."
– Mike Theodoulou
