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| Survivor: An Israeli missile left Abbas Shaito injured as he and his family fled southern Lebanon in a minivan during last summer's
war. Abbas still gets scared when planes fly overhead. Jiro Ose |
One year later, two families look back at war
The war between Hizbullah and Israel, which began last year, killed thousands.
from the July 13, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
Hizbullah is giving $12,000 to each owner of a home destroyed in south Beirut and $10,000 to each owner of a home destroyed outside the city. Another $4,000 will be given to affected individuals over the next year.
The Lebanese government asked countries interested in helping the recovery to sponsor individual towns. Gulf countries have been quick to respond.
Tiri, which has some 5,000 registered inhabitants but only 200 permanent residents, lies tucked into a shallow valley. The village is flanked by olive groves and fields of tobacco plants that sway in the hot wind. Most of the houses are simple one- or two-story dwellings. Some 52 of them were completely destroyed in the war and many more damaged, says Anis Shaito, the mayor and Ibtisam's father.
Support for Hizbullah here runs high, despite the hardships endured during and after the war, which killed 10 residents. "We are very proud of the resistance that defeated the Israelis," Mr. Shaito says.
His grandchildren, Abbas, 13, and Ali, 14, were riding with their mother in the minibus when it was attacked. Today, Abbas rides a motor scooter through the winding streets. He shakes hands and says he is fine. But Ms. Shaito says that the two boys have not fully recovered. She herself was treated for six weeks and went through five operations. The government gave her 9 million Lebanese pounds ($6,000) while Hizbullah gave her a card granting her free treatment at hospitals and clinics run by the Shiite group.
In Israel, the Weinbergers, a family of six, escaped injury but spent four months shuttling between relatives in a Tel Aviv suburb and a small apartment in Nahariya after the war while renovation work dragged on.
Still, the ordeal hasn't been easy to erase. When 10 months' calm was broken by reports of two rockets that landed in the town of Kiryat Shemona 2-1/2 weeks ago, 20-year-old Noga kept to the lower floors of the five-bedroom split-level out of fear that a new war was breaking out.
"Suddenly I felt vulnerable again,'' she says. "I said, 'It can't be that we're going back to that nightmare.'"
Along the roads winding through the mountains near the border, scorched tree trunks stand as a reminder of some 618 acres of forest destroyed in the brush fires set off by the barrage of 4,000 rockets fired into Israel.
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