Lebanon's War Diary- Day 9

Update from a Lebanese Citizen

Dear World

I am writing you to update you on the current situation in Lebanon…
I will not number the deceased, nor the wounded… They are too many.
I will not mention what places are being hit, Lebanon has become a non-place anyways…

Today, I will just focus on the people who are still alive. Lebanon is currently facing a huge social crisis. A quarter of Lebanon's population doesn't have a place to stay.

A friend of mine is volunteering in one of the public schools housing these people, and I went with him to see the conditions today. The school is housing 300 individuals: women, children, elderly. The volunteers are doing whatever possible to provide them with a decent daily life, but still all they eat is bread, packaged cheese, dry biscuits, and if they are lucky cooked rice and stew. There are over 50 000 people living like this in Beirut alone, this without counting the other villages and cities. The social crisis is huge, I just saw a sample of it today.

Today, a 100 people broke into our building's ground floor apartment because they have no place to stay, and our neighbors were complaining about them. I think that these people coming is a true blessing for us. Having the crisis closer to you actually makes you see the scale of it.

Over 100 villages are totally isolated from one another. Totally isolated from food sources, from hospitals, clinics or medication. People are starting to starve, children to get dehydrated. I just heard on television a phone call from the headmaster of one of the shelter schools in Bint Jbeil. The school has been bombed by Israeli forces, people are in the underground level. Over 100 people. Children have been without milk for 4 days. And this is only a sample… It has been nine days, it is too much.

The thing that tears me the most is that nobody is shaking a finger. This is not only about us… not about Lebanon. I simply hope that this kind of suffering is the last that happens on the face of this planet.

We want to solve this. We want to look forward. The facts are that the disaster is huge. We want to channel our energies the best way possible to do whatever is needed, the best way possible.

If the fire ceases now, we might start doing something. But they don't intend to make it stop. And the International community gave Israel one more week, enough time to finish up the country.

Please human being, if you can communicate this information to the world, to shake some human being who can actually make this stop. All we have left is our hands, our heads, and the infinite possibility within.

Sorry if I was long, whatever I say will never be enough.
Please do something, all I can do is write.

A Lebanese Citizen