on the current situation

LEBANESE VOICES

from rim. she lives on the corniche, directly behind aub.

"I'm glad you're not here. We're all fine, don't worry. Everyone is shocked. You wake up one day and boom!your country's in war. No previous warning. It's unbelievable, simply unbelievable. I don't know what to think. Hizbullah makes me angry,but Israel even more. This is so depressing."

from joelle. she lives in hamra, the neighborhood that i lived in when i moved into an apartment. it is adjacent to ras beirut, the area in which aub is located. joelle, tamara, and their families live within 10 minutes of aub by foot.

"We are all fine here (till now :P): Eventhough u r reading the news but things are much more worse : u cannot imagine whats happening !!"

"hey ariana i just want u to check some websites to see what s really going on here:www.naharnet.com www.assafir.com ( in case it is in arabic u can change the language)Till now more than 50 persons are dead ( including more than 10 children, a family of 12 persons was killed)We went today to the supermarket : no bread no rice...No fuel...Most of the infrastructure is ruined: bridges, the airport, the power plants..."

from nizar. he just completed his first year at mcgill and returned about one week ago to his home and his family in ras beirut.

"its worse than it sounds
watch the news
my mom and dad went to buy food, and fill the cars with gas (u should see the 1 km long line ups in front of gas stations)israel is bombing beirut in an hour, they told people to evacuate. great, thats just great... usually electricity is the first thing they bomb, i guess this time they're waiting for us to be underground to save our lives, stuck in lebanon (given they bombed the airport), and then, the cherry on top of the cake, cutting electricity. it's bad, really bad. i just hope i'll be able to go back to montreal this summer. material damages : millions of dollars (all the bridges in the south have been destroyed), human damage , last i heard, 80 people died. they surrounded lebanon from everywhere, the port is closed, we can't get fuel, food, nothing.people are going crazy on the streets, driving worse than they usually do (yes, it's possible)
it's war. and i'm scared.thank god i still have internet...donno how long that will last."

"I’m super amazed we still have internet…that is one luxury I don’t wanna lose soon,and being online is the closest thing to normal that I can do.
There are 2 electricity stations that feed Beirut, they bombed one of them last night,but I still have electricity, they’ll probably bomb the other one tonight.I didn’t sleep at all last night, it’s so scary, hearing their planes and bombs flying over Beirut. I was so worried. They bombed the southern suburbs of Beirut from the sea (their boats are surrounding the coast, they bombed some ports and all of them are closed), and they’re threatening to bomb downtown (our source of pride). Most bridges are down (BILLIONS of dollars of damages,we already have like 40 billions of debts) and a lot of main highways. More than 50 civilians died yesterday alone. I hear planes RIGHT NOW! But it’s definitely not ours cause the airport is closed and on fire, so I don’t know how I’m gonna leave here. My mom suggested to go to Syria by land, then travel from there, well, they thought about it, and bombed the Beirut-Damascus road so I’m pretty much stuck here till now. We have a summer house in the mountains so we’re probably going there tonight,but it sucks cuz there’s no internet there at all.
You guys don’t worry, I’ll be safe (hopefully). The only problem is finding a way to leave here asap.
Thank you all for caring, it means a lot to me… I’ll send another update tonight if I don’t go to the mountains.
Don’t freak out. I’ll be fine.
P.s: I’ve been watching CNN, not exactly transmitting all the news."

"i obviously still have my internet connection.
the electricity in beirut is gone.
they bombed where one of my best friends lives. thank god she wasnt home.they're bombing randomly, killing civilians.and bush says "israel has the right to defend herself" .. DEFEND HERSELF !!! by killing us and destroying everything we have.
so we decided we were going to the mountains tomorrow morning for sure.its safer there, but no internet, so i guess the next update will be on monday. i hope tonight goes well (it won't , but let's hope for the least damage).
u know how my uncle's family is staying at our house cuz they bombed their area, it sucks. it's so uncomfortable living with other people. but we can't do anything about it. during the war they used to be 30 people in each house. haha we're only 10 so far (including maids, who are, by the way, freaking out).
i am being called for dinner by my hysterical mother. i'm not hungry. but i'll eat, who knows, maybe food won't last for long, i'd better stock some fat."

"14/07/06 - 8.53 PM
OMG ! OMG OMG OMG ! lebanon finally bombed an israeli boat that was sending missiles erasing the suburbs in front of our coast. it's dangerous now, they're gonna start bombing downtown beirut in response. there's like 200 people from the neighbourhood standing in front of our building asking to use our bomb shelter in the building. i have to go pack a bag with essentials and passports and everything in case we have to go to the underground shelter tonight. dear god. :'( the real war has started."

from ilham, my roommate. she lives with her family in sidon, which is south of beirut along the coast. the first picture i saw when i checked the news yesterday morning was of a bomb going off at the entrance of the city.

"we are all fine, yet the atmosphere is very terrible and confusing! all the streets are almost empty and it's very difficult to go to other cities!"

from a conversation with maya. she was in my arab society and culture class and she lives with her family in an area called bshamoun, just north of beirut.

maya: we're all fine nothing crazy should be going on around where i live. only in lebanon can a paramilitary group declare war on behalf of a nation. its ridiculous. from where i live i can hear the israeli bombings so loud my balcony door shakes. people are driving all the way to syria to get the hell out
ariana: isn't the beirut-damascus highway out of commission now?
m: it is cut yeah but i hear people are still getting through. just a few hours ago hezbollah announced the israeli military thing in the sea was hit
a: i heard about that. hezbullah hit it, right? the lebanese army hasn't gotten involved at all.
m: no it never has in the history of lebanon
a: me: that's true...i never thought about that. the war was all militias. are people angrier at hezbullah or israel?
m: hezbollah ofcourse
a: do you think the govt can do anything?
m: yeah right not at all. if they could they would've. the government here is very very weak. i mean, look how long it took them to rebuild beirut after the civil war, and it was only rebuilt in some areas. and the person who did it is long gone.