Evidence that Israel has in fact struck military targets - Wed 23rd Aug
GS | 24.08.2006 11:33 | Lebanon War 2006 | Anti-militarism | World
After three weeks of searching Beirut and South Lebanon for evidence that Israel were striking military targets I have finally found it! I was beginning to give up hope. Twenty long days of visiting bombed schools, hospitals, factories and residential areas. Not a scrap of military metal to be found. I was beginning to think that Olmert was a liar. I was wondering if all that hanging out with Bush and Blair was beginning to rub off on him? Now I am standing on a hill high above the village of Khiam in south Lebanon, and all around me lie the debris of destroyed Tanks, Jeeps, Artillery weapons and APCs. The airstrike that took this place out was certainly efficient. Just one problem. All this hardware is… erm… Israeli.
When the Israelis left in 2000, Khiam was one of the last places to be unoccupied. High above the town was a prison originally built as a barracks during the rule of the French. It was being used by the Israelis to hold prisoners and was a place of torture and despair. The locals did not wait for the Israelis to withdraw. They showed up in force and smashed their way through the gates, as the guards fled down a cliff face to the rear of the compound. The liberation of Khiam Prison became a symbol of resistance and it was turned into a museum of liberation. It had a visitor's centre, a bookshop and hosted regular events when former prisoners would meet there with their families to remember fallen comrades. The courtyard was home to several captured Israeli vehicles, which now lie in pieces strewn around the remnants of the buildings. This was clearly a propaganda strike against the Lebanese. The locals insist that this location was of little strategic importance and occupied only by its caretaker during the war.
The rest of Khiam is typical of towns in the South. Residential buildings have been hit at random. Engineers are working around the clock to restore the power. The only drinking water is from temporary tanks installed in the town centre. The locals are doing their best to clear out the ruined shops and clear the rubble that is everywhere.
Leaving on the road towards Beirut we come across a mother and son standing near a small ruined Mosque. Amal Hammoud and her son Ahmed live in Kuwait. She works in the oil business and her badly damaged holiday home is on the hill behind us. She had paid a local man $300.00 a month to maintain the Mosque which had a small prayer room, a toilet and washroom, and rest space for weary travellers of all faiths. Bits of mortar rounds lie all around, though none of the barrage had directly hit the building. In the end it seems that in their impatience to destroy this target they used a missile. So what exactly was the point? The building could never have been used as any kind of shelter for fighters, as it stands in a very exposed location. It was also useless as a lookout point as it had no real view of the area. If a synagogue in Israel had been deliberately targeted in this way, the corporate media would go into overdrive. The destruction of non-military religious targets in Lebanon barely gets a mention. I am disgusted and I don’t even believe in god.
Words and pictures copyright the author but free to progressive media, NGOs etc.
Contact by email for details.
The rest of Khiam is typical of towns in the South. Residential buildings have been hit at random. Engineers are working around the clock to restore the power. The only drinking water is from temporary tanks installed in the town centre. The locals are doing their best to clear out the ruined shops and clear the rubble that is everywhere.
Leaving on the road towards Beirut we come across a mother and son standing near a small ruined Mosque. Amal Hammoud and her son Ahmed live in Kuwait. She works in the oil business and her badly damaged holiday home is on the hill behind us. She had paid a local man $300.00 a month to maintain the Mosque which had a small prayer room, a toilet and washroom, and rest space for weary travellers of all faiths. Bits of mortar rounds lie all around, though none of the barrage had directly hit the building. In the end it seems that in their impatience to destroy this target they used a missile. So what exactly was the point? The building could never have been used as any kind of shelter for fighters, as it stands in a very exposed location. It was also useless as a lookout point as it had no real view of the area. If a synagogue in Israel had been deliberately targeted in this way, the corporate media would go into overdrive. The destruction of non-military religious targets in Lebanon barely gets a mention. I am disgusted and I don’t even believe in god.
Words and pictures copyright the author but free to progressive media, NGOs etc.
Contact by email for details.
GS
e-mail:
guy.smallman@btinternet.com
Comments
Hide the following 5 comments
Bogus
24.08.2006 15:16
I particularly like the part where the Kueaitis are financing a mosque, which can be used for weary travelers fo ALL religions...nice touch, but total islamist BS.
Ali
RE. Bogus
24.08.2006 18:06
GS
Israel destroyed a 'holocaust' museum, shouldn't we return the favour?
25.08.2006 05:04
Khiam Prison had also been turned into a 'holocaust museum', but this time the holocaust remembered was the jewish-Israeli holocaust against the people of Lebanon. The jews of Israel showed EXACTLY what they think of the rights of 'cattle' to remind themselves of past atrocities when they targetted this holocaust museum for erasure from history, just as the nazis did to the jews decades before.
Those Humans infected with the most evil of all belief systems, namely that THEY belong to a 'master-race', will always act in near identical ways to one another. The 'holocaust museums' built recently (as opposed to those reasonably built in time proximity to the actual events) in Germany connect directly to Germany providing Israel with submarines designed to bring nuclear genocide to the muslim peoples of the Earth, just as Adolf Hitler's monuments to fallen germanic heroes linked directly to action that he would later take against the jews and the slavs.
Blair introduced 'holocaust day' to the UK simply to aid his ability to carry out the greatest 'holocaust' yet seen by the Human Race.
NEVER FORGET THAT THE ATTITUDE OF ISRAELI-JEWS AND THOSE THAT SUPPORT THEM IS TO ***DESTROY*** ALL 'HOLOCAUST MUSEUMS' THAT EXIST TO REMEMBER JEWISH CRIMES AGAINST NON-JEWS. Nothing speaks more clearly as to the motives of those in the jewish community pushing for the creation of new acts of WW2 'holocaust' rememberance. The recent holocaust in Lebanon was built on the back of these programs of psychological manipulation. It is a nasty fact that when people are coerced to remember a particular group of 'dead', it is all too often in the service of creating the circumstances which will allow a whole mass of living Humans to soon join them.
twilight
What the f**k?
26.08.2006 14:49
Out of interest, how many Jews have you had a proper conversation with recently? Mail me if you want to meet for coffee:
kolesh@free.fr
artaud
e-mail: kolesh@free.fr
Twılıght
02.09.2006 05:05
GS