Pictures from Lebanon

This is an article I wrote just after returning to lebanon on a releif trip... I wrote it to The Beacon newspaper at AUC:


Pictures... From Lebanon
By Ahmed Fathelbab

'Lebanon is the country of pretty girls and attractive beaches' this is the picture I had in mind while traveling to Lebanon representing the help club in the Nusrah campaign's visit to Lebanon as part of the relief campaign after the war. Yet, once I stepped in Beirut's airport, some different pictures started to come into view.

The first picture is for an 11-storey house that was once hosting more than 25 families. This house is now rubble. All you can see is some blocks and dust, some rags of cloth, and some kindergarten books of those children who once lived in this house. This house was never used to launch rockets, never used to refuge resistors, and never used to hide weapons. Yet, the Israeli planes while failing to target those in resistance started to target civilians in order to score points against the resilient Lebanese. This picture of the home was not one picture, it is 15,000 pictures spreading every where in Lebanon.

The other picture is for Mahmoud . Mahmoud is a normal university sophomore who is living some luxurious house with his family in a relatively safer city in Lebanon. As the war began, and while most of the south residents were leaving the south, mahmoud was leaving to the south. Mahmoud joined the people of the south in their struggle and in rescuing them putting his life in danger. Yet doing that for mahmoud was "for the sake of Allah who deserves much more from me".

Another picture is for a real hero. He is a father of two young Palestinians living in Sour, Lebanon. While Sour has been heavily bombed day after another during the July-August war, Seif, as a normal father, sent his two beloved children to the supposedly-safer city of Sidon. Then, and through a mid-night call, Seif knew that his two children were bombed, one of them became a martyr and the other paralyzed.
We had the chance to meet Seif and have iftar with him. On my way, I thought I am going to meet a father and a mother who are constantly crying. Yet, I found out that I am speaking with a hero who considers himself a father of a martyr.

Well, this is a picture of a normal building. Yet what set this building as remarkable are the people working in. This building is Al-Rahma Center for Community Service in Sidon. This center short after the war turned into a work station where some volunteer girls started cooking meals for refugees and displaced citizens. The first surprise is that this center was able to prepare 18,000 meals a day for the refugees. The second surprise is that this center is led by a young man in the early twenties.

The Palestinian and Lebanese children draw the most beautiful picture. In Ein El-Helwa Palestinian refugees' camp, we have seen young children whose friend martyred in front of them and they believe that these children were faster to paradise. And other drawing with their beautiful pencils Lebanon as a grave for any occupant.

Many pictures are spread everywhere in the Lebanese streets are the pictures of the martyrs. It is a source of dignity of a family to state that it granted a martyr for the sake of God and the sake of nation.

In several areas you can see a sign placed on a demolished shop stating: "In spite of devastation, we will always be resilient and victorious. Death and defeat for Israel".

We listened to a word from a Palestinian refugee saying: "We will be back to Palestine. Or else, we will bring children to be back to Palestine.

Different Pictures, yet, all of them assert that this war that demolished the houses, built the people. I hope that some of such pictures may be seen in Egypt. The picture of a dignified man behind his demolished house is much better than the pictures of massive sexual harassments in West El-balad. I think it is not Palestine or Lebanon that is in trouble; it is our country that is