A first-hand account from Beirut

Letter from Rasha [a young woman] in Beirut:

“Dear All,

I am drafting this entry in this unusual diary at 11:30 pm. I have about half an hour before the generator shuts down. Most of Beirut is in the dark. I dare not imagine what the country is like. Today was a relatively calm day, but like most calm days that come immediately after tumultuous days, it was a sinister day of taking stock of damage, pulling bodies from under destroyed buildings, shuttling injured to hospitals that have the capacity to tend to their wounds more adequately. The relative calm allowed journalists to visit the sites of shelling and violence.
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INTERNATIONAL DAY OF ACTION AGAINST ISRAELI AGGRESSION

Saturday, July 22

MONTREAL

TWO STARTING POINTS:
1:30pm, corner Mackay and de Maisonneuve
2:00pm, corner Peel and Rene-Levesque
MARCHING TO: Complexe Guy-Favreau

As Israeli attacks on civilians continue and escalate day after day in Lebanon and Palestine and as the world’s governments support Israel’s crimes or, at best, turn a blind eye to its actions it is time for the people to speak.

Saturday July 22, 2006 has been declared “International day of action against Israeli aggression”. We call on people all around the world to rise up on that day and be heard.

UPDATE: Please read on for a list of actions in Canada and elsewhere.

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Mon Jul 17, 4:47 PM ET

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – US Ambassador John Bolton said there was no moral equivalence between the civilian casualties from the Israeli raids in Lebanon and those killed in Israel from “malicious terrorist acts”.

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Dear friends,

We have set up a group of volunteers to help the 80,000 stranded Sri Lankan migrant workers in Lebanon. About 50,000 of them are women.

Can you help us to contact them and help them communicate with their relatives, agency houses sending them and if possible enable them to return to Sri Lanka.

We shall be grateful for an early response.

If you can help, contact Tadamon! at tadamon@resist.ca and we will put you in touch.

Borj El Barajneh Refugee camp. Beirut, Lebanon.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN ,

Dear Sirs/Madames,

First I would like to start with the situation here in Beirut. War has prevailed everywhere and the destruction has become our daily bread.

First and foremost starting with Borj Al Barajneh camp that is stuck in the middle of the fire and bombardment isolated from the surrounding areas leaving the residence suffering the tension of war and scarcity of life, since most of the Lebanese people were able to leave their place and houses to other parts of Beirut. Whereas the camp residence have no where to resort to except to stay in the camp.

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24 Hour Outdoor Vigil against Israel’s war in Lebanon and Gaza

Starting: 1:00pm Friday, July 21
Ending:  1:00pm Saturday, July 22

Dorchester Square, north-east side of Peel and Rene-Levesque Metro Peel

Please come out and show your solidarity for the people of Lebanon and Gaza, who are currently under brutal attack from the Israeli war machine! We will be staging a 24 hour presence outside the Israeli consulate. Standing together in the shadow of empire, we will show our united resistance!
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Montreal Plan of Action (17 to 22 July 2006)

Montreal-based organisations and individuals have come together to coordinate our responses to calls for solidarity from our brothers and sisters in Lebanon and Gaza, currently living under a vicious military offensive by Israel which has killed hundreds and destroyed civilian infrastructure, with devastating consequences.

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Tadamon! responded to the call for solidarity from the Sanayeh Relief Centre, which provided relief to the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced who sought refuge in Beirut during the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon.

Total sent to Sanayeh from Tadamon!:
$7832.36 CDN.

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Montreal, July 18 2006

In the strongest of terms, we condemn the Israeli apartheid state’s military assault against the people of Lebanon and Palestine. The assault on Lebanon, unrelenting for seven consecutive days now, and increasingly destructive and deadly, is an act of state terror, an exercise of state power in its most physically violent form in complete disregard of international law and conventions and of the principles of ethical human conduct.

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Different left groups in Lebanon have issued the following statement. There is also an e-mail address to inform of international protests against the Israeli aggression: lebanon.solidarity@gmail.com. See also the web site of the Relief Center – Sanayeh, Beirut, Lebanon: http://sanayehreliefcenter.blogspot.com/

Appeal from the left:
Call for Action Against Israel’s War on the Palestine and Lebanon

The Israeli war machine continues with its war for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and Lebanon. Attacks against civilian targets are continuing, resulting in scores of dead and wounded in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon, with the vocal and tacit support of the international community. For the past three days, attacks on Lebanon resulted in the destruction of major civilian roads cutting-off whole areas and hindering relief efforts.

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