Reporting from Beirut, a land of destruction

Jeong Moon Tae, freelance war correspondant

BEIRUT, Lebanon. I ran along a Beirut-to-Damascus route that both invaders and refugees have used throughout the history of this land. However, I did not see huge lines of refugees, as reported by foreign media, but only vehicles, more than usual, heading to Syria. People working at the border looked vacantly on at the scene.

When we passed a checkpoint at the Syria-Lebanon border, the voice of Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert could be heard through a radio broadcast, "This is not an invasion. This is occupation for a limited period of time to destroy the bases of ’terrorist’ group Hezbolla."

On June 21, 1982, then-Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, who had invaded Lebanon to destroy the "terrorist" Palestinian Liberation Organization, had said the same thing. This is not an invasion because we are not aimed at occupying or consolidating Lebanon, he said.

From where I was, there were no ’terrorists’ to be seen. Only refugees flooding to Syria through a Lebanese checkpoint. Lebanese citizen Abu Eichem, 48, who was fleeing from Beirut, cried to a reporter, "Stop the war! Stop the war!" His voice, of course, cannot reach Israel.

Ghost winds swept the Lebanese border city, emptied of living souls. The only things moving through its streets were refugees’ vehicles, taking side roads in order to bypass the No. 1 expressway, which had been bombed by the Israeli army. Using the expressway, it usually takes only an hour to get to Beirut. As soon as the war began, Israeli troops bombed the road - which refugees or vehicles transporting emergency relief goods should have access to - saying that they were trying to eradicate ’terrorists.’

Instead of the expressway, I took a long bypass known among refugees to be a safer route. But on the way, I could see relief trucks and passenger cars overturned, hit by Israeli air strikes. There was nowhere safe in Lebanon.

I ran for over two hours, looking up at the sky, the streets of Beirut under my feet. Two areas of the city were in flames and the city itself seemed to shudder in fear.

Night fell in Beirut. The Israeli army dropped bombs onto a Muslim area in the southern part of the city that night.

Lebanese ambulances rushed to help victims, some of whom no doubt vividly remember their city’s suffering under the same army 24 years ago. When I was there, Beirut was dying. Even as I write this article, the city shakes beneath me with the shock of explosions.

"A raid with the will of withdrawal is not an invasion!" As the ultra-rightist Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported this about the Israeli invasion of Beirut on July 7 in 1982, today, the Arutz Sheva newspaper, also ultra hard-line, supported the escalation of war, saying that Israelis should rule the entire land of Jews, saying that this recent fighting could be the opportunity to do so.

Beirut, which is trembling with fear, continues to ask the question, "Where are the ’terrorists?’ "