ELECTRONIC LEBANON
Lebanon
The Lebanon section of Electronic Lebanon, a project from the Electronic Intifada, offering commentary, analysis, human rights and development information, and diaries from on the ground. Quality submissions are welcomed, preferably from contributors with an organisational affiliation.
Meet the Lebanese Press: Gazing towards Gaza
Hicham Safieddine, Electronic Lebanon, 29 December 2008
Like much of the world press, Israel's war on Gaza dominates the headlines in Lebanon. Massive protests in Beirut, particularly at the Egyptian embassy, took place. In an address to the tens of thousands of demonstrators, Hizballah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah called, among other things, for ordinary Egyptians to open up the crossing at the Egypt-Gaza border by force and in defiance of government security forces. Nasrallah's explicit condemnation of the Egyptian regime and the stern response by Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit reflects the long-term impact of the Gaza war on the dynamics of regional alliances playing out in Lebanon. [MORE]
Families of the disappeared seek answers
Report, Electronic Lebanon, 18 December 2008
BEIRUT (IRIN) - It was the summer of 1982 when Zahira Najjar, 66, last saw her son Abdallah, then 17 years old. The family was in Bhamdoun, a mountain resort east of Beirut, at the height of Lebanon's 15-year civil war. Only Syrian forces were on the ground when Abdullah went to find transport to the capital to get his wounded leg seen to, Najjar said. She has seen and heard nothing of him since. "I can't describe my feelings. A mother's heart cries blood," Najjar said, pulling a black-and-white photograph of the youth from her wallet.
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Meet the Lebanese Press: Strategic defense or strategic shift?
Hicham Safieddine, Electronic Lebanon, 18 November 2008
Civil strife usually ends when there is truth and reconciliation. In Lebanon, it subsides when a truce poses as reconciliation. Top Lebanese leaders are doting over each other, calling for a new pact of political rivalry that is confined to the arena of democratic and peaceful confrontation. Meetings between top March 14 and March 8 officials have calmed fears of further clashes on the streets. With the notable exception of Christian leaders, all sectarian heads are trying to unite their ranks in the run up to next year's parliamentary elections. Meet the Lebanese Press is The Electronic Intifada's regular review of what is making the rounds in the Lebanese press and the pundits' take on it. [MORE]
Video: "Nahr al-Bared: Transitions"
a-films, Electronic Lebanon, 13 November 2008
More than a year after their homes were destroyed during the battle between the Lebanese army and the militant Islamist group Fatah al-Islam, the majority of the Palestinian refugees from the Nahr al-Bared camp in northern Lebanon find themselves in a difficult situation. Not able to return to their homes, stuck in pre-fabricated housing units and mostly unemployed, many feel frustrated and hopeless that things will improve. [MORE]
Life set to get harder for Nahr al-Bared refugees
Report, Electronic Lebanon, 5 November 2008
NAHR AL-BARED (IRIN) - As he picked plastics and paper off the rubble-filled conveyor belt, Issam Sayyed indicated to a white house behind him pock-marked with bullet holes and with its roof caved in. "That's my home," said the father of nine, a Palestinian refugee displaced from the Nahr al-Bared camp in northern Lebanon, which was ruined in a 15-week war last year between the army and Islamist insurgents. [MORE]
Video: "Nahr al-Bared, between past and present"
a-films, Electronic Lebanon, 29 October 2008
One year has passed since the first Palestinians were allowed to return to the outskirts of the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, destroyed by the Lebanese army during three months of fighting in the summer of 2007 with Fatah al-Islam, a small Islamist militant group. This 16-minute film was produced in a small workshop in the camp. It deals with the current developments in Nahr al-Bared, focusing on economic aspects and on the reconstruction efforts. [MORE]
Video: Harvesting oranges in Burj al-Shemali
a-films, Electronic Lebanon, 27 October 2008
Early in the morning, between 5 and 6am, a wave of footsteps and whispering voices can be heard in the narrow alleys of the Burj al-Shemali refugee camp in southern Lebanon. It is in the darkness of the early morning hours that hundreds of Palestinian day laborers leave their homes, gather in the streets and head to work in the nearby fields and orchards. More than two-thirds of the camp's labor force work at least part-time in agriculture. [MORE]
Uncertainty clouds Nahr al-Bared's future
Ray Smith, Live from Lebanon, 22 October 2008
One year has passed since the first Palestinians were allowed to return to the outskirts of the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, destroyed by the Lebanese army during three months of fighting in the summer of 2007 with Fatah al-Islam, a small Islamist militant group. Meanwhile, up to 15,000 people have resettled in the camp. Ray Smith reports on their situation from Nahr al-Bared. [MORE]
Picking oranges the Palestinian way
Ray Smith, Live from Lebanon, 20 October 2008
Burj al-Shemali is located at the edge of Tyre and was established in the early 1950s after Zionist forces expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland. Today some 20,000 people live in the quiet, but fenced-in Burj al-Shemali Camp. More than two-thirds of its labor force work at least part-time in agriculture. Ray Smith writes from southern Lebanon. [MORE]
Migrant workers' children face discrimination
Report, Electronic Lebanon, 15 October 2008
BEIRUT (IRIN) - Children of domestic workers in Lebanon are an invisible segment of society. Many of the estimated 200,000 migrant domestics living in Lebanon -- most of them women from the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Ethiopia -- have no legal status in the country. Their children born in Lebanon thus have no official identity, and no statistics on their numbers exist.
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