Gaza Beirut

I was on my way to South Lebanon yesterday when I heard the news of the Israeli onslaught on Gaza. I stopped to get some food on my way, and there was already 100 dead. The response of the people of South Lebanon is overwhelmingly supportive of the plight of the Gazans: the memories of 2006 are still too fresh. and what is going on in Gaza looks like a deja vu of July 2006.

This morning we heard Israeli fighter planes in the south. The radio and tv news confirmed this. The people started to get worried. In the village bakery people were discussing the situation in Gaza. I could feel the mood had shifted and people had entered "war mode".

In Beirut, young men and women held a demostration in front of the Egyptian embassy. They were protesting Egypt's continuous closure of the Rafah border. They started throwing stones and shoes at the embassy, the army intervened with shields and batons and water jets and tear gas. The demonstrators retreated to stadium nearby and slosed the road with burning tires. I saw them on my way back form the South.

There are also vigils near the UN building in the city center and in Hamra.

For the notebook, the one Mahmood Darwish talks about, in which we record Israel's crimes: The UNRWA spokesman is on tv as I speak. His name is Guiness and he just told us that 7 schoolchildren were killed by the bombing in an UNRWA school in Gaza today.