July 23 2006 War on Lebanon

Al-Jazeera bureau chief arrested in northern Israel

Reporters Without Borders today called for the immediate release of Walid Al-Omari, Al-Jazeera's bureau chief in Israel, who was detained today in northern Israel shortly after reporting live on the Qatar-based satellite TV news station about the cross-border clashes with Lebanon. It was the second time Omari had been arrested by the police in two days. More

Lebanon : Asylum seekers stuck in Beirut

BEIRUT, 22 July (IRIN) - Roughly 22,000 refugees and asylum seekers are stranded in Lebanon - mainly from Iraq, Sudan and Somalia - and UN refugee agency, UNHCR, is increasingly concerned for their safety."There has been a demonstration outside our office in Beirut by some of these frightened people, including stranded migrant workers, asking us to put them on a boat to Cyprus to safety," said Ekber Menemencioglu, UNHCR's director for the region.

"We are helping with their immediate needs by directing and taking them to shelters, where they can get a roof over their heads and food packages," he added.Yasser Saadi, a watchmaker from Baghdad, left Iraq five years ago to work on a Beirut construction site, sending money home to his family every month. After two and a half years lifting concrete he opened a small watch repair shop in the Lebanese capital, which he is now reluctant to leave.

"We can't go back to Iraq and the situation here is getting so bad that even the Lebanese are leaving. I wish I could travel to Europe where I could be safe and I could just live my life," said the young man, waiting on the street with his belongings.

Saadi was heading to Syria, 60 km from Beirut, to escape the bombing by Israeli warplanes, which started on 12 July, in retaliation for the capture of two of its soldiers by Hizbullah militants. The Iraqi embassy in Beirut had told him that he would only be allowed to stay in Syria for 48 hours and then would then have to return to Baghdad. But Saadi says he doesn't know what he's going to do as sectarian violence continues in in Iraq.

An official in the Iraqi embassy said 3,000 Iraqis were officially registered in Lebanon, but estimated the real number was closer to 21,000. So far 250 Iraqis have left the country, with 100 more expected to go tomorrow. The official said the Lebanese authorities were allowing Iraqis without official papers to cross the border into Syria. By a Beirut roadside, a group of Sudanese workers crammed into a minibus were also preparing to make the dangerous journey to the Syrian capital, Damascus, from where their embassy had chartered a plane to fly them back to Khartoum.

"We're not comfortable, there is no safety. We all came here to work - we used to be able to send back $100 a month to our families. If we go back to Sudan we earn only what we can eat and drink," said Mohammed Farouk, who said he had been released from prison last week after the authorities granted an amnesty to all minor offenders nearing the end of their sentence.Farouk estimated a few thousand Sudanese, who worked as labourers, caretakers and cleaners, had already left Lebanon.

3G Commercial Services Launched in Qatar

Alcatel and Qatar Telecom (Qtel), the incumbent operator and the exclusive telecommunications provider in Qatar, announced today the official launch of the first service to be provided over Qtel's new third generation mobile network. Qtel's 3G Video Calling service is the first in a range of services that will be rolled out offering customers innovative and multimedia high speed 3G/UMTS services, including video conferencing, high speed data or video streaming.

To ensure the expansion of the latest telecom services to end-users, Qtel is offering the Video Calling service for postpaid and prepaid customers with no connection or monthly fees."Alcatel interactive mobile 3G solutions brings a vast range of new capabilities to mobile phones, including Video Calling," said Dr. Nasser Marafih, CEO of Qtel. "We are confident that both Alcatel 3G network infrastructure and mobile services solutions will enable us, in the long run, to provide users with personalized and interactive content, such as video MMS service, video streaming or live broadcast TV. This "made for mobile" TV channels solutions will boost the broadcasting of the 15th Asian Games, the second largest sporting event after the Olympics Games, taking place in Doha this December."

"The successful delivery & commissioning of the 3G network in a relatively short time frame, providing high quality 3G services reflects the close and long-standing partnership between our two companies," said Pierre-Alain Cadillon, Alcatel Country Senior Officer of Qatar. "In the very near future, a software upgrade is foreseen for the HSDPA technology. It will allow Qtel to bring significant added value over 3G/UMTS, and to stay ahead of customer demand and satisfaction."With this UMTS contract along with all related video communication services, Alcatel, a long-term GSM/GPRS infrastructure solutions supplier, further cements its role in the development of Qtel networks in Qatar and reinforces its leadership in the region as a 3G provider.

Lebanon : Young and old tell their tales of woe

BEIRUT, 22 July (IRIN) - At least 500,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon since July 12, when Israel began its military campaign there in response to the capture of two its soldiers by Hizbullah. With Israeli attacks escalating and the threat of a 'limited' ground offensive looming, the number of displaced is expected to rise dramatically.In the course of reporting the humanitarian crisis that Lebanon is experiencing, IRIN spoke to a number of ordinary Lebanese adults and children about the harsh conditions they now face.

Linda Khalil (31)
"Rockets destroyed our house in Mansoury village. All we have left is the car, so my husband and our baby and me drove to Beirut. We spent 10 hours on the road before we found a school to stay in. We watched the raids and warplanes destroy everything behind us.

Help is very slow, and we have almost nothing. Food comes irregularly, and no one has provided us with any medicine. All we have eaten so far, since we left three days ago, is plain bread and tuna in cans occasionally. And when we run out of money, we'll end up on the street. We want the war to end. We want to go home."

Hiam Younes (17)
"We left our house in Damour (20 km south of Beirut) in a pick-up truck in the early morning. I will never forget that. We were 25 people inside it, and as soon as we crossed the bridge Israeli planes destroyed it. We saw the smoke behind us. I don't know anything about the house. When we left, all the glass was shattered.

It took nine hours to arrive in Beirut. We brought no clothes, no food, nothing. We cannot move because we are not familiar with the streets. The men left us here to go bury the dead left behind in Nabatyeh. Here we have nothing. All 25 of us share three sponge mattresses and some sardines and tuna cans with bread. We lost contact with the rest of our families and neighbours, and there's no one in the village to tell us if our house is still standing."

Rajeh Hassan (23)
"We have been displaced for 5 days now. When the bomb hit the bridge above our house, we knew it was time to leave. Baba drove the mini van at midnight and brought us to this school. We only brought pyjamas. All the glass is shattered in the neighbourhood's buildings. In this school, sanitation is poor. The children have allergies from eating canned tuna in the heat and they have no milk.

We only want the war to stop, so we can go back home. InshAllah (God willing), it will be over soon, though I feel it's a long, long war. No one here cares about people - we have no value in their eyes. Look at what the Israelis did for the sake of two people (soldiers), only two. Humans are cheap in Lebanon, and if I had the chance to leave, I would have fled this country along time ago."

Hady Ali Yassine (8)
"Dad put me and my sister Ithraa in the car last night, and told us we had to get away from the bombs near the airport. He didn't wake me up, because I wasn't sleeping anyway. Ithraa was scared and shouting, and mum was crying. I didn't change so was wearing pyjamas, and didn't have time to wear my shoes. That's why I can't run here with the other kids.

We went to several schools before coming to this one in Beirut. I don't like Beirut. Ithraa is sick, she has a fever. I think she doesn't like living in this school. All we eat is bread and tuna fish in cans, and the water is dirty. When the war is over, I will buy mosquito repellent."

Mehdi Jaber (6)
"My name is Mehdi, and I'm six years old. We left our home near the airport when the Israelis started bombing us. Bayyeh (dad) took us to school here in Beirut, and left our fan and air-conditioning back home. I don't like the school here, it's summer and we're not supposed to sleep in the classroom.

Here, mosquitoes bite us all night and the toilets smell. It's very hot, and I can't sleep. My sister and I share the same mattress; it's low and she kicks me all night. I asked Bayyeh to take me home, so we can have air-conditioning again. But he said that the war should stop first. Do you know when the bombs will stop?"

LEBANON: Displaced and desperate as bombing continues

BEIRUT, 22 July (IRIN) - "May I have some more water?" asked Samah Al-Saad as she handed over a bucket to her neighbour, Souad Hammood, in Al-Bashoura, a crowded mainly Shi'ite area of the Lebanese capital, Beirut.Hammood filled the bucket halfway and handed it back. "I just can't spare any more," she apologised.

Shortages of food, water and basic supplies are affecting the more than 500,000 people displaced by the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon over the past 10 days, launched in response to the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hizbullah militants.

The Lebanese Higher Relief Committee established to deal with the crisis announced a breakdown of the displaced on Saturday. Some 97,436 are living in schools countrywide others are with friends and relatives.

Statistics available show there are 39,421 displaced in Beirut, Mount Lebanon is hosting 40,768, 12,646 in the south. Some 1,659 people fled to the north of the country and 2,968 are in the Bekaa region.

Al-Saad and her two children - Aya, aged one and five-year-old Mahmood - moved in to her mother's one-bedroom apartment in central Beirut after Israeli warplanes struck the Rafik Hariri airport near her house last week.

"I thought it was an earthquake, but then as the smell of fire permeated our house, I realised it was something more dangerous than an earthquake," said Al-Saad.

Without stopping to think, she and her husband grabbed the children, wallets, stuffed a few nappies and whatever children's clothes they could find into a bag, and rushed out of the house.

"It was chaos, as other people were running to their cars and everyone was asking, what happened?" recalled Al-Saad.

Now she stands surrounded by clothes drying on lines outside her mother's apartment in the modest neighbourhood near the Husseini mosque. "There are 15 of us in this house, we all came to stay with my mother," she said.

Al-Saad's daughter, Aya, seems to be getting sick, and she is worried it will be difficult to keep her healthy in these conditions.

"Money is running out," Al-Saad admitted. Her husband used to work in the destroyed suburb of southern Beirut, a Hizbullah stronghold repeatedly bombed by Israeli warplanes.

Al-Saad and her family are from the Hizbullah-controlled south of the country, which has borne the brunt of the cross-border Israeli attacks. "There is nowhere to go anymore and no one can help as we are all in the same sinking boat."

Meanwhile, her neighbour Hammood also has unexpected visitors: about 13 of them, most from the southern suburb, and some from southern Lebanon, sleeping on bare floors for the past 10 days.

"We can't stay like this for much longer," said the 60-year-old Hammood. Besides the sheer discomfort and tension of being displaced, there is also the matter of "pride", which gets stepped on day after day, she explained.

"We never seem to get any peace," said Hammood, who lived through Lebanon's long civil war between 1975 and 1990. "We are again refugees in our country, and again, no one seems to care!"The men of the two families didn't want to be interviewed. One said he was too ashamed not to be able to help his family, and "just talking about our problems won't fix them."