The darkness descends

Former Hobart Mercury Journalist and Oxfam aid worker Harriet Binet relates her experience in Lebanon after the 2006 Israeli invasion to the crisis in Gaza.

WHEN the phosphorous shells lit up the sky over Gaza on my television screen in Hobart recently, a personal darkness descended. Then came the memories of the sickly sweet smell of rotting corpses and garbage; terrorised eyes of children; devastated families and obliterated villages. I’ve tried to push out images of a shattered Lebanon but when you have seen the angry giant of Israel awakened and unleash its military wrath, they’re are hard to shake. I see Israel repeat a tragedy by bombing Gaza, and a deep sadness fills the darkness.
I was an aid worker for Oxfam Great Britain when I was sent to Lebanon in 2006, in the wake of the month-long bombing assault by Israel. Oxfam had been working throughout the conflict, focusing on restoring drinking water and delivering sanitation equipment – important in the prevention of disease.

I travelled by road into southern Lebanon where I saw bomb craters the size of Olympic swimming pools dotting the highways. I went through villages where not one home, hospital, school or building was left standing. Scattered toys, books, clothes and furnishings were the only recognisable remains of where a family home once stood.

Nothing was spared in southern Lebanon – not even the towers that supplied drinking water or the crops on which the local, mostly poor farmers relied for income. Israeli tanks had been driven through the middle of olive groves and tobacco plants were ruined by artillery shells. The countryside was littered by cluster bombs and other unexploded ordinance.

Cluster bombs, most of which were dropped on Lebanon in the hours before an expected cease-fire with Hezbollah fighters, are particularly pernicious weapons. The unexploded fist-sized parcels wait in deadly silence, some hanging from olive trees, to claim a passing life or a limb. Until these weapons are cleared, crops can’t be tended, farm animals can’t be rescued, homes can’t be rebuilt, and children can’t be children.

Of the few structures that were left standing in the southern Lebanon, many were blackened and scorched. They had been hit by a phosphorous shells which, when explode, melt the skin like napalm, and leaves a toxic residue wherever the debris falls. Others homes had been peppered on the inside by hand-grenade style weapons that were tossed through windows to “clear” them of people. The lethal ball bounces and rotates while spraying hundreds of pellets designed to slice through flesh, but not to damage the structure of the building so they can be used by soldiers.

Chillingly, in one basement home, children trapped by bombing had clawed at the concrete walls and left marks of desperation and terror.

After working for a few days restoring water supplies in the south, we moved up into the Bekaa Valley in the north – the engine room of the Lebanese agricultural sector.

In the north of Lebanon, unlike in the south, Israel had picked its targets with precision. The kilometre drive into one of the main towns seemed unremarkable until I noticed that every petrol station had been reduced to rubble – shops on either side were untouched. Large businesses and factories had been picked off like “economic cherries” by the Israeli war planes. The most remarkable I thought was the decision to destroy an agricultural college set up to educate and train young Lebanese students. Also on the hit list was a dairy processing plant which had competed with Israeli suppliers in the region. A fish and chicken farm was also destroyed.

A sustained bombing campaign does more damage than the obvious initial destruction because normal daily activities cease for days, weeks and months.

A farmer walked me through his devastated farm – melon and cucumber plantations had shriveled in the heat unable to be watered. Farm animals had died too – dropped dead of fright or died more slowly from hunger and thirst.

While the attack on Lebanon brought the economy to its knees, in Gaza it was already there. Israeli sanctions had created desperate food, medicine and fuel shortages – life was already unbearable. Now as the UN says, it’s a full-blown humanitarian emergency.

Before travelling to Lebanon, I had visited Northern Ireland on holiday. I toured the streets where fierce street battles had waged between the IRA and British police and army soldiers. Pocked-marked walls and fortified army lookouts were among the reminders of the fighting. The IRA terrorised England, Londoners particularly, for decades and nearly claimed the life of a Prime Minister. Injustices and human rights abuses were committed on both sides of the conflict. But the British Government persisted with negotiation to bring about a long-lasting and sustainable peace. Air bombardment of the streets, villages and homes of Northern Ireland would have been considered inhuman because of casualties among innocent civilians. Sadly, this same humanity from Western Governments, including Australia, did not reach into the villages of Lebanon in 2006, and it hasn’t reached the crowded streets of Gaza today. Darkness has descended on the innocent civilians in Gaza and they are all alone.

Harriet Binet is now Communications Director with the Climate Institute in Sydney.