Diary of the wall: Week 1

Part of the wall

When I went up to the border between Lebanon and Israel, last Tuesday (May 1st), the bulldozers were removing the wired fences...

On Sunday afternoon, I had no plans...

I decided to go up again to the border...I wanted to see what had happened since my last visit...

2:30 pm...direction the borders...

3:30 pm...there I was standing in front of a wall...

Part of the wall was already there...in my face...

The UNIFIL "supervisors" were not happy to see me again...

They were communicating to I dont know who that there were two women walking along the wall...

The wall was there standing tall...in my face...

But even the wall was not sure what it was doing there...

Maybe 2 meters high...standing there...protected by the UNIFIL...

A wall that is built to protect is there to be protected by the International Community...

I would really want to know if the people on the other side of the wall feel now more secure...

When I showed the picture of the wall to my 8 year old son...he said to me: "It looks like the Berlin Wall"...

5:30 pm...back to Beirut...went to a restaurant...ordered food...people around me were talking about the great weather we had, the beach, the parties and concerts they want to attend in the coming weeks...

Can I blame them? of course not because that is the survival instinct...this is how they will continue living their lives...

Thinking about the wall will not help much...people need to find mechanisms to survive in this region...

Some party and some others build walls...but we are all trying to survive in the Middle East...

Diary of a wall: Tuesday May 1

I could not resist it...

Knowing that Israel was building a wall very close to where I was planning to by a land...where I had spent days and nights dreaming of camp David style peace resort...was not easy for me...

When I talked to others about it...they were not interested...

So what said some...others said:" I dont care I am not from the South"...

But I am not from the South either...but I care about my dreams and my future...

On Tuesday May 1st at 6 o'clock am, I was on the road...to the borders...

I arrived at 7:30 am, the road was not blocked, but the UNIFIL soldiers were spread along the small piece of land where the Israeli bulldozer was struggling to remove the wired fence to replace it with a concrete wall...

UNIFIL standby

 The Lebanese army was watching...and few meters away...the Israeli army was protecting its bulldozers...

Israeli army protecting its bulldozers

It was an ugly scene...

I was greeted with confused faces...asking me if I was a journalist...

They could not believe that I was not...

"Today is a day off, you should be home resting...what are you doing here so early?...you must be crazy", said one of the Lebanese soldiers with  a friendly smile on his face...

I looked at him...I said:" I have been told so many times that I am crazy, I should start  believing it"...

Then I turned and took the pictures...

One soldier asked me: "are you with or against the wall?"...

I said:"let them build it, then we can have something to destroy to mark the end of craziness"...

And I continued taking pictures...

Bulldozers at work till the wall is erected

At 10:30 am, I was back to Beirut...to my ordinary chores...as if nothing was happening in the country...

No one cared that Israel was building a wall on the border...

War and hatred have become so natural...that no one cares anymore...