Hanady Salman (a friend and editor at As-Safir in Beirut) wrote this:
"Daily routine : I wake up on the sound of a close one (shell). The radio is on all night long. So is the TV. I listen to, and look at what I missed in my sleep. Last night they bombed Saida, where my aunt and her family live, they bombed Akkar in the north, they bombed the Southern Suburb of Beirut (the usual), they bombed a factory in West Bekaa and they bombed, for the first time in its history, my village, Chmestar in Eastern Bekaa. I get up , fix breakfast for “my own personal” refugees, and start my “daily phone marathon”. (don’t tell them land lines are still working). I start with Saida; my aunt pretends to be strong. She tells me the bombing was far from their house. She did not “synchronize” with her son. When I spoke to him , he told me a mall, very close to their house, was hit. I call my friend in the north : all is fine. My other friend in west Bekaa: they brought a factory down, a big one it seems that used to build pre-fabricated houses and hangars and export them to Iraq. But that wasn’t all : some miracle happened early this morning it seems, when the shelling spared AL Hanane Institution where ten of orphans live : the whole area was bombed like hell. I need to mention that Hezbollah does not exist neither in the North nor in West Bekaa , these are Sunni areas (that do not like Hezbollah anyway). I call the family house in my village ; they tell me there are over 40 people living in the house, because we have a basement. It seems that Israeli fighters flew over the village all day yesterday, took pictures and then bombed at dawn. They bombed the graveyard, where my grandfather, my uncle and my cousin are buried. My cousin tells that my ailing grandmother is not well, she’s ninety and she’s sick, and it seems that for 3 days now , she’s not recognizing anyone or anything. If she dies now , we won’t even be able to take part in the funeral : the are no roads. But if she dies now , maybe it will be less heart braking because every one lese is dying: younger people, children (the estimations say 170 children were killed by Saturday July 22^nd) Then I call my sister who found refuge in Alley in the mountain. All fine. The last phone call was to my sister in law , my brother’s wife who fled to SyriaDamascus. She told me they could hear the bombing on Baalback and the rest of the Bekaa all night long. (her mom is Syrian). They’re staying in Bloudan , a town closer to the Lebanese border than Kinda’s diary : before I left to the office, Kinda, my two year old daughter (actually she’s 28 months old) was looking at the pictures in the newspaper. It’s a habit she took when all this started since we’re publishing lots of pictures of the displaced children. Of course , every morning I hide the pages that contain hideous pictures and give her the rest of the newspaper: she loves to see the pictures of other children. So, she saw this picture of a wounded 10 year old girl (god she’s pretty) who’s being treated at a hospital in Beirut. She came to me and said : mama , baby wawa ( ie sick in Arabic baby language) . I said yes, very wawa. And here’s what happened then : she wanted to go see her. She said : (in Arabic of course) I want to go there (with her finger pointing at the picture ) with cadeau ( present in French) . she kept insisting and wouldn’t let me go to work before I promised I’ll take her tomorrow .THIS IS A TRUE STORY, I still can’t believe it myself. I never took Kinda to a hospital before, and she doesn’t know it is customary to take presents to patients.
But I promise you this : tomorrow I’ll take her there...."