"Working as a fixer in the summer of 2007, I spent most of my time shuttling between Beirut and northern Lebanon. I was fixing for many international news outlets covering the three-month-long war and severe violence in Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli. When I look back at that time now, it is a little like a slideshow in my head: images of the only prosperous camp in Lebanon, a city on its own by the sea, a hive of bustling activity.
Later the images shift: few buildings remain standing, many bombed flat to the ground, until finally I see the camp’s structures totally leveled, nothing left but rubble, empty of its estimated 40,000 inhabitants, besieged by army checkpoints and armored vehicles. By the end of the summer in 2007, more than 400 persons had died during the three month long bombardment of the camp by the Lebanese army. Since then the Lebanese army has surrounded the camp and maintained tight control over it, with Palestinians routinely subjected to military searches, an issue which has caused humiliation and anger among the refugees who live in the camp." (thanks Electronic Ali)
