.AP Blog: Dispatches From Mideast Conflict
Friday, July 28, 2 p.m. local
KIBBUTZ HAGOSHRIM, Israel
Next to the hotel housing most of the foreign journalists covering the fighting on the Israel-Lebanon border is a quiet kibbutz, one of the oldest in the region. Hagoshrim was established around the same time Israel was born, in 1948, and its veteran members have seen their share of wars, rockets and skirmishes along the troublesome border.
Uri Dimand, 65, has lived here since 1953. The gray-haired, ponytailed, tour guide says the barrages are nothing new to him.
"Except for the rockets that keep me from sleeping at night, I can handle everything," he says.
But having dealt with nature his entire life, he admits the most troubling thing to him to witness is the forest fires sparked by Katyushas landing in open fields.
"Houses you can fix, but 30-, 40-year-old trees? It'll take another generation for them to grow back. That's what really hurts," he said.
- Aron Heller
---
Friday, July 28, 10 p.m. local
KIRYAT SHEMONA, Israel
Local residents, weary from more than two weeks spent in bomb shelters, trickle out to the main drag in town to do some weekend grocery shopping. The main supermarket is shut but the kiosk and green grocer are open, as a handful of shoppers buy wine, meat and vegetables for the traditional Friday night Sabbath meal.
Guy Peretz, 25, emerges with a bag full of cucumbers and tomatoes. His family has fled south, but he stayed behind, living in the shelter at home with his girlfriend. A lifeguard, he's had no work since the fighting began. "It's hard to be at home like this, it feels like a cage," he said.
So he spent some time in Tel Aviv, and in the Red Sea resort of Eilat, but eventually came back.
"I figured I'd take a trip until it all ended," he said, as he shrugged off an explosion heard in the background. "But it didn't, so I came back. How long can you stay away? You miss home. There's no place like home."
- Aron Heller
---
Thursday, July 27, 10 a.m. local
BAZOURIYA, Lebanon - The car is marked with giant letters identifying it as news media, to prevent Israeli jets from targeting the vehicle. But our driver is not convinced. He's nervous.
We are heading to the ancestral village of Hezbollah's leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah. We turn off the main road. We're the only car on the narrow winding road, which is always a bad sign in a war zone.
The driver turns and hands me a helmet and says: "Put this on. It is very dangerous." The car speeds up and we're careening around corners. We pass what looks like banana palm groves and then we see the first of the twisted remains of a passenger car hit by a rocket.
Then there is another rocket-smashed car but this one has a white flag hanging out the window and bulging out of the trunk are the belongings of the family that had been in the car, belongings they must have hurriedly stuffed into white plastic bags.
Then we come across another car that had been hit but we don't stop to look. By now our car is racing ahead and up the hill toward Bazouriya.
It's an eerie feeling to enter a town that seems deserted. The shops are shuttered and there is no one on the street. We drive quickly and look for a place to park the car under some cover, because we hear an Israeli drone overhead. Usually it is followed by a bombing raid or a missile attack.
We park, and from a narrow alleyway emerges an old man carrying a bottle of milk. We follow him a few feet to a broken-down brick wall. Inside what looks like it might have been a storage place before the war is an elderly woman laying on a ratty-looking mattress, fingering prayer beads. We start to talk.
But just minutes later an intense young man comes to the door, stops the interview and starts making phone calls. We're not sure who he is calling, but within minutes another two men have arrived.
We're ushered away from our elderly couple and taken on a quick walk to a school where more than 200 people are sheltered. We're ordered not to take pictures from outside. A burly, bearded man who takes on the role of spokesman at the school tells us of the troubles his displaced villagers are facing.
The school is new and clean but in the basement where the children and women and elderly stay it is dark and sweltering.
Our guide Mohammad Rida makes it clear that Hezbollah is not a phenomena that is independent of the people. He says there are no military people in his village but everyone is a Hezbollah supporter.
At the school, water and food is in short supply but they offer lunch. We decline. Then they offer water and coffee.
As we talk to everyone, explosions can be heard from a distance. We leave, and Rida warns us not to spend any time on the outskirts of town. Every day bombs fall in that area.
Before we drive out, we stop at a small room where a 57-year-old woman looks after her 90-year-old mother. She wanted to leave but she couldn't. She had no car, and her mother can't walk.
She is trapped, she says. When she talks about the bombs, she puts her hands around her head and says she tries to hide. She wants the Red Cross to come and take them away.
But neither the Red Cross nor any other aid organization has been out to Bazouriya. Rida says it might be because it is Nasrallah's ancestral home, but he can't be sure.
We are ready to leave. It's another race to the outskirts of Tyre, six miles away. We speed off but take a wrong turn. For a few tense moments, we try to figure out where we are and turn ourselves around.
There is the acrid, burning smell that follows explosions in the air.
When we turn back onto the main highway on the outskirts of Tyre, the driver relaxes. We all do.
---Kathy Gannon
MyWay
KIBBUTZ HAGOSHRIM, Israel
Next to the hotel housing most of the foreign journalists covering the fighting on the Israel-Lebanon border is a quiet kibbutz, one of the oldest in the region. Hagoshrim was established around the same time Israel was born, in 1948, and its veteran members have seen their share of wars, rockets and skirmishes along the troublesome border.
Uri Dimand, 65, has lived here since 1953. The gray-haired, ponytailed, tour guide says the barrages are nothing new to him.
"Except for the rockets that keep me from sleeping at night, I can handle everything," he says.
But having dealt with nature his entire life, he admits the most troubling thing to him to witness is the forest fires sparked by Katyushas landing in open fields.
"Houses you can fix, but 30-, 40-year-old trees? It'll take another generation for them to grow back. That's what really hurts," he said.
- Aron Heller
---
Friday, July 28, 10 p.m. local
KIRYAT SHEMONA, Israel
Local residents, weary from more than two weeks spent in bomb shelters, trickle out to the main drag in town to do some weekend grocery shopping. The main supermarket is shut but the kiosk and green grocer are open, as a handful of shoppers buy wine, meat and vegetables for the traditional Friday night Sabbath meal.
Guy Peretz, 25, emerges with a bag full of cucumbers and tomatoes. His family has fled south, but he stayed behind, living in the shelter at home with his girlfriend. A lifeguard, he's had no work since the fighting began. "It's hard to be at home like this, it feels like a cage," he said.
So he spent some time in Tel Aviv, and in the Red Sea resort of Eilat, but eventually came back.
"I figured I'd take a trip until it all ended," he said, as he shrugged off an explosion heard in the background. "But it didn't, so I came back. How long can you stay away? You miss home. There's no place like home."
- Aron Heller
---
Thursday, July 27, 10 a.m. local
BAZOURIYA, Lebanon - The car is marked with giant letters identifying it as news media, to prevent Israeli jets from targeting the vehicle. But our driver is not convinced. He's nervous.
We are heading to the ancestral village of Hezbollah's leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah. We turn off the main road. We're the only car on the narrow winding road, which is always a bad sign in a war zone.
The driver turns and hands me a helmet and says: "Put this on. It is very dangerous." The car speeds up and we're careening around corners. We pass what looks like banana palm groves and then we see the first of the twisted remains of a passenger car hit by a rocket.
Then there is another rocket-smashed car but this one has a white flag hanging out the window and bulging out of the trunk are the belongings of the family that had been in the car, belongings they must have hurriedly stuffed into white plastic bags.
Then we come across another car that had been hit but we don't stop to look. By now our car is racing ahead and up the hill toward Bazouriya.
It's an eerie feeling to enter a town that seems deserted. The shops are shuttered and there is no one on the street. We drive quickly and look for a place to park the car under some cover, because we hear an Israeli drone overhead. Usually it is followed by a bombing raid or a missile attack.
We park, and from a narrow alleyway emerges an old man carrying a bottle of milk. We follow him a few feet to a broken-down brick wall. Inside what looks like it might have been a storage place before the war is an elderly woman laying on a ratty-looking mattress, fingering prayer beads. We start to talk.
But just minutes later an intense young man comes to the door, stops the interview and starts making phone calls. We're not sure who he is calling, but within minutes another two men have arrived.
We're ushered away from our elderly couple and taken on a quick walk to a school where more than 200 people are sheltered. We're ordered not to take pictures from outside. A burly, bearded man who takes on the role of spokesman at the school tells us of the troubles his displaced villagers are facing.
The school is new and clean but in the basement where the children and women and elderly stay it is dark and sweltering.
Our guide Mohammad Rida makes it clear that Hezbollah is not a phenomena that is independent of the people. He says there are no military people in his village but everyone is a Hezbollah supporter.
At the school, water and food is in short supply but they offer lunch. We decline. Then they offer water and coffee.
As we talk to everyone, explosions can be heard from a distance. We leave, and Rida warns us not to spend any time on the outskirts of town. Every day bombs fall in that area.
Before we drive out, we stop at a small room where a 57-year-old woman looks after her 90-year-old mother. She wanted to leave but she couldn't. She had no car, and her mother can't walk.
She is trapped, she says. When she talks about the bombs, she puts her hands around her head and says she tries to hide. She wants the Red Cross to come and take them away.
But neither the Red Cross nor any other aid organization has been out to Bazouriya. Rida says it might be because it is Nasrallah's ancestral home, but he can't be sure.
We are ready to leave. It's another race to the outskirts of Tyre, six miles away. We speed off but take a wrong turn. For a few tense moments, we try to figure out where we are and turn ourselves around.
There is the acrid, burning smell that follows explosions in the air.
When we turn back onto the main highway on the outskirts of Tyre, the driver relaxes. We all do.
---Kathy Gannon
MyWay
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