Your posts are covered with blood, neo harris.
Weeks of bombing leave nation in ruins
By Thanassis Cambanis and Rana Fil, Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent | August 5, 2006
TYRE, Lebanon -- Three-and-a-half weeks of war have undone Lebanon's renaissance.
The human toll has been catastrophic enough, with more than 900 Lebanese killed and 913,000 displaced, at the government's last count.
But Israel's bombing campaign has also reduced much of the nation's infrastructure to a shambles, setting back painstaking and costly reconstruction that had finally put Lebanon on a prosperous path after decades of civil war and economic stagnation. Bridges, seaports, fuel depots, and the nation's airports and ports, border crossings, and all the major national highways have been attacked, causing more than $2 billion in damage.
In the latest blow, Israeli warplanes yesterday destroyed four key bridges on the country's last major land route to Syria, raising a new obstacle to aid efforts and adding to the rebuilding burden.
``If there is a definitive solution to the crisis, it will take two to three years to get back to where we were on July 12," the day the war began, said Marwan Mikhael, an adviser to Lebanon's minister of economy and trade.
GLOBE GRAPHIC: Israeli airstrikes
Lebanon's prime minister, Fuad Saniora, said at an Islamic conference in Malaysia on Thursday that Israel's offensive on Lebanon ``is taking an enormous toll on human life and infrastructure, and has totally ravaged our country and shattered our economy."
Another less visible cost is the virtual shutdown of the nation's tourism industry, which was projected before the Israeli offensive to generate 12 percent of the nation's gross domestic product this year. Many of the Mediterranean beachfront resorts, built with foreign investment along the 135-mile coast and developed with international grants, now serve as refugee clearinghouses.
Israel says it is fighting the Islamist Hezbollah militia, not Lebanon. But Israel has repeatedly struck targets that appear to have little to do with Hezbollah and plenty to do with the daily life of the Lebanese -- many of whom oppose Hezbollah.
The bombing campaign, according to Israel, aims to cut off Hezbollah's supply routes. But many Lebanese believe Israel is trying to inflict so much damage that political leaders will crack down on the Shi'ite militia, which hasn't happened yet.
Although the bombing continues, the existing damage from the war has already produced a daunting list of repairs for this small country of 3.9 million.
Bombs have devastated the country's brand-new network of superhighways -- the centerpiece of the late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's long-term recovery blueprint for Lebanon.
The Israeli strikes have been particularly devastating in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah's stronghold and home to about 10 percent of the country's population.
Almost every road in the south has been cratered by bombs. Villages near the Israeli border have been razed by shells and bombs.
Not a single bridge has been left standing over the Litani River, cutting off southern Lebanon from the rest of the country. Only four-wheel-drive vehicles strong enough to forge through the river can pass the Litani, except at a single point where the Lebanese Army has created a one-lane sand-berm bridge sturdy enough to withstand civilian traffic.Continued...
All commerce to the south flowed through the north-south arteries. And Lebanon's economy is highly centralized, with many people traveling regularly to Beirut for everything from work to government services to healthcare to shopping.
Fuel shortages have become epidemic, spawning long gas lines in Beirut, central Lebanon, and even the comparatively unscathed Christian and Sunni areas in northern Lebanon. Major cities have all suffered electricity shortages, and power supplies have been entirely cut in most of heavily bombed areas of the south.
Lebanon has more experience than most countries in coping with war. However, during the 1975-1991 civil war, no outside power imposed a crippling external blockade, as Israel is doing now. And although the civil war ravaged Lebanon much more deeply over 16 years, the sheer speed and scope of the current destruction in just over three weeks has been stark.
Lebanon's recovery, government officials said, depends on how much foreign aid flows into the country after a cease-fire. Saudi Arabia has pledged $500 million and Kuwait $300 million toward rebuilding infrastructure.
``The cost of the damage to the infrastructure exceeds $2 billion," the transportation and public works minister, Mohammad Safadi, said during a lull in the bombing early this week.
The hourlong trip down the coast from Beirut to Tyre now takes three hours through winding mountain roads, since the coastal road has been bombed so heavily it's impossible to drive. Bombing has destroyed 70 bridges, about one-fifth of the country's bridges and highway overpasses, according to the Ministry of Public Works.
``We need three or four years to rebuild the bridges and reconnect the country together," Safadi said. ``Meanwhile, we will have sideline roads and temporary bridges."
Air traffic also has been hit hard. Israel pounded the runways and the fuel tanks of the Beirut airport, forcing it to close. It also hit the runways of two smaller airports, one in Qoleiat in the north and another one in Riyaq in the Bekaa Valley in the east. All the radar stations were knocked out.
Attacks have destroyed the fuels tanks of the Jiyye power plant outside Beirut, causing significant air and water pollution. The government estimates that 23 gas stations have been hit, prompting many more stations in threatened areas to close. Those gas stations that are still working are running out of fuel; with the borders sealed and the ports blockaded, only a small amount of gas is being smuggled in.
In the ports, warplanes hit the management buildings in Tripoli and Tyre and the Beirut lighthouse. Attacks have also destroyed television and cellphone transmission towers in different parts of the country.
Israel has concentrated its strikes in Shi'ite areas, in southern Beirut and southern Lebanon, but has also extensively bombed north and central Lebanon, hitting roads and strategic targets, including ports and communications facilities, but killing far fewer people than in the Shi'ite areas.
Israel's bombing campaign has hit the country financially, as well.
Lebanon was already struggling with a government debt of $38 billion, equivalent to 176 percent of GDP, much of it resulting from the costs of post-civil war recovery. Hopes have now been dashed for the 5 percent or 6 percent growth that the country expected this year to use in part to start reducing that debt.
The Beirut's stock exchange was shut for two weeks after tumbling 15 percent as a result of the war. It reopened Tuesday with special measures to control price volatility, such as putting a 5 percent limit on the amount a share could rise or fall.
Tourism has suddenly been crippled. Lebanon had become a top destination for Arab travelers. Europeans and Americans, especially of Lebanese descent, also came in increasing numbers. Lebanon was expected to have the best tourist season in recent history, Finance Minister Jihad Azour said, prompting companies to make huge investments.
Popular festivals, including a series of big-draw concerts including the British rock band Deep Purple and the legendary Lebanese star Fayrouz, have been canceled.
``We were supposed to be earning record amounts of money now," said Abdo Bou Nassif, 48, a tour guide at the Beiteddine castle in the Chouf mountains in western Lebanon. Beiteddine is home to a monthlong summer music festival that is the marquee event of Lebanon's tony summer tourism scene. Now the castle is shuttered.
For government planners, the damage to industry poses as significant a problem as the blow to tourism. Among the factories hit were Liban Lait, a milk factory associated with Danone, and the warehouses of Procter & Gamble, where losses exceed $15 million, Azour said.
Industry minister Pierre Gemayel said that around 23 large factories and 40 small factories had been bombed. Gemayel said factories nationwide had invested $300 million in new machinery last year. The damage extends to nearly two-thirds of the industrial sector, he said.
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