They bombed Rashedie

They bombed Rashedie. They bombed the bakery just next to Balsam hospital in the camp, one killed, five hurt. Twenty thousand terrified. What have they done? What justifies the bombing? Nothing. They have done nothing wrong and nothing justifies a bomb, least of all one against civilians.

Rashedie is - as opposed to many other Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon - a strictly PLO-governed camp. There are two checkpoints on the road into the camp that everybody must pass, one Lebanese and one Palestinian. Contrary to other camps in Lebanon, such as for example Bourj el Barajne in Beirut, which is open on all sides, this means that it is possible to keep more or less absolute control with all movement in and out of the camp. As prison-like this feature makes Rashedie in everyday-life, one would think that it would be a good thing in times when Hizbollah is the target no 1 of the IDF: everybody knows that Hizbollah has nothing to do with Rashedie. PLO has absolute control. This is underlined by the fact that more than 600 Lebanese have fled into Rashedie as they consider the camp a lot safer than anywhere else in the south.

Still, they bombed the camp too.
Why targeting a bakery in a refugee camp?

I don't know. But I think it makes it pretty clear that the real aim of this war is about alot more than crushing Hizbollah.

I'm lost for words, I really don't know what to say. So instead I will encourage you to read my friend Maria's new Rashedie-blog here. The blog is a diary from Rashedie in the form of sms messages and emails from Ashraf, a 25-year old friend from the camp. He works at the bakery that was bombed.

Other accounts of the situation of the Palestinians in Lebanon now can be found here ('Another Generation of Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon comes under Fire') and here ('Didn't you watch the News? They started hitting Palestinians'), both from Electronic Lebanon.