The Struggle for Lebanon

by JIBRIL HAMBEL

As 2006 drew to a close, Lebanon was in the process of rebuilding after that summer’s Israeli assault. In the corridors of power, however, there were rumblings of discontent and an ever-widening divide between rival political factions.

View from a rooftop

It was a stupid idea. Given the current mood in Lebanon, the last thing you wanted to do was head down to Bir Abed, in the Southern suburbs of Beirut, with a car full of foreigners, cameras and video gear to document the devastation left by the summer’s war. But having been away from Lebanon for nearly five years, I admit there was a safety-in-numbers factor involved.

When told by photographers and freelancers at the Talal Hotel near Gemayze that “security was tight” in the Hezbollah-controlled suburb, I decided to tag along when some of them asked whether I wanted to go with them and photograph the damage. “Hide your cameras or they’ll stop you,” I was warned. A far cry from the days when you could get press clearance directly from the Hezbollah Press Office; or if you lost your way, you were simply led to Hezbollah’s doorstep by neighbors and shopkeepers.

We got to the area hardest hit by the shelling. An Irish photographer who had been there the day before led us to a building that had been damaged but was still standing. It was still occupied by residents, though surrounded by piles of rubble, flooded back streets and the charred remnants of a neighborhood. He said we could photograph the damage to the area if we could get to the rooftop. He suggested he go up first and the Belgian and I follow. The British woman had gone her own way and planned to meet us back at the hotel.

I didn’t pay much attention to the black tent near the building, which could have been a rough shanty set up by construction workers.

After an arduous seven-story climb, we were on the roof. We shot film and video in the dying light till a young man in a black t-shirt and pants appeared on the roof. He did not look pleased. When he realized we were foreigners with no particular permission or reason to be there, he demanded our cameras. Not our film, the cameras themselves.

We offered the film. He wanted the cameras. We admitted to each other later that the thought of making a run for it or tossing him off the roof had crossed our minds. Then came the thought: He may have come up alone, but surely there was someone waiting downstairs.

That and the fact that though he looked all of 21 years old and was shorter than the three of us, it was a stocky, muscled build poured into a black t-shirt scowling at us. I suppose we also thought that it might be rude when trespassing on private property to throw locals from rooftops.

We finally—after trying every argument and dropping every name we could think of—got him to just take the film and videocassette. We left. Minus two days of photos taken throughout Beirut but with cameras intact. Back at the hotel, I asked the Irish photographer if he had any shots to sell of the shelled out neighborhood. He offered me photos similar to the ones we had taken but had been confiscated. “Don’t put my name in the photo credit though,” he said. “I may want to
travel to Palestine and Israel some day … Just caption it: Photos by … Guerilla Boy.”

There is a rampant but justified paranoia in the Southern suburbs about Israeli and American agents wandering the streets, marking important buildings with some sort of high tech paint that could be picked up by sensors on Israeli fighter jets. And there were confirmed sightings of small Israeli MKs—twin–engine, unmanned reconnaissance planes—commonly utilized by the Israeli Defense Forces to scout out areas where “terrorists” hid. Such remote control planes had often been seen in South Lebanon as early as 1996, including the one that showed up on footage of the infamous massacre at the U.N. refugee barracks at Qana that year. The devices were so common that locals called them Umm Kamel—Mother of the Camel—a play on the letters MK.

And, a couple of months after the savage attacks on South Beirut to root out Hezbollah leaders and infrastructure, we were caught on a roof taking photos and video of the entire area. Without official press passes. In hindsight, we were lucky to get away losing only rolls of film.

I knew it was a stupid idea.

On earlier visits, photographers were barely noticed. Now, they were suspects. Agents of an enemy who could rain fire from the skies with little or no provocation. And, as news reports of the war would point out, with notoriously bad aim and a total disregard for civilian lives. Beirut had been one of the least restrictive press zones in the Middle East. Twenty years of civil war with militias, armies and roving photographers ducking between barricades and running cross enemy lines to document the horrific drama had seen to that. Not these days.