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At 5:45 a.m. things are getting crazy. A fight is breaking out. With no room to move, people are pushing and bumping into each other. Children are crying and people are passing out in the 90-degree heat. The Red Cross can't get through to help. Thousands of people stand between two KU students and their chance to escape from chaos into the protective hands of the U.S. military. If they cut in line, 500 people will yell. Everyone wants to leave first.
Marla Aboujawdeh, Overland Park senior, and her sister Laina, Overland Park freshman, have spent every summer in Lebanon for the past 15 years. The family owns an apartment in Broumaa Lebanon, five miles north of Beirut, where their father was born and raised and where his extended family lives today. On June 29 this year, Marla and Laina left for their usual getaway to visit family, entertain guests and party. "We $ \mathbf{10}\Rightarrow $ JAYPLAY 09.21.2006
did our normal stuff." Marla says. We went to the beaches during the day clubs at night. We did this for about 12 days."
It did escalate. Imagine a place with green cedar trees, mountains that rise out of the Mediterranean Sea's beaches and old historical cities right down the map from newer modern ones. This is Lebanon, one of the most beautiful places in the world when it stops being a war zone, says Philo
On July 12, after a day at the beach, the girls sat in their bedroom drinking coffee. Their mother, Pat, walked in. It sounds like Israel is bombing the South, she said. Oh, OK, the girls replied. Whatever. The news went in one ear and out the other. On previous trips, there had been minor fighting in southern Lebanon. "I honestly thought the fighting would be contained and not escalate," Pat says.
Schrodt, professor of political science and international conflict specialist. The conflict this summer, which could really be called war, began on July 12 when Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers. Hezbollah, a Lebanese Islamic
organization comprised of its own military and political party, is separate from Lebanon's national government. The U.S. and four other countries classify Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.
The next morning, Pat walked into their room again. This time the news was more serious, Israel had bombed the Lebanese airport,
"THEY WERE BOMBING THE SHIT OUT OF BEIRUT. WE COULD FEEL WHEN THEY WERE DROPPING THEM."
MARLA ABOUJAWDEH,
OVERLAND PARK SENIOR
it had been quiet for years, things blew up.Literally.
The key issue now is that Israel and Lebanon have been fighting in southern Lebanon for 20 years. Schrodt says, Israel withdrew under a cease-fire In 2000 but Hezbollah was building up an army, and Israel became concerned. Both sides were prepared, and even though
destroying all of the runways. "I was concerned with the airport because that had never happened before," Pat says. "That was really pretty major. That was a frightening, frightening thing because then you
That night the family could distinctly hear bombs going off. Each one sounded like a boom from a construction site. Because Braumana is a primarily Christian town, Hezbollah was not located in the area so the family felt relatively
really feel trapped.
safe from the bombing. Laina says she was scared — not for herself but for the people involved. Unable to sleep, the concerned family went up to watch from the dark roof of their apartment. It was hard to see but the destruction was immediately obvious. Every time the family visits Lebanon, the city lights of Beirut are visible from their roof. Tonight the city was pitch-black. They were bombing the shut out of Beirut. Marla says. "We could feel when they were dropping them."
Southern Lebanon was especially dangerous because it was not a traditional war, says Donald Haider-Markel, associate professor of political science. With Hezbollah spread throughout southern Lebanon, Israel targeted areas in the middle of residential and business districts. Afewsoldiers could easily move Hezbollah's Katyusha rockets, and they would shoot, move a couple, of blocks
and shoot another. The problem was that neither the Lebanese nor the Israelis knew where Hezbollah was operating. Even when troops tried to target their rockets, they could hit civilians.
Friday was hell, Maria says. Israeli troops bombed a power plant, leaving a lot of Lebanon, and the Aboujawdehs, without electricity for 12 hours.The bombing pounded Beirut all day. They could see destruction from the bombing in Broumana in the daytime too. The summer weather turned into a strange, smoky haze. The air became so thick that the Aboujawdehs could hardly go outside. Planes would occasionally fly over as the bombing occurred about every 15 minutes. The family was scheduled to return home on July 17, but with no chance of flying out of Lebanon, the family wanted to get to Syria, to the east. On their own it was too dangerous. All roads and ports out
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