Fear and Blogging in Nazareth

Should the Hizbullah start shelling my town more heavily, I’m afraid we might turn into a ghost city like Haifa.

Beny Shlevich, in an email to Open Source, 7/18/06.

We’ve been writing back and forth with photographers on both sides of the Israel/Lebanon border this week. Through Flickr, we found Beny Shlevich, a university student at the Technion in Haifa. He was planning to be there for exams this week, but since the bombings started the university has been closed. He’s been camping out in Nazareth Illit, his hometown.

Haifa, reflected [Beny Shlevich / Flickr]

An Israeli soldier takes the train home for the weekend [Beny Shlevich / Flickr]

So far, we’ve had a single rocket that fell on my hometown, and several more in our vicinity; luckily, no casualties were suffered in my region. None of my friends here spend their time in their bombshelters, and the town seems to be almost normal…I’m hearing stories from my many friends in Haifa that this city…has now pretty much turned in to a ghost city. Everything’s closed, people are hiding most of the time in bombshelters, many of them are panicked… I myself don’t plan on leaving, but things can change rapidly — we might be serving as targets soon.

Beny Shlevich, in an email to Open Source, 7/18/06.

Most Israelis are supporting the shelling of Lebanon. I’m trying to keep in contact with the Lebanese side through several of their blogs, and try to explain my view (in short: I regret the hurting of civilians everywhere, but Israel has the furthermost duty to protect its own citizens, and to do this we must subdue the terrorist Hizbullah. It was the responsibility of the Lebanese people to disarm the Hizbullah under Resolution 1559, and since it hasn’t, it now regretfully has to face the consequences of Israel bombing a foe which uses the Lebanse infrastructure).

Beny Shlevich, in an email to Open Source, 7/18/06.