Qana

I'm in a bus station in Bucaramanga, waiting for the onwards journey to Mompós, where I plan to sit in rocking chairs and read Latin American literature while bats play in the sunset. But, as I have time to kill, and as my heart is pretty heavy after hearing of todays events, I have chosen to subject you all to a bit more about the Middle East. My apologies if this disappoints you in any way, dear reader, in case you were hungry for more gossip about my lonely existence in the plazas and courtyards of steamy central Colombia. Please understand though that right now, to me, this stuff is way more important than my attempts at tourism, and that I have literally no one to talk about this all to, except for the glass-faced CNN presenters on my hotel televisions and you all. Its a form of coping I guess.

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The Lebanese believe that Qana, a hill town in the south of their country, is the spot where Jesus turned water into wine.

On April 11, 1996, in response to cease fire violations by the Hizbollah, Israel used SLA radio stations to warn the civilians of forty four southern Lebanese villages and towns to evacuate within 24 hours. By April 14th 745 people were occupying the United Nations compound in Qana in an attempt to seek refuge - this number had reached 800 by April 18th. On this day the Hezbollah fired two Katyusha rockets and eight motar shells at Israel from areas about 200 metres southwest and 350 metres southeast of the UN compound. Fifteen minutes later an Israeli unit responded by shelling the area 32 times. Two-thirds of the of the shells were equipped with proximity fuses, an anti-personnel mechanism that causes the weapon to explode above the ground. Of these 32 shells 13 exploded within or above the compound and 4 exploded very close to it.

106 civilians were killed, mostly women and children. Four were UN troops. Their bodies were ripped apart, beheaded, disembowelled. Israel immediately expressed sorrow for their "mistake".

Today Israel made the same "mistake" again. This time 56 civilians are dead, including 34 children. Israel has once again expressed regret, but added that residents had been warned to leave the area. Because, as the residents of Qana know, that works so well.

Having spent time in Israel and having friends who are Israeli I feel as though I know in some small way the way Israelis think and feel about this conflict and about their neighbours. I know that the results of both of these attacks were unintentional. I know that Israelis (extremist settlers I met around the West Bank excluded) do not like killing Arab women and children. But this sort of thing has stopped becoming a surprise. It has stopped becoming something you can refer to as a "mistake". A mistake is something you learn from, an opportunity to grow. Israel is powerful and strong; it is using this power and this strength to kill thousands upon thousands of innocent people. This is well understood, and completely ongoing. This is not a mistake.