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Under “Attack”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 May 2007

Howayda Al-Harithy
Affiliation:
Department of Architecture and Design, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon; e-mail: hharithy@aub.edu.lb

Extract

After the cease-fire, I visited villages and towns in South Lebanon that suffered terrible destruction during the July 2006 war and that were facing the challenge of reconstruction. When I arrived to the border town of Bint Jbeil, I saw bulldozers demolishing beautiful, old stone structures. I stopped to inquire why; who authorized such actions and on what bases? With these questions, I approached the workers, the Council of the South (the government agency in charge of damage assessment and rubble removal), local residents, and the municipality. The answers varied: the structures were too damaged to save, we needed to widen the street, to build a better building, to erase the scars of war, to get full compensation, and so forth.

Type
QUICK STUDIES
Copyright
© 2007 Cambridge University Press

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