When the Israelis left in 2000, Khiam was one of the last places to be unoccupied. High above the town was a prison originally built as a barracks during the rule of the French. It was being used by the Israelis to hold prisoners and was a place of torture and despair. The locals did not wait for the Israelis to withdraw. They showed up in force and smashed their way through the gates, as the guards fled down a cliff face to the rear of the compound. The liberation of Khiam Prison became a symbol of resistance and it was turned into a museum of liberation. It had a visitor's centre, a bookshop and hosted regular events when former prisoners would meet there with their families to remember fallen comrades. The courtyard was home to several captured Israeli vehicles, which now lie in pieces strewn around the remnants of the buildings. This was clearly a propaganda strike against the Lebanese. The locals insist that this location was of little strategic importance and occupied only by its caretaker during the war.

The rest of Khiam is typical of towns in the South. Residential buildings have been hit at random. Engineers are working around the clock to restore the power. The only drinking water is from temporary tanks installed in the town centre. The locals are doing their best to clear out the ruined shops and clear the rubble that is everywhere.

Leaving on the road towards Beirut we come across a mother and son standing near a small ruined Mosque. Amal Hammoud and her son Ahmed live in Kuwait. She works in the oil business and her badly damaged holiday home is on the hill behind us. She had paid a local man $300.00 a month to maintain the Mosque which had a small prayer room, a toilet and washroom, and rest space for weary travellers of all faiths. Bits of mortar rounds lie all around, though none of the barrage had directly hit the building. In the end it seems that in their impatience to destroy this target they used a missile. So what exactly was the point? The building could never have been used as any kind of shelter for fighters, as it stands in a very exposed location. It was also useless as a lookout point as it had no real view of the area. If a synagogue in Israel had been deliberately targeted in this way, the corporate media would go into overdrive. The destruction of non-military religious targets in Lebanon barely gets a mention. I am disgusted and I don’t even believe in god.

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