Killings devastate Canadian Lebanese family
Alertnet
A Canadian Lebanese family, devastated by the deaths of seven of its members in Israel's bombardment of Lebanon, is beseeching Ottawa to help Lebanon and its citizens escape the destruction.
Meysounn El-Akhras, sister of Ali El-Akhras, a Montreal pharmacist who was wounded in the bombardment and also lost his four children, wife, mother and uncle, called on Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Monday to help her family and protect other Lebanese citizens.
"I demand that the government do what it can for my brother, who has just lost his mother, his four children," she tearfully told a press conference.
Ali El-Akhras and his children were in the southeastern Lebanon village of Aytaroun when the air strikes came.
Some 204 people have died in Lebanon since the bombardment on Wednesday.
Israel began the bombing after Hizbollah, the guerrilla group which backed by Syria and Iran and is part of Lebanon's government, seized two Israeli soldiers and killed eight on July 12.
The El-Akhras family had begun a vacation in Lebanon late last month so the children could become acquainted with their relatives there, Meysounn El-Akhras said.
She spoke by telephone on Wednesday to her 7-year-old niece, Saja, who described sitting with other family members near a wall and trembling from the noise of falling bombs.
"In one single room, they were burned," El-Akhras said.
She added that as of Monday afternoon, no one from the Canadian government had contacted her to offer condolences or assistance. Read more
db: The massacre took place around the time that Canada's PM - Harper - described Israeli actions in Lebanon as 'measured'. He also refused to condemn Israel - noting instead that the killings were 'tragic' and that an 'escalation was inevitable'. No doubt he was shoulder-to-shoulder with Blair and Bush in opposing a ceasefire.
A Canadian Lebanese family, devastated by the deaths of seven of its members in Israel's bombardment of Lebanon, is beseeching Ottawa to help Lebanon and its citizens escape the destruction.
Meysounn El-Akhras, sister of Ali El-Akhras, a Montreal pharmacist who was wounded in the bombardment and also lost his four children, wife, mother and uncle, called on Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Monday to help her family and protect other Lebanese citizens.
"I demand that the government do what it can for my brother, who has just lost his mother, his four children," she tearfully told a press conference.
Ali El-Akhras and his children were in the southeastern Lebanon village of Aytaroun when the air strikes came.
Some 204 people have died in Lebanon since the bombardment on Wednesday.
Israel began the bombing after Hizbollah, the guerrilla group which backed by Syria and Iran and is part of Lebanon's government, seized two Israeli soldiers and killed eight on July 12.
The El-Akhras family had begun a vacation in Lebanon late last month so the children could become acquainted with their relatives there, Meysounn El-Akhras said.
She spoke by telephone on Wednesday to her 7-year-old niece, Saja, who described sitting with other family members near a wall and trembling from the noise of falling bombs.
"In one single room, they were burned," El-Akhras said.
She added that as of Monday afternoon, no one from the Canadian government had contacted her to offer condolences or assistance. Read more
db: The massacre took place around the time that Canada's PM - Harper - described Israeli actions in Lebanon as 'measured'. He also refused to condemn Israel - noting instead that the killings were 'tragic' and that an 'escalation was inevitable'. No doubt he was shoulder-to-shoulder with Blair and Bush in opposing a ceasefire.
posted by exoplanet at 11:59 PM
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