Qana, Derry

The Dead Lie in Familiar Shapes

By EAMON McCANN
CounterPunch

"It was the sudden eruption at the back of the room upstairs at Sandino's which brought us eventually to the burial ground at Qana.

At the edge of the village, pictures of each of the 28 victims were displayed on a wall around the canopied space where the graves are laid out in precise, neat pattern by the place where the building which they were crushed under once stood.

Qana Mayor Mohammed Atiya made a formal speech of welcome while relatives of the dead stood sentinel by the graves. Shane Cullen, who had designed the memorial plaque we'd brought over, explained that it had been hewn from Irish blue limestone because we wanted "to leave a little bit of Ireland here in Qana, as a sign of our sorrow." I talked of how we'd heard of the massacre and why we'd occupied the Raytheon plant in Derry in response. Goretti Horgan sang a Gaelic lament. Jimmy Kelly played the tin whistle.

Afterwards, we were invited into the homes of some of the victims where we sat around awkwardly and sipped the glasses of sweet tea that were offered to us everywhere in Lebanon.

Our hearts grieve with yours, I told Maryam Shaloub, who had moved into the home of her sister to look after what was left of the family. Five had been among the 28 who'd perished in the basement when a Raytheon bunker-buster brought the house where they'd sought shelter tumbling down. Some were squashed to death, some choked on dirt and debris. Most were children......"