Street cats take over Tyre

2006-08-03 15:03

Beatrice Khadige

Tyre - Street cats have taken over the Lebanese port city of Tyre from which thousands of its human inhabitants have fled in fear of Israel's looming ground offensive.

Mountains of rubbish, uncleared for more than a week, have become a haven for hundreds of hungry felines who dodge dogs and the occasional trash fire to get their claws on the contents of the black bags.

The smell of the rubbish heaps hangs over the city like the odour of the plague. The silence is broken only by the sharp cries of the cats.

Thousands have fled

Earlier this week, Tyre was still home to some 100 000 people, both long-time residents and refugees from other war-ravaged communities of south Lebanon.

Now, only an estimated 10 000 to 15 000 people remain, according to local authorities.

The shops are shuttered and padlocked. The construction sites which were a sign of Lebanon's revival after the end of its civil war in 1990 are eerily quiet, with the bulldozers that were meant to transform the port into a tourist hub now lying abandoned.

The seafront promenade, which with its wide walkways and palm trees had aimed to rival that of Beirut, is also deserted. The Roman ruins are likewise empty, and the guard has fled.

Cut off from outside world

Tyre is almost completely cut off from the outside world.

The bombed seashore highway is useless, and the only route north to Beirut is a dirt track crossing through neighbouring banana plantations.

Roads are still open towards the south and east, but that route is too risky: Israel's troops are edging ever closer in their offensive in Lebanon and against the fighters of the Shi'ite Muslim group Hezbollah.

In the Rest Haus, the Tyre hotel which has become a hub for journalists, the Lebanese staff have fled. They have been replaced by Palestinian refugees from a nearby camp who have nowhere else to go.

'We're waiting for them'

Some residents, however, are trying to maintain the illusion of normality.

In a small alley in central Tyre, Hajje the grocer has opened her tiny shop. Aged 70, she is sticking to her habits.

Wearing traditional dress, her face wrinkled and alert, Hajje is determined to survive.

"We're waiting for them," Hajje says, referring to the Israelis, whose army is only a few kilometres to the east of the city.

"They want to do to Lebanon what they've done in Iraq. But we won't let them. We're ready."

'They will fail again'

Wedged between shelves of canned food, bottled fruit juice, and cottage cheese, a tiny television shows back-to-back footage of the fighting in the hills above Tyre.

"They have always failed, and they will fail again," says Hajje, under the watchful eye of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, whose smiling portrait adorns the shop wall.

Mahmoud, a clean-shaven, grey-haired man taking his morning stroll, agrees.

"We're not afraid," he says.

A nearby stallholder shows off his grapes.

"They come from Beirut," he says, beaming with pride as he impresses his rare customers with fresh produce.

"The Israelis tried four times, and they were pushed back four times," says passer-by Ali, holding a copy of the Muslim holy book, the Koran, as he recalls the fighting which preceded Israel's pullout from south Lebanon in May 2000.

Hezbollah's military feats - whether real or embellished - have burnished the group's image among ordinary south Lebanese.

"The warriors are the strongest of all, and thanks to them Lebanon will survive," says Ali.

- AFP