A wonderful vigil...
here are some pictures from Sunday night's vigil in Balboa Park in San Diego.
VIGIL DRAWS SEVERAL 100 ATTENDEES
(San Diego)The local media estimated about 150 attendees but organizers felt the number was over 200. The predominantly Arab-American crowd stood on the park side of Park Boulevard and President's Way silently holding lit candles, Lebanese flags amd signs pleading for a cease-fire in Lebanon. As night fell, vigil members lined the street for half a mile, passing out flyers and holding their flickering candles aloft. Passing motorist leaving the nearby Gay Pride events in Balboa Park honked in support and gave the crowd the thumbs up sign.
The vigil was held the day after Israelis bombed a house in the southern Lebanese town of Qana, killing more than 50 people, most of them children. Many of the children above the age of ten, had suffered crippling wounds the last time the Israelis attacked Qana in 1996, during Israel's 'Operation Grapes as Wrath." Then, as now, Israel expressed "deep regret" over the loss of civilian life and claimed not to know civilians had sought refuge in the compounds there.
Over 500 Lebanese have died in the current conflict, one third of them children.
Heavy bombing by the IDF has created tens of thousands of refugees and destroyed much of Lebanon's infrastructure.
