Dr. Rania Masri is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Balamand in Lebanon and the assistant director of the Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Balamand. She is also a writer for Zmag and Al Adab and a social activist.

Masri says the number of those killed and displaced in Lebanon is far more than what is reported in the press. She argues that the idea of establishing a multinational force in Lebanon means drawing the country into a never-ending war.

Before the dawn on Sunday July 30, between 01:00 and 03:30, Israeli bombs financed and supplied by the United State of America hit Qana. A decade ago in 1996 Israel had led to a massacre in the same village, killing 103 civilians at a United Nations camp. This time Israel hit a place in Qana, which is distant to roads and totally a civilian settlement.

According to the Associated Press 56 people were killed and more than 20 of these are children. No one could go to the bombed area before eight o'clock on Sunday morning. While the Lebanese civilian defense forces tried to move the bodies out, Israeli warplane continued to strike the roads with bombs.

Continuing bombing and technical deficiencies forced the civil defense teams to leave the scene, leaving also behind many wounded and those in need of help.

We spoke with Masri immediately after the Qana bombing.

What is the situation in Lebanon at present?

According to information supplied by the Lebanon Supreme Assistance Council, the number of those killed in the Israeli bombings is being reflected very incorrectly.

According to health workers and the crisis desk, the real number of fatalities is 1,000. Red Cross official Sami Yazbek says that only in Tyre alone there were 125 dead and 150 missing or buried under the debris.

The Council officials give the number of displaced persons as 866,780. While 106.780 people have sought shelter in 652 schools, 550 thousand are staying with their families and friends, in churches and mosques and even in parks.

210 thousand people have migrated to Syria, Jordan, Cyprus and other countries in the Gulf.

What does the Hezbollah want?

Hezbollah wants three things: For Israel to hand over the map of the placement of 400.000 land mines that it laced in South Lebanon during the occupation from 1982 to the year 2000; for the Lebanese prisoners, some of whom have been held in Israeli prisons for 25 years, to be released and for the withdrawal of Israel from the Seba Farms.

Recently there has been lots of comment about redrawing the map of the Middle East and that Lebanon is the starting point of this. What do you say?

What really concerns me are the plans of the USA to create a new Middle East. We saw what they created in Iraq and Afghanistan and because of this I am very concerned for my little country.

They are thinking of deploying a multinational force similar to NATO at the Israel-Lebanon border and even worse, to the Lebanon-Syria border. These forces will weaken the national resistance movement and the defense.

In this way another armed occupation force that receives its orders from abroad, specifically from the USA, will be settling in our country. This will be something like hell and we will be drawn into a never-ending war. (TS/TK/II/YE)

* Talin Suciyan conducted this interview with Dr. Rania Masri over the Internet