Written by Qassem Safa

 

Translated by Assaad Maalouf

 

 

 

 A gaily occasion marked the beginnings of Qana Al-Jaleel: Christ’s miracle of transforming water into wine, turning it a blessing site. But a tragedy spotlighted its endings, when life burnt into death in the ferocious fire, turning it a bloody Qana.

 

Before two millenniums from now, it withheld no spaciousness for excessive gaiety. Yet, after the two big massacres of 1996 and 2006, it stood a failure to persevere stepped up suffer and gloominess.

 

At first, it emanated great hopes, but, later on, it spilled over with sorrow. It combined between the thing and its opposite: between the wedding and the funeral. It is Qana, the intermingling of blood and tears, life and death, existence and extinction. It is the Qana of Jesus the Christ and Virgin Mary, the old man, the child, the bereaved women… It connotes all implications - harmonious and incompatible; colorful and dull. 

 

     Jesus the Christ crossed over the village, filling it to capacity with great happiness; when water in jars transformed into wine. How tremendous isthe degree of contrast between this holy act and those devilish operations of the Israelis in 1996 and 2006; when the Zionist military did not feel content unless committing a venomous bloody massacre against innocent children, mothers, fathers and old people. Tears ceaselessly rolled down pure faces of innocents – 106 dead and 116 injured within just a few minutes!s!

 

    People only wished a miracle had spread, during those optimistic days of the massacres, a protective shield over the bodies of victims, by way of fighting back such an immensely hardened crime from really happening. Yet, it seemed that the voice of evil and killing dominated that of peace and loving during that time.e.

 

Man’s vision turned blurred by the gloomy cloud of hatred that filled the air and hid every glimpse of reality.