WASHINGTON - July 28 -

RANA EL-KHATIB
Now living in Beirut, el-Khatib is working with the YMCA focusing on getting relief and medical supplies to displaced people in Lebanon. She wrote a recent article, "Israel Sows Seeds of Hatred," which was published in the Toronto Star. Her family is originally from Haifa. A book of her poetry is titled "Branded: The Poetry of a So-Called 'Terrorist.'"

SIMONA SHARONI, http://www.simonasharoni.com
Sharoni's mother is in northern Israel, and they are in regular contact. Formerly a member of the Israel Defense Forces, Sharoni has written extensively on the Mideast and conflict resolution. Sharoni's writings include the book "Gender and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict." She wrote the forward to el-Khatib's book and is in regular contact with her. Sharoni stresses the importance of "direct people-to-people contact, to make clear the human face of the conflict -- particularly utilizing Internet resources like www.ElectronicLebanon.net."

MOUNZER SLEIMAN, globalzr@aol.com, http://www.arab-american.net
Sleiman is Washington bureau chief for the magazine Almustaqbal Alarabi and vice chair of the National Council of Arab Americans. He has just returned from a visit to Beirut and Damascus. While in Beirut, his father, who lived there, died of a heart attack last week.

AMAL SAAD-GHORAYEB, http://www.press.umich.edu/titleDetailDesc.do?id=115025
Author of the book "Hizbu'llah: Politics and Religion," Amal Saad-Ghorayeb teaches at the Lebanese American University. She wrote the recent piece "Hezbollah's Apocalypse Now," which was published in the Washington Post.

She helped structure a just-released opinion poll in Lebanon, which found that "87 percent of all Lebanese support Hezbollah's resistance against Israel today. And that includes 80 percent of all Christian respondents, 80 percent of all Druze respondents and 89 percent of all Sunnis."

RAMZI KYSIA, http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0727-23.htm
Kysia is an Arab-American essayist and activist. He spent a year in Iraq with Voices in the Wilderness, the Chicago-based predecessor to Voices for Creative Nonviolence. Currently living in Lebanon, his most recent article is "Lebanon, Burning."

Pictures of the human toll in Lebanon are available at: http://www.FromIsraelToLebanon.info.

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