Israeli, Lebanese bloggers connect amid violence

JERUSALEM, July 21 (Reuters) Across the front line between Lebanon and Israel, bloggers hiding in bomb shelters and watching from rooftops are trading terrifying experiences, bitter barbs and words of sympathy.

The postings on Web logs, online journals, are a rare forum for communication between two countries that had no open border even before the latest war, no flight connections and working phone lines only in the direction from Israel to Lebanon.

''I'm listening to bombs right now, as I write this,'' ''lebanon.profile'' wrote in the ''Lebanese Political Journal'' (http://lebop.blogspot.com), before fleeing Beirut.

''I thought Israel was going to help prove that they would not abide with Hizbollah's weapons ... but the devastation they have wreaked on us is truly horrendous.'' The author of ''Live From an Israeli Bunker'' (http://israelibunker.blogspot.com) describes fleeing to a shelter in northern Israel when air raid sirens wail.

''Another four rockets hit -- we see them on TV ... Eventually people settle down, reassuring each other that everything will be fine and starting to get impatient stuck in a poorly ventilated bunker.'' Israel's assault on Lebanon has killed over 340 people, most of them civilians, since Hizbollah captured two soldiers in a cross border raid on July 12. A total of 34 Israelis have been killed, 15 of them by Hizbollah rockets.

Bitterness remains a strong flavour on many blogs.

''Our enemy Israel is killing us but at least its civilians are dying and it is paying the price of its military adventure. So is Hizbollah,'' wrote Lebanese blogger ''Zadig Voltaire'' on his blog ''Beirut Notes'' ((http://beirutnotes.blogspot.com).

Responding on the same site, an anonymous pro-Israel user accused Lebanese of getting themselves into this crisis for not reining in Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

''Nasrallah is taking your people to it's doom and you retards are being walked to the slaughter-house like sheep,'' the user wrote.

SYMPATHY But there are also words of sympathy.

''It's not right that civilians get hurt,'' wrote ''Shachar'', identifying himself as an Israeli soldier near the border, at ''The Lebanese Bloggers'' (http://lebanesebloggers.blogspot.com).

''I'm sending you my best wishes from here, and hope that you and your family will be strong.'' On the same forum, ''Suha,'' a Lebanese blogger, hoped no one was killed in a Hizbollah rocket attack on Haifa and said that the Lebanese were ''sick and tired of this conflict, just as sick and tired as Israelis.'' Dialogue between Lebanese and Israeli bloggers was established long before the fighting blew up into the worst since Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982. English is the shared language for native Arabic and Hebrew speakers.

Some Web contacts had even met in person despite the difficulties of moving between the countries.

Months before the offensive, Israeli-Canadian blogger Lisa Goldman, author of ''On the Face'' (http://ontheface.blogspot.com), showed a visiting Lebanese blogger around Tel Aviv.

But although ''Perpetual Refugee'' wrote of the friends he made in Tel Aviv on (http://perpetualrefugee.blogspot.com), Israel's bombing had changed his attitude forever.

''We had built a fragile bridge between our two cultures. Yet, as with every other bridge built over the years, it was cruelly destroyed by barbarism ... This is one bridge I don't want to rebuild.'' REUTERS SY KN1927