MIDDLE EAST: 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 weblogs - 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," wrote "lebanon.profile" 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 Hizbullah'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."
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 Hizbullah," 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 the Lebanese of getting themselves into this crisis for not reining in Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah. "Nasrallah is taking your people to its doom and you retards are being walked to the slaughter-house like sheep," the user wrote.
But there are also words of sympathy. "It's not right that civilians get hurt," wrote "Shachar", an Israeli soldier near the border, at "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, Lebanese "Suha" hoped no one was killed in a Hizbullah rocket attack on Haifa and said 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 escalated 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.blogware.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."