It looks as though the Israel-Lebanon are-we-calling-it-a-war-yet of
2006 is the first conflict to be blogged from day one. Bloggers from
both sides of the border – some of whom were already aware of one
another before this tragedy began – have been providing live updates,
commenting on one another’s blogs and sometimes linking to posts by
bloggers on the other side of the border. Will this turn out to be the
first time that residents of “enemy” countries engaged in an ongoing
conversation while missiles were falling?

Haaretz published an article about the online conversation between Lebanese and Israelis here (Hebrew). It links to the blog of Ami (scroll down for English), who is hosting an ongoing thread of talkbacks by Israelis and Lebanese, and to the Lebanese bloggers forum where the same phenomenon is taking place. There are currently 383 comments in response to this post on the Lebanese bloggers forum, including the following from an Israeli guy named Shachar:

Hey.

I’m an IDF soldier stationed at the Lebanon border, but got back home for a funeral of someone I knew.

We
can’t see all the bombing on Lebanon here from Israel (naturally we’re
focusing on bombs at Israel), so you’re pretty much updating me on
what’s going on.

I don’t want to start arguing about who’s right
and who’s wrong, the final word is that it’s not right that civilians
get hurt in the process, from both sides.

I’m sending you my
best wishes from here, and hope that you and your family will be strong
and be all right until this horrible situation will be over.

Shachar.

Chez moi, a Lebanese commenter, wrote, in response to my March of Folly post:

Hi,

I think I must first mention that I am Lebanese, and second that I
really appreciate the fact that there are reasonable people on both
sides of the border. I have been checking Lebanese blogs for the past
few days and was frustrated that most of the comments from Israelis
were extremely unsympathetic to the plight of the Lebanese civilian. We
were dubbed as human shields to terrorists, and justifications were
given to every civilian death in Lebanon. I was appalled. I can rest a
little easier in this difficult time, because I have found
reasonable voices in Israel. By the way, I am having a hard time
quitting smoking, with this sh-t going on too.
R

And there is an article about the Lebanon-Israel blogging phenomenon on the Times Online, here.

The
internet has also been offering some surreal experiences, like the
ability to have a Beirut-Tel Aviv online IM chat in real time while the
missiles are falling. That’s what happened to me and this blogger
a few nights ago. We chatted while he was sitting on the roof of his
apartment building in Beirut, watching missiles from Israeli planes
fall on his city and describing it to me. He was carrying on an online
conversation with another Israeli at the same time. And he was able to
describe his feelings and the atmosphere in a human, personal way that
no newspaper article or television news segment could achieve.

Read more at Lisa’s blog On the Face.