Israeli Aerial Blitz Hardens Lebanese, Inflames Arab Opinion in Mideast

In Tyre's Najem Hospital, where most casualties from Qana were taken, Shawie Balhas, a father of 12 was slamming his hand on the wall and waiting in a room where two of his daughters lay. Two of his sons were in another hospital. "I can't find the others; there are eight more, and my wife, Tamimi. They must all be dead," he sobs. He had sent them to Qana for safety.

The Lebanese government has accused Israel, which has been unable to crush the threat posed by Hizbullah, an elusive army of 600 mobile guerrillas, of using vicious tactics to blackmail Beirut into curbing the pro-Iranian movement.

First, the onslaught has overburdened the Lebanese authorities with several hundred thousand refugees, most of them now sheltered in schools: Easter school holidays have been extended to May 2 in order to free classrooms.

Second, Israel has targeted Lebanon's infrastructure just as the government is spending billions on reconstruction after the devastation of the country's 15-year civil war. Three power stations were hit last week, and Beirut's airport was in the firing line when Israeli aircraft hit suspected Hizbullah positions in the capital's Shiite-dominated southern suburbs.

Third, and even more alarming, government officials say Israel is trying to tear open the old sectarian wounds of the civil war. One power station hit on April 15 was at Bsaleem, five miles northeast of Beirut, in Lebanon's Christian heartland. It took just seconds to cause millions of dollars of damage and plunge Beirut into darkness. "We can thank Hizbullah for this," says Mary Khouri, a Maronite Catholic mother of two, who was surveying the damage: twisted pylon dangled from a web of torn cables over shattered concrete supports. The air was pungent with the smell of smoldering rubber. "Hizbullah should stop its futile resistance. We're all paying the price," Mrs. Khouri adds.

But after the Qana massacre, Lebanon was united in grief. Saturday, on Hamra Street - an exclusive shopping area in Beirut - Hizbullah welfare workers were collecting money from passing motorists to feed the refugees. A loudspeaker blared out praise for the "Katyusha rockets that are causing the ground to shake under the evil Zionist enemy."

Roughly 1 in 4 cars slowed to make donations. Traffic policemen and Lebanese Army soldiers also contributed. A well-manicured young Christian woman in a Pontiac lowered her window and shoved a bundle of notes into the hands of a surprised young Hizbullah man. A businessman sipping beer at a pavement cafe applauded her generosity. He was reading Beirut's French language L'Orient Le Jour newspaper where the lead article predicted that after the "crucifixion" at Qana would come the "resurrection of the nation of Lebanon."

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