South Lebanon bears war's brunt

With goatlike agility, Yussef Jaafar scrambles over the rubble that, until a few hours earlier, had been the home of his aunt, Im Suheil Qudsi.

Somewhere beneath that tangle of concrete, twisted steel rods, and thick gray dust – the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike – lay the remains of Mrs. Qudsi and her 30-year-old daughter-in-law and her three children, ages 4 to 11. "They are under the rubble but no one will help me," Mr. Jaafar says.

His is but one example of the humanitarian crisis that is unfolding in south Lebanon, where, since last Wednesday, Israel has been pounding the scruffy villages that dot these stony hills and valleys.

The bombing of roads and bridges linking the south to the rest of Lebanon has created a zone, UN peacekeepers here say, for the Israeli military to pursue its campaign against Lebanon's Hizbullah guerrillas. But it is civilians who are bearing the brunt of the conflict between the two old foes.

"They are only hitting civilians, not members of the party," Jaafar charges, referring to Hizbullah fighters. "They take out one house, and with it a whole family dies."

According to eyewitness accounts from survivors interviewed by the Monitor, Israel is striking homes, schools, town centers, using bombs that obliterate entire buildings. Israel is targeting the region because it is a Hizbullah stronghold and the base for rocket attacks on northern Israel.

Vehicles, including ambulances, according to hospital workers, have been shelled by gunboats and have been hit by helicopter gunfire. Even the Jabel Amel Hospital in Tyre has been hit, struck early Sunday morning by a missile, demolishing an entire wing and killing a family of nine.

The bombing campaign has generated fear as well as deep anger that the West has not intervened to halt the bloodshed.

"[President] Bush and [British Prime Minister Tony] Blair are breeding future generations of suicide bombers here. You will see. Is it right to destroy a country for just two soldiers?" asked a furious Mustafa Safieddine, referring to the Israeli soldiers captured by Hizbullah last week.

(Mr. Blair and Annan called Monday for sending international forces into southern Lebanon, while the US said it did not oppose such a move.)

The conflict raging in the south has triggered an exodus, with tens of thousands of residents streaming north. But with all the bridges blown up over the Litani River – which cuts across much of south Lebanon – many residents either waded across or drove over a hastily built causeway.

Israel is broadcasting warnings to the population of south Lebanon over the old radio station once operated by its Lebanese militia allies in the 1990s. Tuesday, the residents of Aitaroun and Bint Jbeil, close to the border, were ordered to leave their homes by 3 p.m. The village of Aitaroun has lost two families in the past four days, totaling 20 people, when their houses were blown apart in airstrikes.

More than 200 people have been killed since the onslaught began last Wednesday. In the last major Israeli offensive against Hizbullah, in April 1996, 170 Lebanese died over a two-week period.

At the Jabel Amel Hospital, Ahmad Mrowe, the hospital's director, said workers had recovered five of the bodies of those killed Sunday. "There are another four under the rubble," says Dr. Mrowe. "We have many people in the basement."

People continued to trickle in along with reports of more deaths in southern villages – a family of nine in Aitaroun, five people in Qana.

Thirteen-year-old Walid Abu Zeidi lay on his hospital bed, his arm wrapped in a bandage. He and his friends had been swimming in the Litani River, 5 miles north of Tyre, Tuesday when a missile exploded nearby. "I saw the flash of the missile, then I was thrown down," he says.

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