Bombing respite gives Lebanon's war weary an exit

They emerged from the ruins, frail men and women stumbling over the rubble that carpets what was this town's main street before nearly three weeks of warfare turned it into a wasteland.

An Israeli concession to suspend air operations for 48 hours beginning Sunday night provided an opportunity for the few remaining residents of Bint Jbail, the largest Shiite town in the border district, and a string of other villages to flee their bomb-shattered homes before fighting resumes.

Columns of cars, minibuses, and even tractors, carrying wagons filled with civilians waving white sheets, flowed down the bomb-cratered roads for the relative safety of Tyre.

Israel had intended to capture Bint Jbail a week ago when troops advanced into the southern outskirts to fight well-entrenched Hizbullah fighters armed with antitank missiles. Israel has called this the "symbol of Hizbullah" and considers the fight here crucial to driving the Shiite militants out of the border district. It is here that Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbullah's chief, claimed victory over Israel when Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) pulled out of southern Lebanon in 2000.

After suffering comparatively high casualties, Israeli soldiers pulled back to the hilltop village of Maroun er-Ras to the southeast. Hizbullah fighters melted away into the landscape to await the next confrontation.

So far the battle here has been one with no victors.

Monday, only the elderly and sick were left to gaze in horror at what has become of their once bustling market town.

"I have been here since the beginning. It has been a nightmare," says Mohammed Bazzi, a wizened-looking 70-year-old. His sister Mariam Bazzi, 76, was too frail to walk or even speak. Reporters here carried the dehydrated woman across the rubble in a blanket. Her long white hair fluffed around her face as she sipped from a bottle of water.

"We were in the basement of our building, and it was completely destroyed. I narrowly escaped death," Mr. Bazzi says. He says they had no food and lived on instant coffee, powdered milk, and water.

Although the outskirts of the town, which lies spread over the side of a hill, is relatively undamaged, the center of Bint Jbail is destroyed. Building facades are pitted with shrapnel holes; traditional stone houses lining the narrow winding streets are badly damaged or flattened. Dozens of cars were crushed under the debris of destroyed houses.

Sikni Hammoud sat on a stool beside a store refrigerator filled with bottles of water, chocolate bars, and soft drinks. Someone had smashed the glass and helped themselves to food and drinks.

"I want to leave this place anyway I can, but I can't walk," she says, raising her hands in despair.

She says they spent the past 20 days crammed into a basement of their building with 30 other people, many of them children. "We heard shooting and our house was struck with rockets. It was terrible, terrible," she says. "My brothers and sisters are all in America or Australia. I have no one here to help me."

Page: 1 | 2