A month of living dangerously in south Lebanon

"I need the biggest car you have left – I'll need it for two days, three days at most," I told the rental agency.

All they had was a $150-a-day, leather-upholstered BMW 318i – not the best vehicle for traveling around a war zone. But at least the ride would be comfortable.

It was July 17, the fifth day of the Israeli-Hizbullah war, when I joined a four-vehicle convoy of journalists. Our plan was to reach Nabatieh, a market town in south Lebanon a few miles north of the Litani River. The bridges over the Litani had been destroyed, effectively sealing off much of south Lebanon and preventing us from reaching the port town of Tyre.

But a Lebanese reporter claimed to know of a way across that would take us to Tyre. With no other traffic on the roads and the ominous rumble of Israeli jets overhead, we followed his car down the steep flanks of the Litani Valley to reach a recently built earthen causeway. Minutes later we were in Tyre, the first foreign reporters to arrive since the war began.

I came down unprepared for a long stay. But Israel and Hizbullah had been anticipating this showdown since Israel withdrew from its occupation zone in south Lebanon in May 2000. Having covered the conflict for more than 10 years, it was possible to see the makings of a tragedy as both sides postured and needled each other for six tense years. I often drove through the border district, noting telling changes in the landscape as Hizbullah secretly built up a complex military infrastructure of tunnels, bunkers, and ammunition dumps. Mutual fears of Hizbullah's rocket arsenal and of Israel's military might created a "balance of terror" – one perilously vulnerable to miscalculation.

That came July 12, when Hizbullah fighters burst through the border fence and abducted two Israeli soldiers.

I saw the news flash and put a call in to Hizbullah's foreign press spokesman. "Are you guys up to something?" I asked, expecting a denial.

Instead, for the first time, Hizbullah confirmed involvement in a military operation outside the Shebaa Farms, a remote Israeli-occupied area along Lebanon's southeast border.

"Hussein, have you kidnapped an Israeli soldier?" I asked. Confirmation came a half-hour later. Two soldiers had been snatched and dragged into Lebanon.

Most of the reporters who flooded into Lebanon to cover the war were veterans of Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Afghanistan, Kosovo. But the risks facing reporters in south Lebanon were quite different. We rarely saw actual combatants. Our chief threat was either being targeted by missile-firing drones, helicopters, or jets, or becoming caught up in an artillery bombardment. An AFP photographer was killed by Israeli shellfire in Siddiqine as we passed through. Our cars were covered in bold "TV" stickers and we wore flak jackets and helmets, despite sweltering heat.

UN peacekeepers took to describing the limestone hills and swooping valleys of south Lebanon as a free-fire zone. Vehicles packed with fleeing civilians were attacked by Israeli jets and drones. Cluster bombs were fired into villages. Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch told me that he had been in many war zones, "but this is one of the most dangerous I have ever seen."

After the first few days, we cautiously began heading out of Tyre in convoys, initially following Red Cross ambulances that we hoped would offer some protection. But at least four ambulances were attacked by missiles fired from drones or jets during the war, wounding several workers.

Though I knew the area well, the geography of the south with which I had grown familiar had changed. The gaping bomb craters that rendered roads impassable forced us to take meandering detours. Every few hundred yards, we would arrive at another scene of destruction – the tires of our vehicles crunching hesitantly over a carpet of shattered glass and fragments of concrete as we passed flattened houses.

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