TYRE (Lebanon): Carrying only their children, thousands of Lebanese villagers trudged across rugged valleys and braved aerial bombardments on Sunday to seek refuge in the southern port city of Tyre after Israel ordered residents to flee the border area, warning of more attacks.
Villagers had to forge a path through rocky glens because Israeli air raids had blown apart bridges and roads, making them impassable.
“Since Saturday night, 15,000 refugees have come to Tyre,” municipal official Ahmed Zaraket told AFP.
Completely destitute, the refugees sought shelter in mosques, churches, holy Shia places and schools, he added.
Israeli army vehicles lined up along the Lebanese border, with soldiers using megaphones to order residents to leave their homes and villages, witnesses told AFP.
The Israeli military said it was urging people in southern Lebanon to head north after a hail of Hezbollah rockets fired on Sunday from the territory killed eight people in the northern Israeli Mediterranean coastal town of Haifa.
Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter said Israel intended to put pressure on the Lebanese fundamentalist Shia militia by forcing a mass exodus from its southern Lebanon stomping grounds.
In the border town of Bint Jbeil, which has been heavily hit by Israeli gunships, 50 civilians — among them seven Americans and two Canadians of Lebanese origin who had come to their homeland for a peaceful vacation — were holed up in a house and making desperate pleas for help.
“There are 20 children with us, including my three sons aged nine to 13. They are terrified, crying all the time, and we have nothing to eat,” Bashar Ayub told AFP by telephone.
“Houses are on fire around us,” said his wife, Nadia. “We are in the process of being assassinated.”
“I was able to speak to an official at the US embassy, who told me I had to be careful and that my brothers in the United States would try to get us out,” Bashar said.
Even as many made their way northwards to the port city, Tyre was hardly safe from the destruction. It was struck by a deadly Israeli air strike Sunday, killing at least 10 civilians and wounding 20 more.
They had been in a building housing a Lebanese military office and topped by a radar installation, police said. An Israeli helicopter fired two missiles at the building, they said.
An AFP correspondent at the scene said several families had been in the basement after fleeing Israeli assaults on their nearby home villages.
One missile destroyed the top two floors and the second hit a lower floor where the civilians were huddled.
The northern entrance to Tyre was also hit on Sunday by an intense aerial bombardment and two buildings were badly damaged, an AFP correspondent said.
“My wife and two children are blocked in — they are being bombed and I cannot get in touch with them,” said one resident of Tyre, sick with worry.
Supplies were also starting to run low in Tyre, with city officials saying there was a shortage of fuel at petrol stations and of flour in bakeries.
“We have survived three Israeli invasions, but this is probably as violent as the one in 1982” when the Israeli army invaded Lebanon, said Mahmud Halawi, assistant director of Tyre’s city hall.
At least 26 civilians were killed and scores wounded by Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon on Sunday, police said.
Their deaths bring to 129 the number of people killed in the Israeli offensive which began last Wednesday, according to an AFP tally based on official and medical sources.—AFP
TYRE (Lebanon): Carrying only their children, thousands of Lebanese villagers trudged across rugged valleys and braved aerial bombardments on Sunday to seek refuge in the southern port city of Tyre after Israel ordered residents to flee the border area, warning of more attacks.
