LEBANON: Israel continues attacks on Beirut's southern suburbs, as many Lebanese flee, taking refuge in schools

Record ID: 274509

  • Title: LEBANON: Israel continues attacks on Beirut's southern suburbs, as many Lebanese flee, taking refuge in schools
  • Date: 17th July 2006
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) UNIDENTIFIED MAN, SAYING: "We had to come here because the south is being pounded. We wish our government would contact the presidents of the other countries, so we can be back to our homes and families. We are homeless. We wish the government to talk to great countries to resolve the crisis."
  • Embargoed: 1st August 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Lebanon
  • Country: Lebanon
  • Topics: War / Fighting
  • Reuters ID: LVA4IA7Y4D7H1BRMA7OS7BC11L8O
  • Story Text: The only thing left standing at Hizbollah's headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut on Sunday (July 16) was the guerrilla group's yellow banner hanging in front of the destroyed building and a torn Lebanese flag.
    The heavy Israeli bombardment has flattened many buildings in the "security zone" round the Shi'ite Muslim group's offices. Piles of rubble and damaged cars block several deserted streets.
    Posters of Hizbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, and of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader of Iran which backs the group, still cling to walls nearby.
    Israel pursued its five-day military offensive against Hizbollah targets and scores of civilian installations across Lebanon on Sunday, and Hizbollah retaliated by firing rockets at Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, killing eight people.
    The Israeli attacks, launched after Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight, have killed at least 112 people in Lebanon, almost all of them civilians. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert threatened Lebanon on Sunday with "far-reaching" consequences after the bombardment of Haifa.
    The few remaining people on the streets of Beirut's southern suburbs said the scale of destruction caused by the bombing brought back memories of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, when Israel bombed southern and western Beirut after its ground forces had invaded the country to expel Palestinian militants.
    Hundreds of families from southern Lebanon and southern Beirut have left their homes and been placed in at least 21 schools across the capital, but aid workers said such locations lacked basic services.
    "It's a disaster. We fled Beirut's southern suburbs and nobody cared for us. What do we want? Well I have heart disease and my son has asthma and not one of the officials asked about us," said one man taking shelter in a Beirut park.
    "We had to come here because the south is being pounded," said another taking refuge in a Beirut school.
    "We wish our government would contact the presidents of the other countries, so we can be back to our homes and families. We are homeless. We wish the government to talk to great countries to resolve the crisis."
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