Residents flee south Lebanon as Israel eases air strikes
07-31-2006, 08h35
SIDON, Lebanon (AFP)
Thousands of exhausted residents of south Lebanon heaped their possessions into cars and fled northward, taking advantage of a pause in Israeli bombardments after being trapped in villages for almost three weeks.
Israel had agreed overnight to suspend air raids for 48 hours following global outrage over the killing of 52 civilians in strikes on the village of Qana, giving civilians the chance to flee to safer havens Monday.
The region around the southern port city of Tyre was spared the air strikes that have battered the area over the past weeks as escaping villagers clogged the roads heading to the city of Sidon further to the north and Beirut.
But despite the promised halt, the Israeli air force carried out fresh air strikes in a border region in support of troops carrying out a ground incursion and also attacked a Lebanese customs post on the Syrian border.
Cars carrying heaps of luggage on their rooftops and pick-ups loaded with mattresses and blankets streamed from various mountain villages toward the coastal highway leading northward to Beirut, an AFP correspondent on the scene said.
Thousands of cars converged on the port city of Sidon, jamming all the entrances to the town. Many of the cars passed through the city and continued northward towards the capital and surrounding areas.
Most vehicles which reached Sidon gathered at the municipality building from where officials were allocating the displaced villagers to schools, buildings and empty commercial centers.
"We were trapped for 20 days with no food and no water. We finally escaped as the Israelis let us go," said a delighted Hassan Mahmoud Akid, 65, as he headed north in a packed pick-up from his besieged village of Jibbain.
The lull in air attacks also allowed the first Red Cross aid convoy and journalists to reach the village of Bint Jbeil, which had been caught up in the middle of a major and bloody Israeli ground incursion.
The town, which once was home to 40,000 people, has suffered massive devastation, particularly in its centre where dozens of buildings were totally destroyed, an AFP correspondent said.
The temporary halt in air attacks was announced by an aide to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who left the Middle East on Monday saying she hoped for a ceasefire this week.
An Israeli army spokeswoman confirmed the announcement Monday.
"All air operations have been suspended across all of Lebanon, mainly to allow the population of the south to evacuate the region," she told AFP, adding however that Israel reserved the right to strike Hezbollah commandos preparing attacks.
Israeli artillery bombarded villages in south Lebanon, including Jibbain and Kafra south of Tyre, as well as the regions of Arkoub and Rashaya Al-Fakhar in southeast Lebanon.
One Lebanese soldier was also killed and three wounded by Israeli naval fire north of Tyre, police said, in the latest raid on Lebanon's military which has stayed on the sidelines of the conflict.
Police said there were also violent clashes between Hezbollah militants and Israeli fighters in the border region of Aadissiyeh in south Lebanon for control of a hill.
The Israeli army had staged a fresh incursion in the same region on Sunday, sparking intense firefights with Hezbollah around the village of Taibe.
But after promising to halt air attacks, Israeli forces carried out an air strike Monday in support of the ground operation near Taibe, an army spokeswoman said.
And in an indication of Israeli determination to prevent Hezbollah being resupplied, Israeli air strikes also targeted areas near Lebanon's Masnaa border crossing with Syria on Monday for the third time in as many days, police said.
Warplanes swooped twice on the frontier post between Lebanon and Syria, wounding five people -- four of them Lebanese customs officers, security sources said.
A civilian was killed Sunday evening in an Israeli air raid on the village of Deir Harfa, just before the 48-hour halt to the air strikes came into force.
Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon warned that the temporary halt to air strikes in no way meant that Jewish state was ending its war against Hezbollah.
"The suspension of our aerial activities does not signify in any way the end to the war. On the contrary, this decision will allow us to win this war and lessen international pressure," Ramon told army radio.
By late afternoon Monday, hundreds of Lebanese refugees fleeing from the south had finally made it in their cars to the outskirts of Beirut.
"We will go back home!" shouted one young man, making the victory sign from the top of a pick-up as it whizzed by.
Residents flee south Lebanon as Israel eases air strikes
