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GEORGE NEGUS: Here in the south Loutfullah says the
daily Israeli bombardment has targeted larger towns like
this one, Khiam, which is, in fact, where those four UN
observers were last night killed, hit by an Israeli air
strike. In the surrounding areas the damage has been heavy
with bridges damaged and buildings destroyed. For a week or
so now Loutfullah has been moving between towns and
villages, some of them very small and only a few k's from
the Israeli border.
One of them - the village of Debbine - was hit last week as
the civilian casualties began to mount. Despite what she's
being told, this young Lebanese girl's relatives are far
from OK. An artillery shell hit her home, and her father,
her sister and 18-month-old baby brother are actually in
pieces in this pick-up truck.
Not far away, in the town of Aitaroun, the Israeli air
strike took out a Lebanese Security Force vehicle. These
soldiers are not civilians, but nor are they Hezbollah
fighters. In fact, they're under orders from their
government in Beirut to stay out of the worsening dogfight
between Hezbollah and the Israelis.
The Israelis, of course, claim their attacks have been
"pinpoint", aimed at Hezbollah targets, but these civilian
refugees have been forced to take shelter at the school in
Loutfullah's home town of Klaia. These people apparently
fled from the village of Wazzani nearby.
Houla, our man says, has been particularly hard hit. This
distraught local's cousin and uncle are lying dead in the
house after it was hit by an Israeli shell. Somehow or
other, 15 other family members survived the blast.
MAN (Translation): I was sleeping here.
WOMAN (Translation): We are on the street, no shelter,
medicine, food…. we’ll stay, but they must provide us with
everything. Those killed and injured are left on the street.
They cut off the roads, deprive us of food and everything.
Why? They fight from the air, sea and land. Against who? The
poor people who have no government to protect them. Why did
they abandon us?
Loutfullah got a word with Hassan Ayoub, the mayor of
Houla.
HASSAN AYOUB (Translation): The situation is as you
see it. All the townsfolk are still in the town. There is
fear, but as for the town, the people are still in it and
the food has run out. Most of the food supplies have run
out. There’s no petrol, no diesel… Only a bit of water is
left.
As they talked, these residents were fleeing the air
attacks.
RESIDENT (Translation): They carried out four or five
air raids on Adaisse last night. They warned the surrounding
villages but bombed the villages they did not warn.
MAN (Translation): We are from Wassani and Ain Arab and
we have been trapped for a week by the bombing with no
water, electricity, food, baby formula, nothing… And on top
of that no one asked about us! Not the government or the
Ministry of Social Affairs or even the Red Cross.
We stayed until yesterday, we had two deaths and seven
injuries in the bombing and fled here to the school at Klaia.
Some people are still trapped with their livestock. There
are children too.
In our last contact with Loutfullah, he told us
neither the shelling nor the danger was subsiding.
Cameraman: LOUTFALLAH DAHER
Editor: ROWAN TUCKER-EVANS
Subtitling: JOSEPH ABDO
Producer: GEOFF PARISH
