Thousands flee spectre of Israeli invasion in south

Lebanese displaced people take refuge at the municipality park in the southern coastal city of Saidawho yesterday. They fled border villages in south Lebanon after warnings that Israel may step up its war against Hezbollah with a ground offensive. PHOTO: AFP

"We resisted for 10 days with just the basics in our houses, with little to eat, but I decided to leave because Israel is thinking of launching a ground offensive in Lebanon," said Mohammad Hammud, 60.

He was in a car with his wife and their five children, part of a convoy of 20 vehicles adorned with white flags taking advantage of a relative lull in Israel's bombardment to join the estimated 300,000 other people who have fled their homes in the region.

Hundreds of other vehicles were also in the area, using mainly narrow secondary roads chosen to avoid main routes constantly targeted by Israeli jets and to get around the destruction of bridges along the way.

"We want to save our lives and we don't know where we're going to find refuge," Hammud said.

Fatima Kabalan, a 55-year-old mother fleeing with her children from the border village of Mais al-Jabal, pointed to the white handkerchief she had tied to the antenna of her car.

"This isn't a sign of defeatism, as the Israeli enemy might believe, but a means of ensuring our survival -- that of my four children," she said, her face heavy with fatigue.

Her village, Kabalan added, "has become a ghost town. Most of the homes are destroyed or badly damaged and the roads are holed."

The road she and other cars were using was "particularly dangerous," locals said, because it passes close along the border and is under Israeli surveillance.

Ali Mansour, from the village of Taibeh, wistfully recalled the day six years ago that Israeli forces withdrew from southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation.

"We ran out in the street, making the signs of victory, right up to the (border) gate which closed behind the last Israelis," he said.

"Now the situation is reversed. We are running away, with fear in our gut, hastily abandoning our villages. Our worries are over the small things -- finding a can of petrol on the black market so we can get to somewhere safe."

According to the police, 90 percent of the population of the villages directly on the border with Israel have fled, amounting to some 80,000 people.

"Those who don't run away will certainly die -- by hunger, by thirst or by the Israeli bombardments," Mansour said.

Zeinab al-Assaad, 40, also from Taibeh, said life had been hell since the Israelis began their attacks on July 12.

"The Israeli war is war against humanity. We were without electricity, without water, without bread. Only a rain of Israeli bombs that wreaked destruction everywhere," she said.