Trapped Lebanese flee town during break

[Judi Lynn]

Trapped Lebanese flee town during break
BY KATHY GANNON, Associated Press Writer
15 minutes ago

BINT JBAIL, Lebanon - The elderly man stumbled over the rubble, his crumpled suit hanging off his shrunken frame, his loose pants held together by a pin after eating only a piece of candy a day.

"I haven't seen the sun for 20 days," said 73-year-old Mehdi al-Halim. Next to him, his wife balanced a bag of clothes on her head as she tried to pick her way over the wreckage of bombed-out buildings.

Some 200 Lebanese, many elderly, struggled to safety Monday, ravaged by days in hiding with little food as battling Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah guerrillas brought the town of Bint Jbail down around them.

The siege lifted, they emerged from their shelters, dehydrated, starving — some in their 70s or 80s — and some started to walk out of devastated Bint Jbail. Two died on the road, one of malnutrition, the other of heart failure. Others waited for ambulances.
(snip/...)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060801/ap_on_re_mi_ea/mideast_fighting_after_the_siege

[Sretto]

1. I hate this!

War is so horrible!

[AlamoDemoc]

2. HOW LONG

HOW LONG
by Jackson Browne

When you look into a child's face
And you're seeing the human race|
And the endless possibilities there
Where so much can come true
And you think of the beautiful things
A child can do
How long -- would the child survive
How long -- if it was up to you

When you think about the money spent
On defense by a government
And the weapons of destruction we've built
We're so sure that we need
And you think of the millions and millions
That money could feed
How long -- can you hear someone crying
How long -- can you hear someone dying
Before you ask yourself why?

And how long will we hear people speaking
About missiles for peace
And just let it go by
How long will they tell us these weapons
Are keeping us free
That's a lie
If you saw it from a satellite
With its green and its blue and white
The beauty of the curve of the earth
And its oceans below
You might think it was paradise
If you didn't know
You might think that it's turning
But it's turning so slow

How long -- can you hear someone crying
How long -- can you hear someone dying
Before you ask yourself why?
And how long will it be 'till we've turned
To the tasks and the skills
That we'll have to have learned
If we're going to find our place in the future
And have something to offer
Where this planet's concerned
How long?

[leftchick]

3. This is just sick

Trapped Lebanese flee town during break

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060801/ap_on_re_mi_ea/mideast_fighting_after_the_siege

I haven't seen the sun for 20 days," said 73-year-old Mehdi al-Halim. Next to him, his wife balanced a bag of clothes on her head as she tried to pick her way over the wreckage of bombed-out buildings.

Some 200 Lebanese, many elderly, struggled to safety Monday, ravaged by days in hiding with little food as battling Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah guerrillas brought the town of Bint Jbail down around them.

The siege lifted, they emerged from their shelters, dehydrated, starving — some in their 70s or 80s — and some started to walk out of devastated Bint Jbail. Two died on the road, one of malnutrition, the other of heart failure. Others waited for ambulances.

"All the time I thought of death," said Rima Bazzi, an American who hid with her two daughters, son and mother in a doctor's house. "The bombing never stopped. I didn't go out. I was too afraid. I just thought I would die."

She had left her husband behind in Dearborn, Michigan, to vacation with her children in Bint Jbail.

While she was there, the Israeli offensive began, and bombardment rained around the town and across the south. Then things got worse: Bint Jbail, a Hezbollah stronghold, became the objective in an Israeli ground assault. For eight days, guerrillas and soldiers fought the bloodiest battles of Lebanon's nearly three-week conflict, until the Israelis pulled back over the weekend.




Lebanese woman Dibi Ibrahimi drinks some water after she spent six days without food and water in the southern town of Bint Jbail, Lebanon, site of a weeklong siege by Israeli forces, Monday July 31, 2006. Trapped in Bin Jbail, the epicenter and the scene of the bitterest fighting between Hezbollah and the Israeli forces the old, the infirm, women with children fled from their shattered homes. Buildings were collapsed on to each other, the faces of others were sheared off, fallen power lines crisscrossed the street. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

[saigon68]

4. They had better RUN the STERN GANG IS COMING TO GET THEM