Amateur video shows civilians huddled in hospital, others dead along roads in south Lebanon
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) – Hundreds of civilians fleeing Israeli airstrikes have flooded a hospital in southern Lebanon, sleeping in corridors and eating days-old scraps of food, according to an amateur video obtained by The Associated Press.
Footage showed families huddled on the floor of a government hospital in Tibnin, about 12 kilometres (7.5 miles) from the Israeli border. Veiled women and their children crouched around the main reception desk while men paced the halls in dirty clothes.
Food and water appeared scarce. A young boy was shown eating a stick of butter with his hands. Bugs crawled in a dry drinking fountain nearby.
“There is no water, and there’s no one to take us to Beirut,” one man said. He did not give his name, but said he was from the village of Ainata and had been at the hospital for three days.
Arab filmmaker Tamer Alawam and American photojournalist Sheryl Mendez shot the video on Wednesday. It was obtained yesterday by AP Television News.
The two freelancers said they saw hundreds of refugees, but people at the hospital told them that more than 1,700 had been there in recent days.
Garbage was strewn through the two-storey facility’s halls, and a newborn infant lay on a foam cushion in a corner, crying.
Children waved and smiled at the wandering camera, but many of the adults interviewed were angry.
“Is it logical for the Arab countries and the Europeans to stay silent? We Lebanese cheered them in the World Cup, but the Europeans don’t sense what we’re going through. We ask all the people of the world to rise against this terrorist enemy (Israel),” one tired-looking man said.
Many praised Hezbollah, which has strong support in the region. Others frantically questioned the photographer for the whereabouts of their relatives, left behind in villages.
Meanwhile, Al-Qaida’s no 2 leader yesterday warned that the terrorist group would not stand idly by while “these (Israeli) shells burn our brothers” in Lebanon and Gaza.
In a taped message broadcast by al-Jazeera television, Ayman al-Zawahri, second in command to Osama bin Laden, said Al-Qaeda now saw “all the world as a battlefield open in front of us”.
