Lebanese seek solace from bombings

CHIAH, Lebanon - In an abandoned parking garage on the outskirts of Beirut, about 4,000 people have taken refuge four stories underground. There's no sunlight, no fresh air, no cell phone signals.

The place is cut off, except for a staircase wide enough for one person at a time. Five giant air conditioners circulate the stale air, which reeks of human waste. The whirring fans and dim fluorescent lights make the place feel like an unfinished bunker.

"People should not have to live here. It's inhumane," said Raed Abbas, 46, who fled his home in south Beirut under intense Israeli bombardment on Saturday. "We're like the walking dead, already buried underground even though we're still alive."

All around him, people were sprawled out yesterday on foam mattresses, straw mats and polyester blankets. Sick-looking children held on to mothers. Everyone seemed dazed.

Rowina Abdullah, 23, had not seen sunlight in four days, since her family fled their apartment in the Haret Hrek neighborhood. They brought blankets, crumpled clothes and enough food to last three days. "It's unfair, very unfair," she muttered, nearly crying.

Her sister Fatima, 7, sat in her lap playing with a small wire doll that another resident of the garage had made to pass the time.

"We ran away from the bombs," Abdullah said, looking at her sister. "And now the world has abandoned us."

Extreme measures

Filling this underground garage with refugees is among the extreme measures that Lebanese officials are taking to deal with the displacement of 500,000 people - one-eighth of the country's population - since fighting began July 12 between Israel and the Lebanese Shia militia Hezbollah. The displaced are causing a severe strain, and aid groups warn that disease and deaths could multiply quickly.

The Lebanese government has been slow to deliver aid to those who fled their homes in southern Lebanon and a crowded swath of south Beirut known as the dahiya, or the suburbs. Both areas are dominated by Shia Muslims - Hezbollah's most loyal supporters.

Hezbollah and another Shia party, Amal, stepped into the void. They dispatched hundreds of young men to schools and community centers throughout Beirut to distribute food, water and medicine to the refugees. So far, the Lebanese government has set aside about $6 million - or $12 per person - to deal with the displaced. Lebanese officials are pleading with charities, restaurants and hotels that have large kitchens to prepare food en masse for the displaced.

The problem also has a political dimension. Because most of the displaced are Shias who are flooding into Sunni Muslim and Christian areas, some Lebanese worry that the refugees could renew sectarian tensions in a society that never healed from its 1975-90 civil war.

After Hezbollah abducted two Israeli soldiers last week in an audacious cross-border raid, Israel launched its most intense attack on Lebanon in 24 years. The offensive has killed as many as 300 people - nearly all civilians - and crippled the country's infrastructure, cutting off south Lebanon. Israel also has tried to choke off Lebanon, imposing a naval blockade and bombing Beirut's international airport.

At the underground garage, there is no one from the Lebanese government at hand. Instead, there are Hezbollah members at the entrance warning refugees not to idle for long - claiming unseen Israeli drones overhead would notice people gathering and perhaps pinpoint the location to be bombed.

Trying to manage

With a cell phone and a walkie-talkie, Jihad Lakkis roams through the garage to make sure everything is running smoothly. The head of security for the garage owner, Lakkis has been living with the displaced since Friday.

"We bring them food. There are toilets. There is running water," he said, walking down the staircase. He pointed to a group of young Hezbollah members bringing five shopping carts full of provisions. Each family is given two cans of tuna, a packet of processed cheese and fresh bread once a day.

"We call it fast food here," said Lakkis, 36, a former policeman. As soon as he got underground, he was surrounded by people asking for help. One middle-aged man, disheveled and sweating, said he wanted a television to watch the news.

"It's impossible to get a TV antenna or a satellite connection this far underground," Lakkis responded.

A woman came up to Lakkis asking for more mattresses so her children wouldn't have to sleep on the floor. "We're working on it," he replied.

But the man who wanted a TV was persistent. "We want to watch the news," he pleaded. "How else can we know what's going on outside?"

TARGETING HEZBOLLAH LEADERS

Israeli planes drop bombs on a bunker in south Beirut used by senior Hezbollah leaders, the military says. There is no word on casualties.

Two Israeli soldiers were killed as Israeli troops cross into Lebanon in search of tunnels and weapons; one Hezbollah guerrilla dies.

Five people are killed when a missile strikes Nabatiyeh in southern Lebanon Air strikes flatten 15 houses in the village of Srifa. One person is killed in Ghazlyeh when a missile hits a Hezbollah-affiliated social institution.

A Hezbollah rocket slams into a building in Nazereth, killing two Arab brothers, Israel says.

On their second front, Israeli forces kill 14 Palestinians in fighting in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank city of Nablus