Israel Intensifies Assault on Beirut

In the worst bloodshed in Lebanon, at least 16 civilians were killed in an Israeli attack on their two vehicles, said Milos Strugar, a senior adviser to the U.N. force in southern Lebanon. He said they were fleeing the town of Mirwaheen before noon after Israel had ordered its evacuation. The attack incinerated the vehicles, and photographs showed several children tossed on a rocky slope, their burned bodies lying next to sandals, a water bottle and other debris. Hospital officials in Tyre said they received 21 bodies, many of them children. Most were dismembered, burned and unidentifiable.

About 100 other villagers had gone to the nearby U.N. post seeking shelter, but were turned away, U.N. officials said. Strugar said the U.N. force there planned to evacuate the 150 or 200 villagers still in Mirwaheen on Sunday.

The Israeli military said in a statement that its air force had targeted an area "used as launching grounds for missiles fired by Hezbollah." It said it regrets civilian casualties but blamed Hezbollah for operating from populated civilian areas.

The scope of Israeli attacks broadened across the country -- on gas stations, fuel tanks, roads and the last bridge on the highway to Damascus, the main artery out of the country. Ports were struck in Tripoli and the Christian towns of Juniyah and Amsheet. After nightfall, Israeli aircraft attacked what appeared to be Hezbollah offices in the eastern city of Baalbek, near the Syrian border.

In Beirut, Israeli forces struck the port and the landmark lighthouse on the seafront. More intensely, armaments barraged the Shiite Muslim neighborhoods of southern Beirut, apparently targeting Hezbollah's leadership for the second day and the home of a leader of the Palestinian group Hamas. Columns of smoke billowed across the sky, parallel to fuel depots still burning at the Beirut airport. At one point around dusk, blasts could be heard every few minutes in the nearly empty streets.

In all, police said Israeli attacks since Wednesday had killed 92 people and wounded 250, almost all of them civilians.

"They keep bombing, and we keep trying to get through it," Rida Zenbaracji said matter-of-factly, standing outside his restaurant. As the blasts sounded, he calmly painted the price for a falafel sandwich on a sign hanging outside, 50 cents. "You live or you die," he said, shrugging, "but you've got to keep working."

Ten customers had come on this day, down from the typical 150. Plates full of eggplants, beets and potatoes sat largely untouched along a glass counter. No matter, he insisted. "God will bring me some customers," he smiled.

In parts of Beirut, sentiments were growing angry, frustrated and scared. To many, the conflict seems unbridgeable: No one expects Hezbollah to surrender its arms, and no one expects Israel to end its attack without something strategic exchanged. Left in the middle is a city that spent billions of dollars rebuilding from the civil war's destruction.

"The situation is just so bad," said Evelynn Mansour, who lives in the Christian neighborhood of Ashrafiyeh. "All that work over the years is being destroyed. They wrecked the future. I don't understand how Hezbollah can decide this on its own."

But in the southern suburbs, where Hezbollah draws its most fervent support, Hezbollah's posture has energized a community that rallies behind the movement for its material support as well as its projection of strength and pride. Hezbollah trucks careered through the streets, broadcasting songs and news of the Islamic Resistance, the group's name for its military wing.

"Talk to me! Talk to me!" Jihad Alaadine shouted as he passed by on a scooter. "I am willing to stay in an underground shelter for two years, but we will never give up the weapons," the 37-year-old said, pulling to the curb near a wrecked bridge. "There is a better chance that the devil goes to heaven than us giving up the arms. Yesterday we destroyed one of their boats, and we are ready to destroy one every day."