Residents of Besieged City Feel 'Just Left Here to Die'

A Lebanese family flees the southern village of Adloun. Israel used radio spots and recorded telephone messages to urge people to leave the region. (By Lefteris Pitarakis -- Associated Press)

On the other side of the hospital, 13 Red Cross ambulances pulled up in the late afternoon to evacuate 20 wounded people to Beirut. Volunteers in orange overalls and white helmets emblazoned with a cross moved quickly in and out, carrying the injured. As the ambulances departed, blue lights flashed on top, their sirens sounding a tinny wail. They drove in batches of three, four, sometimes more; the roads were too dangerous for all to go at once. Each sped out of the parking lot. These days in Lebanon, fast is the only speed on the roads.

As the Red Cross volunteers worked, a Civil Defense station wagon careered into the parking lot, carrying 32-year-old Ibrahim Saksouk, whose lower right leg was a pulp of bloodied and burned flesh. An Israeli rocket struck his car Thursday outside Qana, to the east of Tyre.

"Move! Move!" his 32-year-old brother, Haitham, yelled, helping carry him in. "Make way!"

Haitham wiped his bloody hands on his pants. "When you enter any road, you don't know if you'll ever leave it," he said.

Physician Bassam Mtarik said that with just eight ventilators, the 125-bed hospital wanted the Red Cross to free up as much space as possible for an anticipated surge in patients. He predicted supplies would last a week, no more.

"We're worried about what's ahead," he said matter-of-factly.

Mtarik had arrived in Tyre from Sidon on Monday morning, bringing with him 52 units of blood. He has been here since.

"And I'm not leaving until this is over," he said.

Mtarik walked into the hospital's basement, tinged with the smell of too many people sharing too small a space.

"These are civilians," he said, waving his hand.

Along the hallway were family after family, perhaps 90 people in all, on mattresses and blankets or milling about. Plastic sacks bulged with clothes. Bread was stacked nearby, and bottles of water lined the wall. Trash cans overflowed. The families had all come to the hospital over the past week, seeking shelter. Stranded by circumstance, none had the means to leave.

"The only thing we need is for them to stop the fighting and let us go to Beirut," said Hussein Shihab, 60, who had come from the village of Aitait with his wife, four daughters, son and five grandchildren. "Just let us get our children out of here."