Lebanese War Victims Buried in Mass Grave

The smallest of the 31 simple plywood coffins, center, containing one-day-old girl Sawsan Tajeldin, can be seen as a bulldozer pours soil to bury Lebanese victims in a mass grave at the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, in this July 29, 2006, file photo. Tajeldin was killed along with her mother, name not available, when the car in which they were fleeing from the nearby village of Bazouriyeh was hit by an Israeli warplane missile strike. With a few mourners at hand, 31 victims of Israel's two-week long bombardment were buried in a mass grave in this Lebanese city. (Lefteris Pitarakis - AP)

TYRE, Lebanon -- The coffins were turned in the direction of Mecca, the Muslim holy city, and a Shiite cleric recited the prayer for the dead before the 31 plywood caskets were lowered Saturday into a new mass grave.

The smallest of the crude coffins belonged to 1-day-old Sawsan Tajeldin. She died in her mother's arms when an Israeli missile smashed into their white-flagged car five days ago. They were fleeing their home in Bazouriya for Tyre, just three miles distant.

Sawsan's body, along with that of her mother, was trapped in the car for two days before ambulance workers were prepared to risk the road to retrieve them, said Abdul Shadi, a volunteer civil defense worker in Tyre.

At the grave site, Sawsan's tiny body, wrapped in a black plastic sheet, was taken from the back of a refrigerated truck where it had been kept along with 30 other victims until Saturday's mass burial.

The overpowering smell of decaying bodies hung in the air. Volunteers and Lebanese military men wore rubber gloves and surgical masks as they lifted each body from the truck and placed them in the marked coffins.

Yusuf Zainuddin, a lawyer and volunteer, was overwhelmed by the task and wept after the coffins had been lowered into the mass grave.

"I want them to be buried with dignity," he said. "These are human beings, they are not animals. I do this because they are all my family." Though he was not related to any of the dead, Zainuddin said they were connected by their common suffering.

"Today it is them, maybe tomorrow it is me."

The grave, dug by an end-loader which stood ready to cover the coffins, was shallow. Relatives were expected to retrieve the bodies and rebury them in home villages when the fighting ends.

All the victims were from southern Lebanon, the hardest hit region in the 18-day Israeli assault aimed at crushing Hezbollah guerrillas, whose capture of two Israeli soldiers ignited the fighting.

In Lebanon, 403 civilians have been confirmed dead since the fighting began, according to the Health Ministry. A United Nations official said the figure probably was closer to 600. The official count was tabulated from reports from police and hospitals, but in many areas the police fled days ago and hospitals were closed, said Ryszard Morczynski, political affairs officer for the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon.

Some of the mourners _ relatives who had not already fled northward _ said the killing would strengthen support for Hezbollah.