A Refuge That Became a Place of Death

Photos
Deadly Attack in Qana
Israeli warplanes blasted a group of buildings in the southern Lebanese village of Qana, killing dozens of people, most of them women and children. The Israeli military said the airstrike was aimed at destroying Hezbollah rocket launchers nearby and that civilians were not being targeted.

"Hassan! My cousin! Hassan!" a man shouted as he clambered, crying, toward the body.

The building itself had buckled, as if it had been lifted and set back down at chaotic angles. Chunks of concrete dangled from twisted iron rods. A pillow and mattress were sandwiched between dirt, stone and metal. Inside the dimly lit room, soldiers, Red Cross workers and volunteers dug with hoes, shovels and their bare hands, at times frantically, tossing chunks of concrete to the side. Metal poles and pieces of lumber from the house were propped under a sagging roof, forcing rescue workers to bend low as they dug.

"Be careful!" an officer shouted. "Slowly! Gently!"

A bulldozer moved back and forth. In its way was a knot of children's clothes, strewn along the road outside the shelter. Back and forth it went, grinding them further into the dirt. Along a wall lay the artifacts of lost lives: a red bag inscribed "Sportswear," a child's gray shorts, a pink towel, a tin teakettle, a red cup and a radio with its battery compartment open. Propped over them was a floral-patterned blue mattress with two fresh bloodstains the size of grapefruits. Flies converged on them.

The bulldozer dragged more items into the open: a yellow sponge still in its wrapper and a broken white plate.

Then more bodies came out, all from two extended families, the Hashems and Shalhoubs, who had sought shelter in the building for a week or more. The arm of one person was extended, as if calling for help. Another man appeared to have died as he was putting on his pants to flee. Twelve-year-old Hussein Hashem was removed, curled in a fetal position, his mouth covered in dirt. He was rushed to an ambulance, the jostling making him look lifelike. A Red Cross worker put a stethoscope to his chest, more as a formality than anything.

Then Abbas Hashem, the baby, emerged, his frail body held above the crowd. A purple bruise covered his forehead, his tongue hung out. He was coated in dust. At one point, a rescue worker gingerly wiped the dirt off his cheek.

"All the bodies that we've found choked on the dirt," said Muqdad, the Red Cross team leader.

He watched the rescue effort as it dragged on into the evening. His voice was soft, but frustrated and angry.

"There's a house over there," Muqdad said, pointing in the distance. "There's dead, and we can't get to them."

"These are all civilians," he added. "There's no base here, this isn't a military area. There's nothing around here."

Virtually everything in Qana was coated in a film of gray dust. Drying tobacco swayed in a breeze, tethered to tree branches. Olive trees, perhaps a century old, were split like toothpicks. Stretches of the village around the Imam Ali Mosque were reduced to rubble, wires dangling along the street. A car had been hurled into a grove, a brown Persian rug hanging out of what used to be its roof. A donkey brayed, and a cat wandered through wreckage.