Lebanese Military Advances on Extremist Group at Refugee Camp

"The bombing hasn't stopped all day long. Bombs are falling everywhere," Milad Salameh, a nurse who lives in the camp, said by telephone.

Salameh said that from his house in the Souk area, in the heart of Nahr al-Bared, he could hear people shouting for help in neighboring buildings, but he could do nothing, given the intensity of the shelling throughout the day Friday. "The building I am in has received seven shells since this morning," he said.

Health officials painted a bleak portrait of the camp, where the wounded were besieged within its confines, with no access for emergency personnel.

"There are no means to transport the wounded to the hospital. I have been at the hospital since this morning, and not one wounded person could be brought in, though we know very well that many have been wounded by the bombing," said Youssef al-Assaed, a doctor working at the hospital of Baddawi, a camp north of Nahr al-Bared where an estimated 25,000 Palestinian refugees have fled since the fighting began.

He said Nahr al-Bared residents were suffering from shortages of food and water.

At Baddawi, people expressed anger at the military's actions.

"This is a plot against the Lebanese and the Palestinians, a plot by the Americans who want to try their new weapons," shouted Mamoun Ahmad, a camp resident.

That anger has paralleled a surge in nationalism among some Lebanese. Radio and television stations have aired patriotic songs, and banners are scattered across the country in support of the military. The fighting with the relatively small group of Islamic militants represents some of the worst internal conflict since the 1975-90 civil war.

"If it weren't for our heroic army, we would have fallen under the custody of armed mobs," read one banner in nearby Tripoli, Lebanon's second-largest city.

Correspondent Anthony Shadid in Tripoli contributed to this report.