AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE,
Tyre, Lebanon: Exhausted and frightened, southern Lebanese were fleeing Tuesday for the relative safety of the north, some taking probably futile precautions to identify themselves as civilians to Israeli warplanes pounding the region.
On the outskirts of the southern port of Tyre, Ali Mohsen had tied a white sheet to the roof of his beaten old car, in which he, his wife and their five children sat.
A scrap of white fabric was also tied to the aerial.
“This way, the Israeli pilots will know I'm a civilian, even if they aren't really making any distinction between civilians and soldiers and are bombing everything that moves,” the 41-year-old civil servant said.
The Israeli air campaign launched after the capture of two soldiers by Hezbollah militants last Wednesday has taken a heavy toll on civilians, with roads and other infrastructure a repeated target.
Twelve civilians, members of two families, died Monday when an Israeli warplane hit their minibus with a missile just 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of the capital. Those killed included two women and three children.
Last Friday, 18 residents fleeing the border village of Marwahin — including 11 children — were killed when an Israeli took out their van speeding north.
Mohsen said he left his village of Tayr Harfa, near the Israeli border, and had initially gone to Tyre, some 20 kilometres (12 miles) farther north.
“But now they've started to bomb Tyre, and the children haven't slept all night. I'm heading up into the mountains,” he said.
In the hope of finding safety in numbers, he added that he was fleeing in a convoy with five other cars.
The driver of another vehicle, Mohammed Makna, 26, whose home village also lies on the border, spoke with desperation in his voice as he sat with his wife and daughter.
“I'm going to go to Beirut to find shelter. It doesn't matter where — in a school, in a park, I can even sleep in my car. I don't want to die. It's too soon for me and my family.”
According to police, around half of the 100,000 residents of the border area have fled their villages after days of warnings from the Israeli military that the area would to be subjected to a potentially deadly barrage.
Israeli artillery and aircraft are levelling the zone to get at Hezbollah guerrillas active there.
For those without cars trying to leave, wartime economics have come into play. Taxi drivers willing to run the gauntlet of Israeli firepower are charging 1,000 US dollars for the 83-kilometre (52-mile) run between Tyre and Beirut. Before the bombardments, the same trip cost a mere three dollars.
The road, still operational Tuesday, was bumper to bumper with traffic jams, with drivers forced to take a long detour to get around a bridge in Kasmiyeh destroyed by Israeli jets.
Even as they inched forward, nervous eyes scanned the sky.
On Sunday, four people were killed and three wounded when Israeli aircraft hit two vehicles in the area.
