LEBANON: Desperate refugees take shelter in UN compound in Tyre

Desperate refugees gathered at the UN compound in Tyre, southern Lebanon on Wednesday (July 19) as they tried to escape the violence. Many villagers in southern Lebanon said food, water and medical supplies were dwindling after roads and bridges were cut in the south, restricting movement of aid. The United Nations Children's Fund appealed for $7.3 million to meet the immediate needs of women and children. Displaced families packed into pick-up trucks and cars, many flying white flags, drove from border areas towards Sidon, the main city in the south, and many panicked foreigners flooded out of the country. "I hope that the UN will take me out, I hope that I can go to Germany.I don't know which way and if anybody can help us. I'm alone here with my children." said Sabina, a German citizen looking for a way to leave the country. About 1,100 American evacuees left Lebanon by sea and air bound for Cyprus on Wednesday, the largest group of U.S. citizens to have been rescued from the country in a single day. France said about 8,000 of its 17,000 citizens resident in Lebanon had asked to be evacuated. A ferry that can carry 1,200 was due to pick up people later in the day after taking 900 foreigners, most of them French, to Cyprus two days earlier. Israel's offensive in Lebanon has coincided with a three-week-old push into the Gaza Strip to retrieve another soldier, seized by Palestinian militants on June 25. Tanks pushed into Gaza's Maghazi refugee camp on Wednesday, killing nine people and wounding 52, including 10 children. Five Israeli soldiers were wounded. Israeli troops shot dead three Palestinian gunmen in a raid on a security compound in the occupied West Bank town of Nablus, where bulldozers also demolished two buildings used by the Hamas-led government. U.N. envoys will suggest deploying Lebanese troops in the south and enlarging an international force there to try to end the fighting, Western diplomats in Jerusalem said.

ITN Source | July 20, 2006

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