Trapped Lebanese Flee City of Bint Jbail

07/31/2006

BINT JBAIL, Lebanon (AP) - Hundreds of Lebanese limped north to safety Monday after weeks spent trapped by fighting between Israel and Hezbollah - including the war’s bloodiest ground battle. Some had survived on candy and dirty water. Two died on the road out.

Those residents of Bint Jbail who didn’t flee went into hiding when Israel started its bombardment July 12. They hunkered down deeper eight days ago when Israeli forces launched their ground assault on the border town, a Hezbollah stronghold with a legendary history of supporting the Shiite guerrillas.

Israeli troops met fierce guerrilla resistance before they withdrew from Bint Jbail on Saturday, leaving behind a swath of destruction. Buildings were collapsed on each other. The fronts of other buildings were sheared off. Fallen power lines crisscrossed roads. Charred hulks of smashed cars lined the main street. A stone monument to Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah was blasted full of holes.

Rimah Bazzi, an American visiting from Dearborn, Mich., spent the siege with her two daughters, son and mother hiding in the house of a local doctor.

“All the time I thought of death,” said Bazzi, in her late 30s. Her husband was home in Dearborn and she was unable to speak to him for weeks.

Around 200 residents - mostly elderly or mothers with young children - managed to escape Monday during Israel’s temporary halt in airstrikes. Because roads were destroyed, most people walked, some the entire five miles to the nearest hospital, in Tibnin. Ambulances carried the eldest, who couldn’t make it on their own.

Two residents died as they tried to make it out, one of malnutrition, the other of heart failure, said Nabil Harkus, a doctor in Tibnin, where the bodies were brought.

Mehdi al-Halim, a 73-year-old with two children living in the United States, stumbled as he tried to navigate his way through the ruins of Bint Jbail. His wife, Shamiah, struggled to keep her balance, carrying a white plastic bag on her head stuffed with clothes.

“I haven’t seen the sun for 20 days,” said Mehdi, who had been hiding in his home since the war started.

“We had no food, no water. Everyday we had only one candy each, one candy that is all,” he said, grabbing his loose trousers, held together with a pin, to show the weight he had lost. “How much you eat in one day is how much we have eaten in 20 days.”

Many residents of the town of 30,000 fled during the initial week of airstrikes. When the Israeli land attack came, those left thought the fighting would last two or three days, Shamiah al-Halim said.

“Everyone said the roads were too dangerous, and then we couldn’t leave our homes. Everyday, bombs went off and it didn’t stop. Everyday, we thought, ‘Today we will die,’” she said.

Israeli troops besieged Bint Jbail for a week, seizing houses on the outskirts and sending in soldiers to raid the town amid heavy bombardment. Hezbollah guerrillas fought back, trapping Israeli troops in ambushes. One battle killed eight soldiers - the Israeli army’s biggest single-day loss. A ninth died the same day in fighting in the nearby village of Maroun al-Ras.

Overall, 18 Israeli soldiers died in the siege. Israel claimed to have killed up to 50 guerrillas, though Hezbollah acknowledged only about half that.

At the time, even Israeli officials said the battle was tougher than expected in Bint Jbail, a mainly Shiite town with deep symbolism for Hezbollah. Nicknamed “the capital of the resistance,” the town showed vehement support for the Shiite guerrillas during the 1982-2000 Israeli occupation of the south.

When Israel pulled back Saturday, it said it never mean to take Bint Jbail, only to wear down Hezbollah. But the guerrilla group claimed victory in holding off Israeli forces.

And it appeared Hezbollah remained in the town.

A man in his early 30s walked out of the ruins. He said he was a teacher but refused to give his name, apparently because he was unwilling to be linked to Hezbollah.

Asked whether Bint Jbail had been cleared of fighters he said: “There are some resistance fighters. They can see you, but you can’t see them.”