Robert Fisk Reports From Lebanon on the Israeli Bombing of Qana

CAIRO — The latest Israel massacre in the southern Lebanese village of Qana, which triggered a global wave of condemnations, made international headlines on Monday, July31 , with many heartbreaking stories of the survivors.

"I want to see them. I want to hold them," a tearful, devastated Hala Shalhoub, whose two daughters, ages 1 and5 , were killed in the Israeli attack told The New York Times.

Israeli warplanes pounded Sunday, July30 , a three-storey building on the edge of Qana where two extended families, the Shalhoubs and the Hashems, took refugee from the relentless Israeli offensive.

Up to 60 Lebanese civilians, including 37 children, were killed in the attack, less than a kilometer from the mass grave of 110 Lebanese civilians killed in 1996 when Israel bombarded their UN shelter.

When rescuers went to dig up the slain children, some bounced on their shoulder as might have done on the father's shoulder.

"When they found them, they were all huddled together at the back of the room," Naim Raga, the head of the civil defense team, told the Guardian.

"Poor things, they thought the walls would protect them."

Nightmare

Muhammad Qassim Shalhoub, who lost his five children, wife as well as 45 members of his extended family, recalled the haunting nightmare.

"Around one o'clock we heard a big explosion," he told the British daily.

"I don't remember anything after that, but when I opened my eyes I was lying on the floor and my head had hit the wall. There was silence. I didn't hear anything for a while, but then heard screams."

Shalhoub tried to help his terrified children but could not due to the non-stop Israeli strikes.

"Don't be scared. I will come. There was blood on my face. I wiped it and looked for my son but couldn't find him.

"I took three children out - my four-year-old nephew, a girl and her sister. I went outside and screamed for help and three men came and went back inside. There was shelling everywhere. We heard the planes. I was so exhausted I could not go back inside again."

His relative, Ibrahim Shalhoub, also was unable to help the young children.

"It was dark and there was so much smoke. Nobody could do anything till dawn," he said.

"I couldn't stop crying, we couldn't help them."

Sleeping Angles

Rescuers pulled out intact corpses of slain children with crushed lungs, the Guardian said.

"God is great," a policeman muttered as the body of a10 -year-old boy was carried away on a stretcher.

The boy lay on his side, as if asleep, but for the fine dust that coated his body and the blood around his nose and ears.

Bodies of the young victims were all lined up on the ground - a baby, two young girls and two women.

In a nearby ambulance, the young victims were stacked on top of one another to make space for the many to come.

A boy and girl, both no more than four years old, had been placed head to toe. They were still wearing their night pyjamas.

The dead bodies were in strange shapes. Several had open mouths filled with dirt and with their faces puffy.

Nour Hashem,13 , had a heart-breaking experience.

"We were all sleeping in the same room, my friend, my sister and my cousin," she said in a shuddering voice.

"I pulled the rubble off my mother and she took me to another house, then she went looking for my brothers and sisters. But my brothers and sisters didn't come and my mother didn't return."

http://islamonline.net/English/News/2006-07/31/04.shtml