Lebanese wounded defiant, govt warns of crisis

Beirut, July 24: Ahmed Khalil Ali was wounded in the arm by Israeli artillery shelling of his southern Lebanese village in 1974. Last week, he lost his legs in a heavy Israeli bombardment that also left him with shrapnel wounds.

''This is my fate and I have come to terms with it,'' Ali said, with a wan smile. ''I am crippled now, but it does not make me less of a man.'' His wife and five children, including a one-year-old daughter, lay in other rooms at the same Beirut hospital. His 10-year-old son, Ali, needs surgery to remove shrapnel from his chest.

The 45-year-old taxi driver and his family were wounded when an Israeli shell hit their bomb shelter in the southern border village of Blida.

Civilians have borne the brunt of Israel's 12-day-old war on Lebanon in retaliation for Hizbollah attacks, with 368 killed in Lebanon and 37 in Israel. Lebanese Health Minister Mohammad Khalifeh said the onslaught has wounded more than 1,550 people.

Israeli Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres has questioned Lebanon's casualty toll and said the Jewish state's army was taking steps to make sure no civilian targets were hit.

In response, Khalifeh said his ministry has presented a list of the identified bodies and one with details of the wounded to Jan Egeland, the UN emergency relief coordinator, who is visiting Lebanon.

''Among the dead are pregnant women, and 30 per cent of the wounded are children,'' Khalifeh told reporters at the Rafik al-Hariri hospital.

''These are not bullet wounds, we are talking about serious injuries. Missiles hitting children.'' Egeland, who said the Israeli bombing of Hizbollah's stronghold in Beirut's southern suburb has breached humanitarian law, said the situation in Lebanon was ''becoming a major humanitarian crisis''.

He said he had seen ''many wounded children in hospital'' and ''there should be no doubt in anybody's mind that this is a war where civilians pay the price''.

Hospitals in the south reported serious shortages of food and electricity. ''They don't have electricity and cannot feed the hundreds of wounded they are receiving,'' Khalifeh said.

''We are having a serious crisis in terms of injuries. If aid does not reach these areas in time, people will simply die.'' Ali said he was hopeful Hizbollah would look after him and his family once the war is over.

''I don't have any hope that the state will help me, but the resistance will not leave people like me alone,'' he said.

Hizbollah, backed by Syria and Iran, pays monthly salaries to the families of fighters and civilians who are killed or wounded in Israeli attacks.

Ahmed Saad, lying in bed with his face riddled by shrapnel wounds, said his injury was a small price to pay for Hizbollah's role in ending Israel's two-decade occupation of south Lebanon six years ago.

''This is better than living under the boots of Israelis,'' he said. ''We cannot just give in to them.''

Reuters

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