Be afraid, be very afraid

Here's how Israel got the message to Lebanese in the south to evacute behind the Litani according to Anthony Shadid, who's without a doubt doing the best reporting from the region:

TYRE, Lebanon, July 20 -- The warning came in the morning Thursday, a recorded message dialed to phone numbers in southern Lebanon. In flawless Arabic, it instructed: Leave now, beyond the Litani River that bisects the rock-studded wadis of the south. Don't flee on motorcycles or in vans or trucks. Otherwise, you will be a target. The message signed off simply: the state of Israel.

Creepy. And is that really how Israel identifies Hebollah members? By the type of vehicle they drive?

Here's the rest of Shadid's lede, who in a brief couple of paragraphs, is able to paint a poignant picture of the wider conflict:

But leaving this southern Lebanese city Thursday was more complicated than a choice. Aid officials say that tens of thousands have already fled Tyre and its environs along the Mediterranean Sea but that perhaps 12,000 Lebanese remain stranded. The wartime circumstances of a besieged city keep them here: no gasoline for their cars, no money for taxi fares that have surged 75-fold, no faith in assurances from Israeli forces that have repeatedly attacked civilian vehicles and, most desperately, no hope of finding safety.

"We're just left here to die," said Maher Yassin, standing across from Tyre's harbor and wearing a shirt that read, "Mortal."

The plight of Tyre's people is the story of the latest Arab-Israeli conflict writ small: In nine days of attacks that Israel says have targeted the infrastructure of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, Lebanon's civilians have suffered inordinately, with more than 300 dead, many times that number wounded and 500,000 displaced. As this city awaits the brunt of an Israeli attack that most think is imminent, resignation, hopelessness, occasional defiance and a sense of abandonment course through the beleaguered population.

"They evacuate the foreigners, bring them to safety, and they leave us like dogs in the street," said Therese Khairallah, sitting with friends in an alley near the seashore. "A small mistake turned into this mountain of a disaster, and we're the victims."

She shook her head, on a day when attacks had waned, more breather than respite. "God knows what's ahead."

How anyone can still think that they can pound a people into submission and not expect any backlash is just beyond me?