On the road to safety

According to Ziad, this image has been circulating in the Lebanese community in Paris and on Friday, it was the cover of the Independent.
This map intimates at the layers beneath the onslaught against Lebanon.

Check out yesterday's article by Robert Fisk over the murder of a fleeing Lebanese family and whether it constitutes a war crime. The original story of the family ran in the Guardian. Here's a bit of the Guardian article.

"The Sha'itas had thought they were on the road to safety when they set out yesterday, leaving behind a village which because of an accident of geography - it is five miles from the Israeli border - had seemed to make their home a killing ground. They had been ordered to evacuate by the Israelis.
But they were a little too slow and became separated from the other vehicles fleeing the Israeli air offensive in south Lebanon. Minutes before the Guardian's car arrived, trailing a Red Cross ambulance on its way to other civilian wounded in another town, an Israeli missile pierced the roof of the Sha'itas' white van. Three passengers sitting in the third row were killed instantly, including Ali's grandmother. Sixteen other passengers were wounded. In recent days, families like the Sha'itas are bearing the brunt of Israel's air campaign and its efforts to rid the area of civilians before ground operations. A day after Israel's deadline for people to leave their homes and flee north of the Litani river, roads which in ordinary times wind lazily through tobacco fields and banana groves have been turned into highways of death."

Ali Sha'ita, 12, is distraught as he tries to comfort his mother, who was wounded when an Israeli missile hit their vehicle, killing three and injuring 16. Photograph: Sean Smith