ISRAEL TELLS SOUTH BEIRUT RESIDENTS TO GET OUT

AFX Europe (Focus)
Aug 10, 2006

BEIRUT (AFX) – Israeli forces hit the heart of the Lebanese capital
for the first time in three weeks on Thursday and dropped warning
leaflets that sent thousands of residents of southern suburbs fleeing
their homes.

Hundreds of families were leaving the southern suburbs, some in cars
and others ferried away on state-owned buses from the Shiyah district
to the Armenian quarter of Burj Hammud, north of the capital.

Loudspeakers urged panicked Shiyah residents without access to private
transport to gather at a square nearby to board the buses.

Israeli air strikes on Monday killed 32 civilians in Shiyah.

On Thursday, Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets on south Beirut telling
residents still living in three districts to get out, according to
a copy seen by AFP.

"To residents of Hay El-Sollum, Burj El-Barajneh and Shiyah, for your
own safety, you must immediately evacuate these areas, and evacuate
all areas from which Hezbollah elements perform terrorist acts,"
the tract read.

The southern suburbs are a Hezbollah stronghold which has been
devastated by bombing raids since e start of the Israeli offensive
a month ago, and thousands of residents have already fled for safer
havens.

However Hay El-Sollum had been relatively spared by the bombardments
while the district of Shiyah was considered a place of refuge until
it was hit by the Israeli air strikes on Monday.

The strike on the heart of the Lebanese capital on Thursday hit a
state radio relay antenna on an old lighthouse, triggering panic in
a densely-packed residential area.

The tip of the disused lighthouse, in an open field in the Koreitem
neighbourhood of central Beirut, was damaged by the Israeli gunboat
fire, according to Lebanese army troops based in the area.

A security official told AFP that the lighthouse included a relay
for the Radio Liban state station. He said another relay station in
the northern coastal village of Amshit was also hit by Israeli fire.

Fuad Hamdan, the director of Radio Liban, told AFP that the relay at
the lighthouse had been disused for over 30 years, while the one in
Amshit was out of use since a similar Israeli strike on July 15.

Two people were slightly wounded in Koreitem, rescue workers said.

The explosions triggered panic among residents of the capital’s upscale
neighborhood where windows of several cars, houses and apartments
were shattered, an AFP correspondent on the scene said.

Army troops cordoned off the area.

The old lighthouse is located in a heavily-guarded neighbourhood
housing the Saudi embassy compound, the Lebanese American University,
a French school and the residence of the family of slain former prime
minister Rafiq Hariri.

It was the first time that central Beirut has been hit in three weeks
during Israel’s massive military offensive on Lebanon, launched after
the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah captured two Israeli
soldiers on July 12.