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Red Cross workers unzipped each one of them, then felt for a pulse. There were none.
"Look at this," cried hospital custodian Abdulla Mutari, 67, holding the limp hand of a young girl. "This day, the heavens have abandoned us."
Even by Mideast standards, where centuries of vengeance and passion flow in the blood, the shelling Thursday of a U.N. peace camp in southern Lebanon was horrific.
At least 75 people were killed, many of them burned alive, when five Israeli shells slammed into the camp, which was packed with Lebanese refugees. A mother, her 4-day-old daughter and many other children were among the dead.
"I had to walk over bodies that covered the walkways at the base," said U.N. worker Hassan Seklawi, shaking. "My white rubber shoes have turned red from the blood."
Israel had been blasting southern Lebanon since April 11 to prevent the Iranian-backed Muslim group Hezbollah from launching rocket attacks across the border. Israel said it did not intend to strike the camp.
Israeli rabbis and Islamic priests alike decried the carnage, asking whether hopes for a Middle East peace had also died in the blast.
Calls for revenge echoed in mosques from Gaza City to Tehran University.
Teen-agers in Gaza, a hotbed of radicalism, immediately offered themselves as suicide bombers to strike against Israeli targets.
"This was not an accident; it was a deliberate attempt to slaughter Muslim," said Khalil Mustafa, 26, of the radical Muslim group Hamas. "We will drown Israel in a sea of blood."
Hamas has killed 58 people in four bombings this year.
The U.N. camp, near the southern Lebanese village of Qana, which scholars say is the site of the story of Jesus changing water into wine, was awash in blood.
Dozens of the wounded and bereaved lined sidewalks, calling out for help. Relatives of the victims beat their chests, screaming "Death to Israel, death to America."
Others ran from corpse to corpse, trying to find their loved ones. One young girl found her mother's torso but not her head.
"The shells just kept coming," Fadi Jaber, 21, cried. "A woman fainted, so I reached over to check her head. Her brains fell out into my hands."
The scene was chaotic inside southern Lebanon's Najem Hospital.
Doctors raced through the halls, slipping on blood-soaked floors. Many asked grieving relatives to donate blood and bandages.
In an operating room, a teen-age boy with a large head wound lay dying. Shrapnel from the explosion covered his face.
"There is no more blood," physician Kareem al-Qasam, 47, yelled to the boy. "I'm sorry. I am terribly sorry." The boy died minutes later.
Amid the chaos, refugees expressed their anger not only at Israel but at Hezbollah.
While most Lebanese want Israel to evacuate southern Lebanon, they do not support Hezbollah's military mission to liberate the area.
"Iran and Syria are putting Hezbollah up to this, and ordinary people have to pay the price," said a 41-year-old woman named Aissa.
"If Iran or Syria want to fight the Israelis, why don't they go and do it themselves?"
Others lamented their fate.
"Why did I have to born here?" cried Nada Baracat, 18. "The next time, it will be me who is caught in the cross fire."
She wiped her tears then suddenly pointed to a small corpse lying on the street.
"Excuse me," she said. "But I think that's my sister."
By Jack Kelley, USA TODAY, with Edward Alan Yeranian contributing
in Beirut and Judy Colp Rubin in Tel Aviv, Israel
REUTER INFORMATION SERVICE - Friday, 19 April 1996
Kremlin, army in disarray after Chechen ambush
Copyright © 1996 Nando.net
Copyright © 1996 Reuter Information Service
MOSCOW (Apr 19, 1996 3:24 p.m. EDT) - President Boris Yeltsin pledged Friday to punish military commanders guilty of the loss of scores of servicemen in a Chechen rebel ambush, and Defense Minister Pavel Grachev said he was ready to step down.
But Russia's commander in the region, in remarks hinting at strong differences with the Kremlin, attacked any idea of talking with the rebel leadership and said his soldiers would no longer be constrained by fear of killing civilians.
Yeltsin reacted for the first time Friday to reports that 53 Russian servicemen died in an ambush of an armored column on a mountain road last Tuesday.
"The military leadership is to blame and will be held responsible for what has happened," Yeltsin said in televised remarks.
Grachev, summoned to parliament to explain what happened, told the legislature: "I am ready to resign if deputies consider that I am to blame for what has happened."
The chamber did not take any action on his remark. Only Yeltsin has the right to appoint or fire the defense minister.
Later the top military commander in Chechnya distanced himself from Yeltsin's offer of indirect talks with rebel leader Dzhokhar Dudayev.
"Any attempts to establish contacts with the (separatist) leaders give them an impression that they are doing things right," Lt. Gen. Vyacheslav Tikhomirov told Russian television.
"Until now we left to ourselves the 'right' to humbly hold back from shelling of civilian objects where the rebels had established bases. As of today this line has been crossed," Tikhomirov said.
On March 31 Yeltsin disclosed his latest plan to end the 16-month conflict in Chechnya, the biggest obstacle to his re-election in June, offering talks and ordering a halt to large-scale military operations.
German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Yeltsin's strongest advocate in the West, told reporters he had discussed the Chechen conflict with Yeltsin.
"I have told him that the population in Russia and people in the whole world, and especially in Germany, are waiting for the fighting to end before the presidential elections," Kohl said.
Yeltsin, who hosts the summit meeting of the Group of Seven industrial countries in Moscow, said that he still wanted to press ahead with his peace plan despite Tuesday's attack.
"Despite this tragedy, I want the peace plan to be implemented, both through talks and through a rebuff to the bandits," Yeltsin said.
Initial attempts to get in contact with Dudayev have failed and fighting has continued bringing scores of fresh casualties, leaving both the military and their political leaders frustrated.
An Interior Ministry official told parliament six of his ministry troops had been killed Friday in a Chechen attack.
Tikhomirov made clear the military, who have long accused politicians of robbing them of a clear victory in Chechnya, would from now on adopter a tougher profile.
"As a commander of Russian forces in Chechnya a declare that we are starting a new order which includes the toughest control over the territory and any movements, the toughest rebuff to any rebel action wherever it takes place," he said.
Valentin Volvach, chief prosecutor of Ingushetia, Chechnya's neighbor, told the Itar-Tass news agency a bomb killed 10 people and wounded 24 when it hit the border village of Arshty.
A Russian military spokesman denied any attack on Arshty.
The parliament said in a statement that Tuesday's ambush was a result of the Kremlin's neglect of the army and urged Yeltsin to announce a day of mourning for the soldiers killed in the incident as well as for all killed in fighting earlier.
The international medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres said on the eve of the G7 summit up to 40,000 people had been killed in the fighting and accused the army of massive human rights violations.
However the G7 leaders, anxious not to embarrass their host in the middle of his election campaign, have avoided any public criticism of Yeltsin or his troops.
Doku Zavgayev, the Moscow-backed Chechen leader, told a news conference in the Chechen capital of Grozny that the withdrawal of thousands of troops has been stopped, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
The rebel ambush, in which dozens of soldiers were killed, prompted angry finger-pointing Friday among lawmakers and President Boris Yeltsin, all anxious to blame each other for the tragedy.
Yeltsin told journalists in the Kremlin that "the military leadership is to blame and will be taken to account for the tragedy," ITAR-Tass reported.
But legislators went a step further, charging the government with poor handling of the army and asking the prosecutor-general to open a criminal investigation.
A statement adopted overwhelmingly by the State Duma called the attack "one more link in the chain of bloody events, resulting from irresponsibility of the military commanders and an inadmissible attitude to the army on the part of the country's top leaders."
All factions in the Duma, the lower house of parliament, urged Yeltsin to declare a day of national mourning for the "national tragedy."
Ultranationalist lawmaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky accused the top military commanders in Chechnya of trying to destroy the army.
Separatist fighters ambushed the convoy of army trucks Tuesday near the village of Yarysh-Mardy. The military command in Grozny confirmed Friday that 76 soldiers were killed and 54 wounded, ITAR-Tass said. Other reports put the death toll as high as 93.
Yeltsin said he was shaken by the attack, which he called "a tragedy for Chechnya, for all of Russia and for the president." He said the convoy, accompanied by armed guards, was carrying food and medicines.
The area where the troops were attacked was "quiet and peaceful, it was among the first to sign the peace accord. There were no militant separatists there, they (the rebels) entered the area for the purpose" of attacking the convoy, ITAR-Tass quoted him as saying.
At the end of last month, Yeltsin announced a peace plan calling for a partial withdrawal of Russian troops, which began Monday when a regiment of Interior Ministry troops pulled out. Six battalions were to have left this week.
The president desperately needs the plan to succeed to boost his re-election chances in June. "Despite the tragedy, I still favor the continuation of the implementation of the peace plan," he said Friday.
The Russian military has continued its attacks on Chechen rebel strongholds despite Yeltsin's insistence that a unilateral cease-fire is holding.
ITAR-Tass Friday quoted officials in neighboring Ingushetia as saying Russian planes had bombed the mountainous Chechen village of Arshty, killing 10 people and injuring 25 in a daylight attack.
More than 30,000 people have died since Yeltsin sent troops into Chechnya in December 1994 to crush its declared independence from Moscow.
World leaders have urged the Kremlin the end the war, although, backing Yeltsin's re-election bid, they are unlikely to raise the issue at this weekend's international summit in Moscow on nuclear security and safety.
By The Associated Press
TYRE, Lebanon (Apr 19, 1996 3:24 p.m. EDT) - Fighting between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas raged unabated for a ninth day Friday as world leaders called for a cease-fire after Israeli shelling killed 101 Lebanese civilians at a U.N. base.
The United States, Russia, France, Japan, Canada, Germany, Italy and Britain made their appeal in Moscow at the first session of a summit on nuclear safety.
President Clinton, who had quietly approved Israel's blitz at the outset, told reporters in Moscow: "I think the parties have got to agree to a cease-fire... Once someone starts the spiral of violence it's hard to stop."
Clinton's peace envoy Dennis Ross met Israeli leaders in Tel Aviv to pave the way for a diplomatic shuttle by Secretary of State Warren Christopher this weekend, when diplomatic efforts to stop the war will intensify.
Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, asked in a TV interview if U.S. diplomacy would yield a truce within 24 to 48 hours, he said: "It's possible, it's not certain, but there is a chance."
Christopher is due to meet the foreign ministers of Russia, France and Italy in the Syrian capital Damascus Saturday to coordinate implementation of a cease-fire.
Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri said his government was in touch with Hizbollah and he hoped a cease-fire could take effect within four to five days.
Hariri said any accord would ban attacks on civilians by both sides, but would not stop Hizbollah attacking Israeli troops occupying south Lebanon.
Peres, who has apologized for the slaughter at the base but blamed Hizbollah for firing rockets from near the U.N. post, has said he would agree to a cease-fire if Hizbollah did.
Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara said his country, which maintains 35,000 troops in Lebanon and is the main power broker there, would like a cease-fire "within hours."
But Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called on the pro-Iranian guerrillas to continue striking at Israel.
Friday, the fighting raged on. Hizbollah sources said Israeli planes fired several rockets at a guerrilla position in Bourket Jabour area at the southern end of the eastern Bekaa Valley, killing three Hizbollah men and seriously wounding two.
Israeli warplanes launched more than 30 attacks in all in south Lebanon, security sources said. Israeli heavy guns pounded villages.
"It is business as usual. Exchanges and raids are as bad as in the past few days," a security source said. "In the last 10 minutes alone we had six or seven air raids."
Hizbollah said it fired dozens of Katyusha rockets into northern Israel to avenge Thursday's shelling of a U.N. peacekeepers' base in Qana where more than 500 civilians had sought shelter. There were no reports of Israeli casualties.
More than 18 hours after the carnage, the bloodiest day of Arab-Israeli conflict in more than 12 years, numbed U.N. peacekeepers were still clearing pieces of the victims, many of them women and children.
Israeli planes hit villages in south Lebanon and killed one civilian and wounded nine near the Palestinian refugee camp of Rashidiyeh outside the port city of Tyre, security sources said.
The planes hit a power substation in Sultaniyeh supplying electricity to villages near Tyre. Earlier strikes had knocked out two main substations near Beirut causing severe power cuts across the country.
Israeli gunboats shelled the main coast road beside the port of Sidon south of Beirut. Witnesses said more than 80 shells halted traffic on the only link between Beirut and south Lebanon.
The latest deaths brought the number of people killed in Lebanon to at least 151, mostly civilians. More than 300 have been wounded.
Hariri said an estimate by Peres that a cease-fire could be in place within 48 to 72 hours was over-optimistic.
"I think this is not enough. I think it should be between four to five days, so everybody will have enough time to study the proposals and to negotiate and to reach a proper agreement," the Lebanese leader said.
Hariri said Hizbollah, with fighters across south Lebanon, needed time to contact its men to ensure there were no incidents after a cease-fire.
"We are in contact with Hizbollah and we hope to reach a cease-fire soon," he said. "Their situation on the ground, they need some time. They are different from an army where the communications are very easy."
Asked if the cease-fire would include a temporary halt to guerrilla attacks on Israeli occupation forces in south Lebanon, Hariri said: "No, (not) the security zone, they are an occupier, I am talking about civilians."
Israel Friday warned citizens traveling abroad to be on the alert for revenge attacks by Hizbollah and said security had been increased at Israeli and Jewish sites abroad.
International condemnation of Israel's raid continued.
Japan said the act could not be justified "under any circumstances."
The Vatican Secretariat of State, Pope John Paul II's "foreign ministry," said: "There are no political or military reasons which can justify such dramatic consequences,"
The International Committee of the Red Cross Friday firmly condemned the shelling said it "further demonstrates the vital need to respect civilians."
In Turkey, protesters chanting slogans and burning the Israeli flag took to the streets after Friday prayers.
The attack Thursday was the deadliest in Israel's 9-day-old offensive against Hezbollah guerrillas. Israeli Foreign Minister Ehud Barak called it an "unfortunate mistake."
Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres said Israel would continue its offensive against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, or Party of God, until the guerrillas stop Katyusha rocket attacks on northern Israel.
But more rockets fell today in northern Israel. A military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said "less than 10" hits were reported. The army said there was no damage or injury, but Israeli news media reported damage in the town of Kiryat Shemona. It gave no details.
The attack Thursday near Qana, a village eight miles southeast of Tyre, brought the toll from the fighting to at least 134 dead and about 300 wounded, according to Lebanese police, who say almost all of the dead were Lebanese civilians. Israel gives similar casualty counts, but says about 30 of the dead were guerrillas.
An exact death toll for the attack was difficult to determine because victims were taken to several hospitals, and many of those killed had been blown to pieces.
More than 100 people were wounded, including four Fijian soldiers with the U.N. peacekeeping force, U.N. spokesman Timur Goksel said.
Many of the Shiite Muslim refugees at the camp called out for revenge, some men shouting "Death to Israel! Death to America!" Lebanese leaders called the shelling "the mother of all atrocities."
Hezbollah guerrillas, however, were unusually silent.
The Israelis braced for retaliation, but had no sign of where or when it might come. It was unclear if the rocket attacks today constituted an escalation of Hezbollah's actions or simply a continuation of the fighting that has raged for nine days. As always, there was the chance that Hezbollah might take revenge by hitting targets outside Lebanon.
Israel moved 30 tanks and 20 armored personnel carriers to just south of the "security zone" today to reinforce the 1,200-troop garrison Israel maintains in the occupied enclave of southern Lebanon.
It was unclear how the shelling would affect the peace process. But Israel's most enthusiastic partner in peace, King Hussein of Jordan, condemned the attack bitterly. Echoing other Arab leaders, Hussein called for an immediate halt to Israel's "malicious aggression" and "criminal military operations."
President Clinton called for a cease-fire by both sides and ordered Secretary of State Warren Christopher to the region to mediate a truce.
The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a resolution late Thursday calling for an immediate halt to the violence. It laid no blame for the fighting, and rejected an Arab League-backed proposal that would have condemned Israel alone.
The shelling occurred just as Peres and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat announced that they would resume their peacemaking effort, which had been halted by recent suicide bombings in Israel.
The United Nations said that shortly before the attack on Qana, Hezbollah guerrillas near the refugee camp fired two rockets and eight mortar rounds at northern Israel.
The Israeli response was swift. But several shells -- 28 according to Fiji Army spokesman Lt. Col. Savenaca Draunidalo -- missed their intended targets, with horrific consequences.
As the smoke cleared from the Qana compound, dozens of victims lay in pools of blood, their bodies in pieces. Some had been decapitated.
Fijian peacekeepers, wearing flak jackets and blue helmets, wept as they covered the dead with blankets.
Hussein Balhas, a 20-year-old Lebanese soldier, recalled being hit by shrapnel when a barrage of 155-mm howitzer shells exploded. He had been visiting relatives, who were among some 500 refugees seeking safety at the camp.
Lying in a Tyre hospital with bandages covering his body, Balhas said he had just finished lunch and was sitting under a tin-roofed hanger when the shells struck.
"I was catapulted to the ceiling of the hangar and then found myself among the blood and torn limbs," he told The Associated Press on Thursday night.
"I staggered to my feet and tried to help the U.N. soldiers, but I saw my sister was dead, a big hole in her chest. I must have fainted."
High school student Kamel Nayaf, his right leg shattered in the shelling, moaned in pain.
"I knocked on the door of doomsday," he said. "I felt I was facing a firing squad."
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