Mideast Conflict - Week Three

Children block their ears as people shout in an attempt to get rides out of the city of Aaitaroun, where over one hundred people have been trapped from blocked roads.  (Carolyn Cole / LAT)

A traumatized family waits for transport from Aaitaroun.  (Carolyn Cole / LAT)

A woman reads the Koran as a van filled with women, disabled and elderly wait to be transported from their homes, where they have been trapped by debris blocked roads.  (Carolyn Cole / LAT)

Over one hundred people tried to escape the town of Aaitaroun, after the road had been blocked. Some climbed in the trunk of cars to flee the city.  (Carolyn Cole / LAT)

On the second day of a temporary cease fire, hundreds of people continued to flee their homes and villages, now mostly destroyed from the Israeli bombing.  (Carolyn Cole / LAT)

An aid convoy sponsored by MercyCare arrives at Marajayoun High School where an estimated 150 refugees are living without running water and electricity.  (Robert Gauthier / LAT)

An aid convoy sponsored by MercyCare travels to Marajayoun, Lebanon to help more than 300 refugees living in schools and 2,000 residents holed up in their homes without electricity. Boys struggle to trudge a bundle of blankets up stairs to a downtown warehouse.  (Robert Gauthier / LAT)

An aid convoy sponsored by MercyCare travels to Marajayoun, Lebanon to help more than 300 refugees living in schools and 2,000 residents holed up in their homes without electricity. Escaping the hot midday sun, a man sleeps in a second floor classroom at Marjayoun Technical College.  (Robert Gauthier / LAT)

Israeli soldiers return from front line positions in southern Lebanon back to a staging area in Metula in nornthern Israel.  (Damon Winter / LAT)

Israeli soldiers embrace after returning from southern Lebanon.  (Damon Winter / LAT)

Israeli soldiers return to a staging area in Metula in nornthern Israel.  (Damon Winter / LAT)

A family flees the bombed city of Bint Jbeil on the first day of a temporary ceasefire.  (Carolyn Cole / LAT)

The town of Bint Jbeil is almost entirely destroyed. Even the monument in the city center is riddled with holes.  (Carolyn Cole / LAT)

Libi Ibrahim cries out for help in the village of Bint Jbeil, Lebanon, where she has endured days of heavy bombing. “God brought you, God brought you,” she cried. “I don’t want to die alone. Don’t leave me.” Many of the elderly were left behind while others fled the fighting.  (Carolyn Cole / LAT)

The bodies of two boys are pulled from the rubble in Qana. A lieutenant colonel in the Lebanese army said of the Israeli airstrike: “As a soldier, I know there are laws for war. This is a mass execution.”  (Carolyn Cole / LAT)

More than 50 people are believed to have died in the town of Qana in overnight bombing by the Israeli forces that left the city in rubble.  (Carolyn Cole / LAT)

Many of the victims in Qana were women and children who had taken shelter in a two story home.  (Carolyn Cole / LAT)

Lebanese soldiers wait as bulldozers work to recover the dead from the site of the attack.  (Carolyn Cole / LAT)

Lebanese Civil Defense personel remove the bodies from the site of the strike.  (Carolyn Cole / LAT)

One of the injured, Mohammed Shalhoub, lies on a stretcher on his way to the hospital. His 2-1/2 year old daughter was killed in the bombing.  (Carolyn Cole / LAT)

Lebanese Civil Defense personnel remove a victim from the rubble in Qana.  (Carolyn Cole / LAT)

The bodies of those killed in the Qana overnight bombing are laid out at the government hospital before being placed in the morque.  (Carolyn Cole / LAT)

The last residents of Qana express their anger at the overnight bombing by Israeli forces.  (Carolyn Cole / LAT)

Lebanese soldiers watch intently as thousands of protestors hold a rally near the UN building in downtown Beirut hours after an Israeli airstrike killed more than 50 refugees gathered in a basement in a home in Qana, Lebanon.  (Robert Gauthier / LAT)

Many factions of Lebanese politics were on hand, including a communist organization, as thousands of protestors storm the UN building in downtown Beirut.  (Robert Gauthier / LAT)

A protestor smashes a window during a protest in downtown Beirut.  (Robert Gauthier / LAT)

A Lebanese soldier stands guard at the front entrance of the UN building minutes after protestors broke their way inside to protest an Israeli airstrike that killed more than 50 refugees gathered in a basement in a home in Qana, Lebanon.  (Robert Gauthier / LAT)

An Israeli soldier looks out from a tank position in Northern Israel as incoming Hezbollah artillery lands nearby in the early morning. Northern Israel received a heavy bombardment of Katyusha rockets and artillery today.  (Damon Winter / LAT)

An Israeli journalist is taken to the emergency medical facility in Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel after being wounded in the stomach from shrapnel in a Katyusha rocket attack.  (Damon Winter / LAT)

Immigrant field workers from Thailand take refuge in a bomb shelter in Metula in northern Israel as incoming Hezbollah artillery lands nearby. Many of the Thai workers could not afford to leave and return home after the conflict started.  (Damon Winter / LAT)

An Israeli soldier runs to the scene of a Katyusha rocket attack in a residential neighborhood in Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel. The adjacent multi-story apartment complex was damaged and a few residents were treated for minor injuries and trauma. Around 30 rockets were reported to have landed in Kiryat Shmona today.  (Damon Winter / LAT)

An Israeli soldier and onlookers inspect the remains of a Katyusha rocket that landed in the sidewalk of a residential neighborhood in Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel.  (Damon Winter / LAT)

Residents of an apartment building in Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel look out and the damage from a Katyusha rocket attack. The three-story apartment complex was sustained minor and a few residents were treated for minor injuries and trauma. Around 30 rockets were reported to have landed in Kiryat Shmona today.  (Damon Winter / LAT)

Kati Martziano, 31, center, waits with family members in the stairwell in the bomb shelter at their apartment building in Kiryat.  (Damon Winter / LAT)

Israeli soldiers return in the early morning from overnight operations in and around Bint Jbail, a hotly contested Hezbollah stronghold about 5 kilometers inside southern Lebanon. Around 150 soldiers left the battleground this morning.  (Damon Winter / LAT)

A taxi driver spray paints an AU flag to signal Israeli jets as they prepare to join a convoy of nearly 60 press vehicles preparing to follow Red Cross vans to Remeish, Lebanon, a small coastal village near the Israeli border.  (Robert Gauthier / LAT)

Refugee children play soccer with a water bottle as they wait to be evacuated from the Rest House Hotel in Tyre, Lebanon.  (Robert Gauthier / LAT)

Less than two miles from where the battle rages In the hills south of Tyre, a few families remain despite the danger. Five-year-old Ali Hamid and his family watch as anti-aircraft weaponry is fired.  (Carolyn Cole / LAT)

A convoy of refugees head North to Tyre along a deserted road as darkness falls in Lebanon.  (Robert Gauthier / LAT)

UN advisor Hassan Siklawi, left, nervously looks out a door of a shelter as a bomb strikes nearby in Naqoura, Lebanon. UNIFIL Force Commander Alain Pellegrine talks with reporters as Hezbollah and Israeli forces trade fire about three kilometers away.  (Robert Gauthier / LAT)

UN advisor Hassan Siklawi leads journalists into a UN compound bomb shelter during intense Israeli shelling in Naqoura, Lebanon.  (Robert Gauthier / LAT)

A UN convoy of buses and military vehicles snakes along a dusty beach road on its way to Naqoura, Lebanon, a small coastal village near the Israeli border.  (Robert Gauthier / LAT)

A convoy of buses move south to the UN compound in Naqoura, Lebanon, a small coastal village near the Israeli border.  (Robert Gauthier / LAT)

An Israeli tank enters southern Lebanon en route to fighting in Bint Jbail, a Hezbollah stronghold 4 kilometeres into southern Lebanon.  (Damon Winter / LAT)

Israeli soldiers wait to go to battle in southern Lebanon at a staging area just inside the Lebanese border near Avivim in northern Israel.  (Damon Winter / LAT)

Israeli soldiers rest after returning from a week of fighting in southern Lebanon.  (Damon Winter / LAT)

Hundreds of displaced Lebanese are camped in Sanayez’s park in central Beirut. Many have been sleeping there, on foam mats, for two weeks.  (Carolyn Cole / LAT)

Thousands of Lebanese have been displaced by the conflict. A few hundred of them are camped in Sanayez’s park in central Beirut. There is little to do but sit and wait.  (Carolyn Cole / LAT)

Hundreds of displaced Lebanese camp in Sanayez’s park in central Beirut, including 8-year-old Fadel Ajami and his family. His father Haider Ajami says that his son Fadel has been a member of the Hezbollah “boyscouts” since he was age 4. “I will sacrifice myself and my family for the sake of the (Hezbollah) resistance fighters,” Haider says.  (Carolyn Cole / LAT)

A road to the main trash dump has been bombed causing a backup of garbage on the streets of Beirut. A trash fire burns on the waterfront road.  (Carolyn Cole / LAT)

Israeli soldiers stand near bodies, which they claim are dead Hezbollah fighters, after transporting them from Lebanon to the northern Israeli town of Yiron Wednesday.  (Oded Balilty / AP)

An Israeli soldier, wounded in Lebanon, is evacuated to Rambam hospital in the city of Haifa, northern Israel, Wednesday.  (Ariel Schalit / AP)

Israeli soldiers help guide a tank driver as they attempt to tow another disabled tank away from the border area. Israeli forces sustained heavy losses in intense fighting in Bint Jibel, a Hezbollah stronghold 4 kilometers inside the Lebanese border.  (Damon Winter / LAT)

An Israeli soldier prays near an armored personnel carrier at a staging area on the Lebanese border.  (Damon Winter / LAT)

Leonid Suzan, 52, talks on his mobile phone in a hallway lined with extra gurneys and operating tables in the underground facilities at Western Galilee Hospital in Nahariya. Leonid received shrapnel wounds on his arm in a Katyusha rocket attack.  (Damon Winter / LAT)

Mohsin Mari, 6, holds his nose as his mother Rania Mari tends to some of his wounds in the pediatric surgery ward in the underground facilities at Western Galilee Hospital in Nahariya. The hospital’s above ground facilities are all but deserted as all fuctions have been moved to the extensive protected facility. The hospital, only five miles from the Lebanese border, can accomodate 650 beds and has eight operating rooms which are fully protected from conventional as well as chemical and biological attacks.  (Damon Winter / LAT)

The last of four Israeli military helicopters leaves the frontlines carrying wounded Israeli soldiers. Israeli forces sustained heavy losses in intense fighting in Bint Jibel, a Hezbollah stronghold 4 kilometers inside the Lebanese border.  (Damon Winter / LAT)

Smoke rises from the city of Tyre, Lebanon, where a six-story building was struck by an Israeli bomb.  (Robert Gauthier / LAT)

Panicked residents flag down rescue trucks moments after Israeli bombs flattened a six-story building in Tyre, Lebanon.  (Robert Gauthier / LAT)

Panicked residents of Tyre, Lebanon, rush to the rubble of a six-story building flattened by Israeli bombs.  (Robert Gauthier / LAT)

A large UN shipment of food and medical supplies arrives in Tyre and is loaded into warehouses as Israeli shelling continues throughout southern Lebanon.  (Robert Gauthier / LAT)

Israeli soldiers examine the damage from a rocket fired from Lebanon at a cemetery in the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona.  (Eli Dasa / AP)

Israeli soldiers unload seized weapons and bodies, which they claim are dead Hezbollah fighters, after crossing from Lebanon to the northern Israeli town of Yiron.  (David Guttenfelder / AP)

Displaced Lebanese are seen at a shelter in an old courthouse after fleeing the fighting in southern Lebanon and arriving in the port city of Sidon in southern Lebanon.  (Kevin Frayer / AP)