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Lives Into the Grim Unknown  July 21, 2006|Megan K. Stack |
Times Staff Writer  TYRE, Lebanon — The orders from Israel
spread at dawn Thursday by radio, leaflet and menacing cellphone
text messages: All civilians south of the Litani River should
clear out immediately or risk death.  Panicked by the evacuation
order, families packed into cars and poured north on a tortuous
route of one-lane dirt roads and bomb-pocked highways. Smoke
boiled into the sky over the treetops as bombs rumbled in the
hills. Jets sliced the sky overhead. As they sped past abandoned
cars, they glimpsed corpses seated inside.  Many rode with their
hearts in their mouths, faces hard with fear and fatigue. They
tied strips of white cloth to antennas and waved white rags and
undershirts out of windows as if they could flag away death.
They convoyed with neighbors; one family had carefully packed a
black and white cow into the bed of a pickup.  When they hit the
main coastal h