Litani River Bottleneck as Civilians Evacuate
WHITFIELD: The expected Israeli ground invasion of Southern Lebanon has its residents heading north and that's making for quite a jam of the evacuees along the Litani River. CNN's Ben Wedeman is live with the very latest. Ben, what are you seeing?</s>BEN WEDEMAN, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I was down by the Litani River today, watching as hundreds, possibly thousands of people were on the road. They've decided with the impending Israeli offensive, it's time to get out while they can.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because of that, because there's nor food or water, nothing there left.</s>WEDEMAN (on camera): Where are you going now?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know. I don't know where I go.</s>WEDEMAN (voice-over): No time to talk, time to go.</s>WHITFIELD: And across the border, then what is in place for the influx of people when they first get there?</s>WEDEMAN: Well, once they get out of southern Lebanon, we have seen that they're being put up in schools, in hospitals, in some areas, in empty hotels. By and large, nobody's starving or anything like that, but it's really sort of putting a strain on all of the sort of infrastructure. For instance, Fredricka, I was in a town just outside of Beirut where the population has basically grown by ten, and as a result of all of these refugees, the local water reservoir has gone dry. So they are to truck the water in from elsewhere. So this sort of complication is making the situation all more difficult, in addition, of course, to the war that's going on in this country.</s>WHITFIELD: All right, Ben Wedeman, thanks so much for that update. Israel's offensive against Hezbollah in South Lebanon could last at least a few more weeks. That's what diplomatic sources are telling CNN. Mari Eisen is a spokeswoman for the Israeli government, she is also a retired colonel for the Israeli military intelligence. I talked to her just a short time ago.</s>MARI EISEN, ISRAELI GOVERNMENT SPOKESWOMAN: It's not just in the town of Maroun al Ras, it's in all of the towns of southern Lebanon and that's exactly what Hezbollah did. They took over all of southern Lebanon after we withdrew in 2000. We withdrew hoping for peace. And what happened is that Hezbollah terrorists came into all of the towns, all of the villages, all along our northern border, coming into there, bringing in the rockets, building up that buildup that I heard your military commentators talking about before. For six years, Israel stood when they fired rockets at us, when they tried to cross the border. This time, they crossed the border, they kidnapped two servicemen, firing rockets all over the place and enough is enough. We can't go back to the situation where we have these terrorists along the northern border.</s>WHITFIELD: So when you say there's no intention to occupy, like Israel occupied southern Lebanon for many years, 18 years once before, how is this incursion not to be confused with starting that all over again?</s>EISEN: I think that Israelis are both more mature and understanding, with all of the difficulties that we're in right now. When we went into Lebanon in 1982, we also wanted to have rocket fire far away from northern Israel. But this time, we actually have a terrorist organization, which is part of the Lebanese government, taking the Lebanese government hostage, taking the Lebanese people hostage, using them as shields while they fire into the civilian population of Israel. We really hope this time to be sure that we don't return to that situation. Hezbollah, Nesrala (ph) they are puppets of the Iranians, they're supplied by Iran, they get all of their weapons from Iran. And we really feel that we can't continue as we've waited over the last six years to diplomacy to work. We can't continue having these rockets on our northern border.</s>WHITFIELD: Where is the Israeli government on the plea for some sort of cease-fire for at least humanitarian aid? Because, whether civilians were initially targeted or not, it's very clear that a number have been killed in this conflict.</s>EISEN: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert together with the Israeli defense minister has already declared that we opened what we're calling a humanitarian naval passageway from Cyprus to Lebanon to alleviate this problem. Israel has no desire to make any of a humanitarian disaster. At least to try help both the international communities, supplies, and to help the Lebanese out. This has started two days ago and we will continue quietly to help this humanitarian corridor bring supplies and bring people out of the Lebanon.</s>WHITFIELD: Mari Eisen, spokesperson for the Israeli government. More of the crisis in the Middle East, right after this.