2006年VOA标准英语-Lebanese Seek Shelter Wherever They Can Find It

By Challiss McDonough
Beirut
16 July 2006

The Israeli military has been bombing southern Lebanon since two Israeli soldiers were captured by the Lebanese-based militant¹ group Hezbollah on Wednesday. The bombings have killed more than 100 civilians². Israeli attacks also have destroyed roads and bridges and damaged Lebanon's only international airport. Hezbollah continues to fire rockets into Israel as the military campaign intensifies³. But as VOA's Challiss McDonough reports from Beirut, options are slim for Lebanese families seeking shelter wherever they can find it.

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An injured boy being carried out of a bombed building in Tyre, which holds the Lebanese Interior Ministry's civil defense⁴ center  
  
Ahmed Naanoo and his 11 children took a taxi to safety. On Thursday, they escaped from the southern coastal⁵ city of Tyre, which has come under heavy bombardment since the beginning of the Israeli offensive.

Naanoo says the Israelis were shelling the city, and had already cut off the main roads out of town, but the family escaped using back roads. A few hours later, those were bombed, too.

When they finally got to Beirut, they had no idea where to go for help.

Naanoo says, "We came to Beirut in a taxi, and when we got here, we asked some kids on the street where we should go. They said to follow them, and they led us here on their bicycles."

He is standing⁶ in a classroom on the third floor of a West Beirut school. It has become the family's new temporary home. He says they have nowhere else to go.

Red Cross paramedics carry a body out of the Lebanese Interior Ministry's civil defense center in Tyre, bombed by Israeli planes  
  
The taxi ride from Tyre cost Naanoo about $60, which was literally⁷ all the money he had. The family is now far from home, and destitute⁸, but he says he had to get his children to safety.

Since then Israeli troops have dropped leaflets in the south warning residents to flee.

Nobody knows exactly how many people have left. Hundreds of families like Naanoo's are living in schoolhouses in Beirut, and some even slept in a public park.

But Beirut is not necessarily a safe destination. Israeli airstrikes are also pounding the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital. Like the south of the country, South Beirut is heavily Shi'ite and a stronghold of the militant group, Hezbollah, which the State Department considers a terrorist organization.

The streets of South Beirut are largely abandoned. But on Saturday afternoon, 18-year-old Ali Haidar and a few friends were relaxing outside a local restaurant, one of the few South Beirut businesses still open.

"We are just hanging," said Ali Haidar. "There is no place to leave [to]. Most of the people have their parents, their relatives out in the mountains, but we do not have no one, so that is why we are staying here."

Haidar normally works as a deliveryman for the restaurant, but they have stopped doing deliveries because, with the airstrikes, it is not safe for him to ride around town on his moped.

A few blocks away, in the basement of an apartment building, several families are taking shelter from the bombing raids that have rocked the neighborhood. They will sleep down here, if the shells keep falling all night.

Twenty five-year-old Mohammed Annan says nobody was expecting such intense attacks on Beirut.

"But the people are really surprised with what is happening, especially [because] it's something that suddenly happened, you know? We thought that it maybe will be war, but in the south, and especially in the place where it started," said Mohammed Annan. "But it started in the south, and Israel [attacks] now come to Beirut."

At first, he expected that maybe the Israeli airstrikes would last just a few hours, but the sustained campaign has also been a surprise. He barely remembers the Lebanese civil war, which ended when he was just nine years old. The younger kids do not remember it at all.

A teenage boy steps forward and says his parents have told him stories about the war, but he and the other children had never experienced air raids themselves.

"The children are afraid because it is the first time they live it," he said. "It looks weird⁹. It is horrible."

Back in the West Beirut schoolhouse, Ahmad Naanoo worries about how all of this will affect his children.

He says, In the beginning, when we were still down south, the children were scared. Every time one of the warplanes went overhead, they would cry. He says his three-year-old daughter is still in shock and is not able to stand up

Ahmad Naanoo wants to go to a foreign embassy and ask for help getting out of the country. He does not much care where he ends up - maybe Britain, he says, or Canada, where two of his cousins live.

Western embassies are moving to get their citizens and dual¹⁰ nationals out of Lebanon, but for Lebanese people without foreign passports, the options for getting out are getting narrower by the day.

1 militant   

adj.激进的，好斗的；n.激进分子，斗士

参考例句：

• Some militant leaders want to merge with white radicals.一些好斗的领导人要和白人中的激进派联合。
• He is a militant in the movement.他在那次运动中是个激进人物。

2 civilians   

平民，百姓( civilian的名词复数 )； 老百姓

参考例句：

• the bloody massacre of innocent civilians 对无辜平民的血腥屠杀
• At least 300 civilians are unaccounted for after the bombing raids. 遭轰炸袭击之后，至少有300名平民下落不明。

3 intensifies   

n.（使）增强， （使）加剧( intensify的名词复数 )v.（使）增强， （使）加剧( intensify的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• A clear atmosphere intensifies the blue of the sky. 纯净的空气使天空变得更蓝。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Blowing on fire intensifies the heat. 吹火使热度加强。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 defense   

n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩

参考例句：

• The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
• The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。

5 coastal   

adj.海岸的，沿海的，沿岸的

参考例句：

• The ocean waves are slowly eating away the coastal rocks.大海的波浪慢慢地侵蚀着岸边的岩石。
• This country will fortify the coastal areas.该国将加强沿海地区的防御。

6 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

7 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

8 destitute   

adj.缺乏的；穷困的

参考例句：

• They were destitute of necessaries of life.他们缺少生活必需品。
• They are destitute of common sense.他们缺乏常识。

9 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

10 dual   

adj.双的；二重的，二元的

参考例句：

• The people's Republic of China does not recognize dual nationality for any Chinese national.中华人民共和国不承认中国公民具有双重国籍。
• He has dual role as composer and conductor.他兼作曲家及指挥的双重身分。