TIM EWART, ITV News Correspondent: This is the Beirut the secretary of state did not see: the
Hezbollah-controlled area that has been the eye of Israel's bombing storm.
A crucial question here in this terrible and deserted and
destroyed place is: What about the young people who have been forced to flee
their homes here? What will happen to them? Will they become the Hezbollah
fighters of tomorrow?
A week ago, we found a frightened 11-year-old, Ayah
Al-Sablani (ph), who fled south Beirut
with her family.
YOUNG LEBANESE GIRL: And my dad bring us here to not be
dead. And my brothers are very, very, very scared to be dead.
TIM EWART: Today, Ayah (ph), still a refugee, said her
brothers were not quite so scared.
What do they want to do?
YOUNG LEBANESE GIRL: They want to be with Hezbollah. They
want to kill and fight.
TIM EWART: At this refugee center in Sidon,
they wanted to vent their fury on Islam and America rather than plead for the
help they so obviously need.
HUSSEIN NABOULSI, Hezbollah Spokesman: We are guiding tours
for the press every day, always at 11 o'clock.
TIM EWART: Hezbollah, who now escort journalists around the
most dangerous areas of Beirut,
are waging a battle for the hearts and minds. Many Lebanese do not support
their actions and are horrified at the onslaught they've attracted. But the
message here is defiant.
HUSSEIN NABOULSI: If Israel dared to face us, let us face us
face-to-face, fight us on the border, not come with jet fighters from high
above the sky and kill civilians.
TIM EWART: There remains, of course, an alarming
humanitarian crisis. People like these are just refugees in their own country. They
lived down the road; the homes they've left behind so near, yet so far.
