Fighting Continues to Escalate Between Israel and Hezbollah

JIM LEHRER:

In Israel and Lebanon, trying to escape the shelling. We start with a report from Nahariya, Israel. The correspondent is John Irvine of Independent Television News.

JOHN IRVINE, ITV News Correspondent:

That's the sound of Hezbollah rockets landing here this evening, two of them. Thankfully they only started bush fires, but they were uncomfortably close.

Deserted times are the result of this and the response of Israeli artillery. It's around-the-clock, unnerving noise, almost enough to wake the dead.

This afternoon, more Hezbollah missiles struck Israel's most northerly hospital. It's five miles from Lebanon. We were in the same hospital this morning. The corridors and wards are empty.

However, as the director showed me, the patients and staff have not gone far. They've been taken underground to be looked after and protected by a thick ceiling of reinforced concrete. This is a fully functioning subterranean hospital.

Until July the 12th, this place had lain dormant for years. It was the facility administrators hoped they would never have to use. In the event, they moved 180 patients down here and had the place up and running within an hour.

Some of the patients here are victims of Hezbollah rockets which are laced with shrapnel. Medical care in a bunker: It's been like this for two-and-a-half weeks now.

You were the man who had to make the decision to come underground. It must have been a sad one to make.

DR. MOSHE DANIEL, Director, Western Galilee Hospital:

Yes, absolutely. It was 1:00 in the morning, Wednesday night, weeks ago, and it was really bad, but we did already a lot of drills, and we knew how to do it.

JOHN IRVINE:

They can keep going down here for months if needs be, despite the fact it's always busy. There's never a shortage of visitors in the safest place in town.