Driving Through A Ghost Town

(CBS)  Israel considered it fair warning when it urged civilians to evacuate southern Lebanon — the dividing line was the Litani River. CBS News correspondent Lee Cowan left Beirut Thursday and crossed that river into what is considered to be a no man's land — to the southern city of Tyre, just 12 miles from the Israeli border.

Virtually cut off from the rest of Lebanon, the road down south is a pockmarked mess. There were few cars heading into the city. Most were headed north, out of Tyre, with occupants dangling white flags in hopes of being spared an air strike.

Inside the city, Cowan says, there were tattered posters of Hezbollah's leader on nearly every corner.

Israel has been pounding the city for days, saying it's hiding Hezbollah's rockets and missiles. But one man says the rubble near his home was an appliance store — and nothing more.

"There's no Hezbollah here," says Rabee Madi. "There's no Army of the Lebanese; there's nothing here."

What's very clear here is the precision of the Israeli air strikes. A doctor says one bombed-out building used to be an apartment building. He should know: The unscathed hospital he works at is less than 100 yards away.

That's where Cowan met 8-year-old Jowel and her father. Her arm was shattered in an air strike.

"Thank God we're still surviving," the father said as he kissed his daughter's head. But as he did, the doctors suddenly fled. More wounded were arriving.

One man who was not likely to survive would be sent to a different hospital — one that was eerily empty. "It's functioning like a morgue more than a hospital," a nurse said. The evidence lay out front in a refrigerated truck that, when opened, revealed more than 115 bodies — 55 of them, Cowan was told, were children.

Israel has agreed to allow humanitarian assistance to start flowing into Lebanon. A spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry said Thursday that Israel has no intention of seeing a humanitarian disaster.