Here’s the story I filed for the San Fran­cisco Chron­i­cle last night,giv­ing you a sense of the scene up around the Nahr el-Bared camp. It’s grim:

Across the street, black smog bil­lowed over the camp while half a dozen build­ings blazed. Sniper fire crack­led in the air as the army pounded the camp with 120mm mor­tar and tank shells. Fatah al-Islam mil­i­tants responded with rocket pro­pelled grenade launch­ers and machine-gun fire.
Dense orange groves sur­round­ing the camp were scorched from explo­sions while the army seemed to method­i­cally lob shells on a spe­cific sec­tor of the camp, set­ting a num­ber of build­ings on fire before mov­ing on.
Con­di­tions in the camp — a mis­er­able war­ren of alley­ways and cin­derblock homes hous­ing between 30,000 and 40,000 peo­ple – are grim. A source at the U.N. Relief and Works Agency in New York said it was impos­si­ble for camp med­ical work­ers to get to the dead and wounded. Water and elec­tricty have been cut off and about 50 for­eign­ers — many of the West­ern­ers — are hun­kered down as their embassies work to get a cease fire in place so they can be evacuated.

I’m head­ing up in a cou­ple of hours. Word is a UN con­voy is going to try to get into the camp.