Everybody leads again with the Levant war: The New York Timessays "hundreds of Israeli troops" have crossed the border on search-and-destroy missions. Haaretz says "thousands of soldiers" are involved. Four Israeli soldiers were killed yesterday. Hezbollah doesn't seem to release its casualty figures. About 30 Lebanese were reported killed in airstrikes, while Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah appeared on Al Jazeera to prove he wasn't killed by Wednesday's big strike in Beirut. Roughly 50 rockets hit Israel yesterday, a third of the number of the day before. No casualties were reported.

Only the Los Angeles Timesand Wall Street Journal give significant play to Israel ordering all Lebanese to leave a 20-mile swath in the south of the country. "All residents of south Lebanon south of the Litani [River] must leave their areas immediately for their own safety," said Israel in an announcement that went out via radio and even to cell phones. Nobody's sure how many people are still there, but normally 300,000 people live in the region, which is twice the size of the buffer zone Israel previously had. 

That seems like significant news, but the NYT doesn't think so. Instead it leads: "MARINES RETURN TO BEIRUT TO AID U.S. EVACUATION." ( USA Today has a similar take.) It was 40 Marines, and they were simply "helping citizens board a landing craft." That's bigger news than Israel moving to depopulate the south of Lebanon?

In contrast to the NYT and USAT's bizarrely parochial play, the LAT runs a near-banner headline: "LEBANESE TOLD THE LEAVE THE SOUTH."

The Washington Post, LAT, and NYT all give front-page play to dispatches from the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, where aid officials estimate about 12,000 people are stranded, with no aid coming in and no easy way to get out.

The LAT sets the scene:

Civil structure appears to have broken down almost completely. Ambulances haven't been able to operate. The dead are rotting in the rubble of smashed homes. Food and clean drinking water are running out.

"We just want transporation out of here," said one woman who doesn't have the means to leave. Her village was bombed, and it wasn't safe for rescue workers to travel and pull out the dead. "This morning the dogs were eating the neighbors," her husband said.

Hezbollah still controls Beirut's southern suburbs—even the Lebanese government isn't allowed access to some neighborhoods—and reporters were brought in to see some damage. The Post has a remarkable 360-degree photo showing one neighborhood all but leveled.

The WP says 2,250 Americans were evacuated yesterday, the highest single-day total so far.