QANA, Lebanon -- Abu Shadi Jradi pulled bodies out of wreckage for hours -- two toddler girls wearing tiny gold earrings, a small boy whose pale blue pacifier still hung from his neck. Somewhere in the middle, Jradi slumped beneath a tree and wept.

"There are so many children, so many children," the veteran civil defense worker said Sunday, barely able to get out the words.

The dead still had signs of their last moments, when dozens of members of the Shalhoub and Hashem families had gathered together for shelter and company during another night of Israeli bombardment. Children wore the shorts and T-shirts they slept in. One body was wrapped in a child's bedsheet covered with Raggedy Ann and Andy figures.

Their three-story house on the outskirts of the village of Qana was leveled when a missile struck it at 1 a.m. Red Cross officials said 56 were killed. Police said 34 children and 12 women were among them.

Khalil Shalhoub, who had been clearing rubble, lunged at a stretcher when he saw who was on it: his brother. The workers carrying it stumbled as he screamed.

Khalil had been in a nearby house when the missile hit.

"It came in right at the door. I saw it. It was aimed right for the door," he said. He said planes were still firing afterward, preventing him and others from rushing to the wreckage in the night.

"In this village, there are so few places to hide that we just go into one or two houses and sit together. It is like a shelter," he said.

The dead were carried out in blankets, sheets and carpets. The eldest was a 95-year-old man, a Shalhoub. The youngest was a 9-month-old child of the Hashems.

The arm of a child slipped from beneath the dirty gray blanket that covered him. On the same stretcher, toes painted with bright red polish peeked out. A rescue worker lifted the blanket to show two shattered children who were curled up looking asleep except for the thick dried blood at their noses.

In Qana, resident Mohammed Ismail waved at seven dead lined up on the ground, saying President Bush "laughs when they ask him about the dead bodies."