ISRAEL RESUMES SHELLING : LEBANESE TOWNS GET BRIEF RESPITE.

Byline: Douglas Jehl The New York Times

The Friday morning market opened almost as usual as dawn brought hopes that the shelling of a United Nations camp Thursday might bring an immediate end to the rain of fire that has fallen on this town almost every day since Israel's assault on southern Lebanon began.

But at five minutes after noon, an Israeli warplane streaking overhead unloosed a sonic boom, and soon thuds were heard and puffs of smoke began to rise as Israeli gunners trained their sights on the nearby hills.

``We thought there would be a cease-fire for maybe two or three days,'' said Bassam Shaheen, an administrator at a hospital that now doubles as a shelter for those displaced by the shelling. ``It turned out to be maybe two or three hours.''

As southern Lebanon continued to come under Israeli bombardment, warships lobbed harassing shells along the coastal road, cutting off the region's only link to Beirut, the capital, for much of the afternoon. With little letup in the fighting, ordinary Lebanese directed their fury not just at Israel but at the United States, which many blame for allowing Israel to operate here with a heavy hand.

``We are crying for America,'' said Yassim Yassim, who lives in a small village near here. ``Why don't they hear us?''

Yassim was among hundreds of southern Lebanese who awoke Friday with hopes that they might return to the homes they fled days ago. Instead, most found themselves stuck behind roadblocks that afforded a painfully close view of the Israeli shelling.

``The same hate I feel for Israel, I feel for America,'' said Omar Younis, a taxi driver whose carload of passengers had to halt before they reached their destination of Sidon, 30 miles south of Beirut.

From darker quarters of Lebanon on Friday, the verbal assault turned even fiercer. An unidentified caller claiming to speak for a militant group telephoned the Agence France-Presse office in Beirut on Friday to say that, in retaliation for the Israeli attacks, the Organization of the Oppressed on Earth would execute an Israeli airman that it said it was holding.

The group is a Shiite Muslim faction that kidnapped and killed Lt. Col. William Higgins of the U.S. Marines in 1989. Until Friday, it had never before claimed to hold the airman, Ron Arad, who was shot down over Lebanon in 1986.

A spokesman for Hezbollah, the militant Islamic organization that is the main target of Israel's attacks, would not comment on the threat, but continued its fire.

Hezbollah, or the Party of God, fired more than 50 Katyusha rockets toward Israel overnight in retaliation for the attack Thursday afternoon that killed more than 75 Lebanese civilians at a U.N. camp.

Miriam Arnout, a grandmother who had taken refuge in the hospital here after her home was destroyed by Israeli rocket fire, did not try to disguise her bitterness.

``We want only to be safe,'' said Arnout, who with 15 other family members was rescued by Red Cross volunteers Friday morning after being trapped in the cellar of a neighbor's house.

By afternoon, when an Israeli radio station was broadcasting warnings that, beginning at 4 p.m., Nabatiye itself would be the target of shelling again, the group was preparing to join scores of others spending the night in the hospital lobby.

Neither Arnout nor any of her relatives offered any of the praise for Hezbollah that has been almost standard among refugees, who describe the organization as both a savior and protector. But neither would they openly criticize the organization, whose social service network has earned it admiration if not loyalty.

``We only want to go home,'' said Arnout's son, Hassan. ``We just want all of this to be over.''

Two cars from the International Committee for the Red Cross raced up the hill from the coastal city of Sidon to deliver gauze, syringes and other basic supplies to the hospital Friday for the first time since Israel began its assault nine days ago.

But members of the delegation said that the Israeli authorities had given the Red Cross only enough time to make a few short stops before leaving Nabatiye, where an Israeli rocket attack Thursday leveled an apartment building and left 11 people dead, including a 4-day-old child.

And like the rest of the town, the market where traders did at least some business in the morning stood deserted by midafternoon, with those who could heading toward the coast along a road marked with a monument to a local hero, the Hezbollah suicide bomber who blew up an Israeli base in the city of Tyre after Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982.

Sidon, which has remained relatively unscathed by the Israeli attacks, was busy Friday with relief operations begun by organizations who are using it as a secure base.

But 50 more miles south in Tyre, Israeli warplanes launched more attacks Friday, while the Israeli shelling along the coast north of Sidon made the passage between the city and Beirut a risky proposition at times.

For much of the afternoon, ambulances raced up and down the highway to collect and deliver blood ferried in private cars that were stranded at roadblocks.

Others caught in the logjam included trucks laden with food and foam mattresses intended for delivery to the scores of thousands of southern Lebanese now living in schools, mosques and relatives' homes.