By HAMZA HENDAWI and LEE KEATH, AP
BEIRUT, Lebanon - (July 17) - Hezbollah and Israel traded fierce barrages for a sixth day Monday, as the latest eruption of warfare in the Middle East showed no sign of easing. Rockets struck deep inside Israel, killing eight people in Haifa, and Israeli planes bombed Lebanon from north to south.
The toll on both sides rose to more than 200. In addition to the Israeli victims at a rail repair facility in the Haifa attack on Sunday, an Israeli rocket blew up a Lebanese army position, killing eight soldiers, and a sea-launched missile killed at least nine people in the southern Lebanese port of Tyre.
Israel warned of massive retaliation after the Haifa attack, and accused Iran and Syria of providing the weaponry used in it. Israeli military officials said four of the missiles were the Iranian-made Fajr-3, with a 22-mile range and 200-pound payload, and far more advanced than the Katyusha rockets the guerrillas rained on northern Israel in previous attacks.
Foreigners began to flee by the hundreds and several nations drew up plans to get their citizens out. U.S. planners arrived to organize evacuation for any of the 25,000 Americans seeking to leave. Two Marine Corps helicopters evacuated 21 Americans to Cyprus on Sunday.
Italian military flights rushed out some 350 people, mostly Europeans. France, which has more than 20,000 citizens in Lebanon, chartered a Greek ferry expected to pick up some 1,200 people on Monday.
Early Monday, witnesses reported that waves of Israeli airstrikes hit the Lebanese city of Tripoli and Hezbollah strongholds in eastern town of Baalbek. Missiles apparently aiming at a relay station for Hezbollah's al-Manar television missed their target and hit a house south of Beirut. Police said four villagers were killed and 10 wounded. Lebanese police said the village had been hit by missiles fired from Israeli warships, but the Israeli military denied gunboats had participated in the bombings.
Israeli missiles hit the Lebanese capital shortly after sunrise Monday, as three loud explosions rocked the southern suburbs while another strike sparked a large fire in Beirut's port, witnesses said.
Eight Lebanese army soldiers were killed Sunday and 12 wounded in an Israeli airstrike in the fishing village of Abdeh in northern Lebanon.
Israel, technically at war with Lebanon since 1948, said it had targeted radar stations in the north because Hezbollah had used them to hit an Israeli ship on Friday. It all but accused the Lebanese military of lending its support to Hezbollah.
"The attacks ... are against radar stations used, among other things, in the attack on the Israeli missile boat, by Hezbollah in cooperation with the Lebanese military," an Israeli army spokesman told The Associated Press.
World leaders meeting in St. Petersburg produced a draft framework to end the crisis and a U.N. envoy landed in Beirut. The Group of Eight most industrialized nations expressed concern over "rising civilian casualties on all sides" and urged both sides to stop their attacks.
"These extremist elements and those that support them cannot be allowed to plunge the Middle East into chaos and provoke a wider conflict," the G-8 leaders said in a statement. "The extremists must immediately halt their attacks."
The United Nations, the European Union and Italy also pushed ahead with separate efforts Sunday to try to end the fighting. But both Israel and Hezbollah signaled that their attacks would only intensify.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed "far-reaching consequences" for the Haifa attack, Hezbollah's deadliest strike ever on Israel. The morning barrage of 20 rockets came after Israeli warplanes unleashed their heaviest strikes yet on Beirut, flattening apartment buildings and blowing up a power station to cut electricity to swaths of the capital.
Even before the latest Israeli retaliation, Israeli airstrikes had devastated southern Beirut, a teeming Shiite district that is home to Hezbollah's main headquarters.
The Jiyeh power plant, on Beirut's southern outskirts, was in flames after it was hit, cutting electricity to many areas in the capital and south Lebanon. Firefighters pleaded for help from residents after saying they didn't have enough water to put out the blaze.
Some residents of Beirut's southern Shiite neighborhood, Dahiyah, ventured out of shelters to collect belongings from their shattered city blocks, where buildings were collapsed on their sides, missing top floors or reduced to pancaked concrete. Many emerged from their destroyed apartments with bulging shopping bags or suitcases as young Hezbollah gunmen urged them to leave quickly.
Large swaths of Beirut were covered with dust, and the city of 1.5 million people was emptying as residents fled. Furniture pieces, blankets, mattresses, clothes and soft toys were scattered on the streets. A copy of the Quran, Islam's holy book, lay in the street with its dusty pages fluttering until a Hezbollah gunman reverently lifted it and kissed it.
"We want to sleep on our own pillows in the shelter," Mariam Shihabiyah, a 39-year-old mother of five said as she emerged from her home with an armful of pillows and clothes. "Can you believe what happened to Dahiyah?"
The Israeli military warned residents of south Lebanon to flee, promising heavy retaliation after the Haifa assault. "Nothing will deter us," Olmert said.
Along with the Lebanon attacks, Israel attacked along the second front where Israel is fighting, in Gaza. Fighter jets bombed the Palestinian Foreign Ministry in Gaza City, and clouds of smoke rose from the building, which has been hit before. At least nine people in nearby houses were injured, rescue workers said.
Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, said that despite the barrage, the guerrillas were "in their full strength and power" and that their "missile stockpiles are still full."
"When the Zionists behave like there are no rules and no red lines and no limits to the confrontation, it is our right to behave in the same way," a tired-looking but defiant Nasrallah said in a televised address. He said Hezbollah hit Haifa because of Israel's strikes on Lebanese civilians.
Nasrallah tried to rally the Arab world around Hezbollah, saying the battle was an opportunity to deal Israel a "historic defeat." Iran and Syria are prime supporters of Hezbollah and Hamas, raising fears the sides could be drawn into a regional war.
Still, they denied Israel's claim that they had provided advanced missile technology to Hezbollah.
Smoke rose over Haifa and air raid sirens wailed as the dead and wounded were evacuated from a train station warehouse full of workers that took a direct hit in the strike, just one hour into the new work week. Orthodox rescue crews worked their way through the debris gathering pieces of flesh amid pools of blood.
Elsewhere in the port city of 270,000, residents huddled in bomb shelters or stocked up on milk, bread and other staples.
"It's a war, it's an emergency situation and it will get worse," said Sharon Goldstein, a 34-year-old security guard.
In an initial response soon after, Israeli warplanes hit south Beirut around Hezbollah's headquarters, already reduced to rubble. In the southern port of Tyre, an Israeli missile tore off the top of a 12-story building, killing at least nine. Rescue workers pulled bodies from the crushed concrete.
Seven Canadians of Lebanese origin, including several members of the same Montreal family, were killed by an Israeli strike on their village in the south where they'd come for a summer visit, Canada's Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Ambra Dickie said. Earlier reports had said eight were killed.
After nightfall, Israeli missiles destroyed fuel depots at Beirut's airport.
Hezbollah retaliated with rockets that exploded in the Israeli towns of Afula and Upper Nazareth, showing a longer range than previous barrages. A rocket exploded near an air force base in northern Israel overnight. There were no immediate reports of casualties in those attacks.
Waves of missiles wounded eight soldiers in Tripoli, Lebanon's second largest city and a major northern port. Tyre and another southern port city, Sidon, also came under renewed attack. Some 40 people had been wounded in the raids early Monday.
Western nations clearly expected a drawn-out fight even as diplomatic efforts began in earnest.
In Beirut, Vijay Nambiar, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special political adviser, met Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora. "Enough innocent lives have been lost and property infrastructure has been damaged," Nambiar said.
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana also met with Saniora on Sunday.
Syria warned on Sunday that any aggression against it "will be met with a firm and direct response whose timing and methods are unlimited." Hundreds of cars drove through Damascus on Sunday night with drivers and passengers waving Syrian and Hezbollah flags and honking horns.
Iran threatened "unimaginable damage" to Israel if Syria were attacked, and its supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Hezbollah was winning its fight against Israel and would not disarm. Iran's foreign minister headed to Damascus late Sunday for talks.
Hendawi reported from Beirut and Keath from Damascus, Syria.
7/17/2006 01:16:42
CRISIS in the MIDDLE EAST
Moderators: Cell_Leader, ikaotiki, Julstar
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theone666
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21 Americans Evacuated From Lebanon
By ZEINA KARAM, AP
BEIRUT, Lebanon (July 16) - Two Marine Corps helicopters evacuated 21 Americans from Lebanon to Cyprus on Sunday, and U.S. officials urged others to wait for a formal evacuation plan before they try to leave.
The U.S. citizens evacuated Sunday included a family of four with a sick child and four students, said Maura Harty, assistant secretary of state for consular affairs.
She said the United States had receive hundreds of phone calls from Americans in Lebanon asking for instruction and urged them not to try to travel by land to Syria. U.S. security teams landed at the U.S. Embassy earlier Sunday to plan the evacuation for any of the 25,000 Americans in Lebanon who wish to leave.
"It is a situation in flux, in so very many ways," Harty said from Washington. "We are working 24-7 to get this done."
Israeli airstrikes on runways have closed down Beirut's international airport. Israel has also imposed a naval blockade on the country and has made road travel dangerous by targeting the main highway between Lebanon and neighboring Syria.
Israel began striking Lebanon after Hezbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid Wednesday.
The U.S. Embassy, on a fortified hilltop in Beirut, was buzzing with activity Sunday.
Two CH-53 Super Stallion heavy-lift helicopters landed about 3 p.m. on the embassy grounds, said the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which conducted the evacuation. The flight to Cyprus arrived about 5 p.m, the Marines said.
Col. Ron Johnson, the commander, said his unit was "setting the conditions" for additional evacuation flights if the U.S. ambassador in Beirut makes such a request.
Air Force Lt. Sharbe Clark, a spokeswoman for U.S. Central Command in Washington, said survey and assessment teams had arrived to help with evacuation plans.
The U.S. said Saturday it was working on a plan to evacuate American citizens from Lebanon to Cyprus. American officials believe only some of the Americans in Lebanon will want to leave.
"We obviously have plans and contingency plans should we need to bring people out," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters at the Group of Eight summit in Russia. "I get reports on this every couple of hours as to how this is going. Our ambassador who is on the ground will obviously do what we need to protect Americans."
U.S. officials made contingency plans to evacuate people who cannot leave on their own. Family members and non-emergency American employees of the embassy have been given permission to leave.
About 350 people -- most of them Europeans -- were evacuated Saturday night and early Sunday to Cyprus aboard Italian military flights. Officials from several countries urged their citizens to put their travel documents in order, but not to attempt to leave unless it was safe.
France, with some 17,000 nationals living in Lebanon and at least 4,000 currently visiting, planned to begin ferrying to Cyprus Sunday any who wished to leave. Air transport would take the evacuees to Paris.
Britain dispatched two warships toward the Middle East in preparation for the possible evacuation of Britons.
7/16/2006 19:21:30
BEIRUT, Lebanon (July 16) - Two Marine Corps helicopters evacuated 21 Americans from Lebanon to Cyprus on Sunday, and U.S. officials urged others to wait for a formal evacuation plan before they try to leave.
The U.S. citizens evacuated Sunday included a family of four with a sick child and four students, said Maura Harty, assistant secretary of state for consular affairs.
She said the United States had receive hundreds of phone calls from Americans in Lebanon asking for instruction and urged them not to try to travel by land to Syria. U.S. security teams landed at the U.S. Embassy earlier Sunday to plan the evacuation for any of the 25,000 Americans in Lebanon who wish to leave.
"It is a situation in flux, in so very many ways," Harty said from Washington. "We are working 24-7 to get this done."
Israeli airstrikes on runways have closed down Beirut's international airport. Israel has also imposed a naval blockade on the country and has made road travel dangerous by targeting the main highway between Lebanon and neighboring Syria.
Israel began striking Lebanon after Hezbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid Wednesday.
The U.S. Embassy, on a fortified hilltop in Beirut, was buzzing with activity Sunday.
Two CH-53 Super Stallion heavy-lift helicopters landed about 3 p.m. on the embassy grounds, said the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which conducted the evacuation. The flight to Cyprus arrived about 5 p.m, the Marines said.
Col. Ron Johnson, the commander, said his unit was "setting the conditions" for additional evacuation flights if the U.S. ambassador in Beirut makes such a request.
Air Force Lt. Sharbe Clark, a spokeswoman for U.S. Central Command in Washington, said survey and assessment teams had arrived to help with evacuation plans.
The U.S. said Saturday it was working on a plan to evacuate American citizens from Lebanon to Cyprus. American officials believe only some of the Americans in Lebanon will want to leave.
"We obviously have plans and contingency plans should we need to bring people out," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters at the Group of Eight summit in Russia. "I get reports on this every couple of hours as to how this is going. Our ambassador who is on the ground will obviously do what we need to protect Americans."
U.S. officials made contingency plans to evacuate people who cannot leave on their own. Family members and non-emergency American employees of the embassy have been given permission to leave.
About 350 people -- most of them Europeans -- were evacuated Saturday night and early Sunday to Cyprus aboard Italian military flights. Officials from several countries urged their citizens to put their travel documents in order, but not to attempt to leave unless it was safe.
France, with some 17,000 nationals living in Lebanon and at least 4,000 currently visiting, planned to begin ferrying to Cyprus Sunday any who wished to leave. Air transport would take the evacuees to Paris.
Britain dispatched two warships toward the Middle East in preparation for the possible evacuation of Britons.
7/16/2006 19:21:30
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G-8 Leaders Demand Halt to Mideast Attacks
By Terence Hunt, AP
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (July 16) - President Bush and other world leaders struggled Sunday to prevent Mideast violence from exploding into a wider war. They urged Israel to show "utmost restraint" and blamed Islamic militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas for igniting the escalating five-day-old crisis.
The annual summit of eight major powers set aside other world problems to urgently address Israel's punishing attacks in Lebanon and Hezbollah's missile strikes on civilian targets in Israel. The leaders concluded that the violence was triggered by the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah guerrillas in a raid from Lebanon, and by Hamas' rocket attacks in Gaza and the abduction of a third Israeli soldier.
"These extremist elements and those that support them cannot be allowed to plunge the Middle East into chaos and provoke a wider conflict," the G-8 leaders said in a statement. "The extremists must immediately halt their attacks."
Forged in delicate negotiations, the statement represented a consensus by the leaders of the United States, Russia, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan. But the wording allowed leaders to read the document in different ways, reflecting varying alliances by summit partners with players in the Middle East and conflicting views over whether Israel was using excessive force.
French President Jacques Chirac said "it is evident that the G-8 is calling for a cease-fire." Not so, said the United States. "There was no push by any country for a cease-fire," said Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs.
The Bush administration argued that the statement obviously blamed Syria and Iran for the crisis, although neither country was explicitly named.
The statement demanded the return, unharmed, of the Israeli soldiers, an end to the shelling of Israeli territory and a halt to Israeli military operations.
The Bush administration, which has declined to pressure Israel to holds its fire, said the call for a halt to Israeli strikes was conditioned on the soldiers' release and the end of missile attacks on Israel. The statement was unclear on those points.
"We do not want to let terrorist forces and those who support them have the opportunity to create chaos in the Middle East," German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters after the leaders met at an 18th century palace.
She said they believe that "first of all, that the Israeli soldiers must be returned unharmed, that the attacks on Israel must stop and that then, of course, also the Israeli military action must be ended."
Bush for the first time pressed Israel to show moderation. "Our message to Israel is, look, defend yourself, but as you do so, be mindful of the consequences. And so we've urged restraint." Other U.S. officials have made similar statements but it was the most explicit call yet by Bush.
The United States refused to endorse calls for a cease-fire, saying that must be accompanied by constraints on Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria and Iran.
The urgency of the deliberations was demonstrated by Russia's decision to evacuate its citizens from Lebanon. The U.S., Britain and France made plans to do the same.
Chirac, often at odds with Bush, told the president "we share the same views of the issues at stake here" and called for implementation of Security Council resolution 1559, which requires the disarming of Hezbollah and other militias in Lebanon.
Bush also got support from British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who said the only way to halt the hostilities was to acknowledge that extremists are trying to block peace between Israel and the Palestinians. "There are also extremists backed, I'm afraid, by Iran and by Syria, who want to disrupt the positions in Lebanon and who want to create a situation of tension and hostility there."
Russian President Vladimir Putin, host of his country's first G-8 summit, voiced suspicions about Israel's intentions. "It is our impression that aside from seeking to return the abducted soldiers, Israel is pursuing wider goals," Putin said early Sunday, without elaborating. He has said it was unacceptable for Hezbollah to take hostages and shell others' territory, but also for Israel to use massive force in response.
Originally, the summit had been expected to deal with nuclear crises involving North Korea and Iran, but those issues appeared overtaken by events in the Mideast.
The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Saturday to demand that North Korea suspend its ballistic missile program. World powers rebuked Iran on Wednesday when they went to the Security Council to seek possible punishment, saying it had given no sign it means to negotiate seriously over its disputed nuclear program. Iran said Sunday that an incentive package was "an acceptable basis" for talks.
Bush met on the summit sidelines with Chinese President Hu Jintao, who said they agreed to press for the resumption of stalled six-party talks to stop North Korea's nuclear program, and to seek a peaceful solution to the Iran stalemate.
The leaders also issued joint declarations that called for bolstering energy security, fighting infectious diseases and improving education. But they got scant attention in the crisis atmosphere over the Mideast.
Lebanese guerillas fired at least 20 rockets into the northern Israeli city of Haifa, killing eight people at a train station. The strike came after Israel, in its fiercest bombardment yet of the Lebanese capital, reduced Beirut apartment buildings to rubble and knocked out electricity in many areas of the city.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said a cease-fire must address the underlying causes of the crisis -- militant groups and their state sponsors. Otherwise, "we will have achieved very, very little, indeed, and we will be right back here, perhaps in a worse circumstance," she said.
7/16/2006 16:12:52
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (July 16) - President Bush and other world leaders struggled Sunday to prevent Mideast violence from exploding into a wider war. They urged Israel to show "utmost restraint" and blamed Islamic militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas for igniting the escalating five-day-old crisis.
The annual summit of eight major powers set aside other world problems to urgently address Israel's punishing attacks in Lebanon and Hezbollah's missile strikes on civilian targets in Israel. The leaders concluded that the violence was triggered by the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah guerrillas in a raid from Lebanon, and by Hamas' rocket attacks in Gaza and the abduction of a third Israeli soldier.
"These extremist elements and those that support them cannot be allowed to plunge the Middle East into chaos and provoke a wider conflict," the G-8 leaders said in a statement. "The extremists must immediately halt their attacks."
Forged in delicate negotiations, the statement represented a consensus by the leaders of the United States, Russia, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan. But the wording allowed leaders to read the document in different ways, reflecting varying alliances by summit partners with players in the Middle East and conflicting views over whether Israel was using excessive force.
French President Jacques Chirac said "it is evident that the G-8 is calling for a cease-fire." Not so, said the United States. "There was no push by any country for a cease-fire," said Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs.
The Bush administration argued that the statement obviously blamed Syria and Iran for the crisis, although neither country was explicitly named.
The statement demanded the return, unharmed, of the Israeli soldiers, an end to the shelling of Israeli territory and a halt to Israeli military operations.
The Bush administration, which has declined to pressure Israel to holds its fire, said the call for a halt to Israeli strikes was conditioned on the soldiers' release and the end of missile attacks on Israel. The statement was unclear on those points.
"We do not want to let terrorist forces and those who support them have the opportunity to create chaos in the Middle East," German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters after the leaders met at an 18th century palace.
She said they believe that "first of all, that the Israeli soldiers must be returned unharmed, that the attacks on Israel must stop and that then, of course, also the Israeli military action must be ended."
Bush for the first time pressed Israel to show moderation. "Our message to Israel is, look, defend yourself, but as you do so, be mindful of the consequences. And so we've urged restraint." Other U.S. officials have made similar statements but it was the most explicit call yet by Bush.
The United States refused to endorse calls for a cease-fire, saying that must be accompanied by constraints on Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria and Iran.
The urgency of the deliberations was demonstrated by Russia's decision to evacuate its citizens from Lebanon. The U.S., Britain and France made plans to do the same.
Chirac, often at odds with Bush, told the president "we share the same views of the issues at stake here" and called for implementation of Security Council resolution 1559, which requires the disarming of Hezbollah and other militias in Lebanon.
Bush also got support from British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who said the only way to halt the hostilities was to acknowledge that extremists are trying to block peace between Israel and the Palestinians. "There are also extremists backed, I'm afraid, by Iran and by Syria, who want to disrupt the positions in Lebanon and who want to create a situation of tension and hostility there."
Russian President Vladimir Putin, host of his country's first G-8 summit, voiced suspicions about Israel's intentions. "It is our impression that aside from seeking to return the abducted soldiers, Israel is pursuing wider goals," Putin said early Sunday, without elaborating. He has said it was unacceptable for Hezbollah to take hostages and shell others' territory, but also for Israel to use massive force in response.
Originally, the summit had been expected to deal with nuclear crises involving North Korea and Iran, but those issues appeared overtaken by events in the Mideast.
The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Saturday to demand that North Korea suspend its ballistic missile program. World powers rebuked Iran on Wednesday when they went to the Security Council to seek possible punishment, saying it had given no sign it means to negotiate seriously over its disputed nuclear program. Iran said Sunday that an incentive package was "an acceptable basis" for talks.
Bush met on the summit sidelines with Chinese President Hu Jintao, who said they agreed to press for the resumption of stalled six-party talks to stop North Korea's nuclear program, and to seek a peaceful solution to the Iran stalemate.
The leaders also issued joint declarations that called for bolstering energy security, fighting infectious diseases and improving education. But they got scant attention in the crisis atmosphere over the Mideast.
Lebanese guerillas fired at least 20 rockets into the northern Israeli city of Haifa, killing eight people at a train station. The strike came after Israel, in its fiercest bombardment yet of the Lebanese capital, reduced Beirut apartment buildings to rubble and knocked out electricity in many areas of the city.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said a cease-fire must address the underlying causes of the crisis -- militant groups and their state sponsors. Otherwise, "we will have achieved very, very little, indeed, and we will be right back here, perhaps in a worse circumstance," she said.
7/16/2006 16:12:52
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theone666
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Israel kills eight Lebanese soldiers
Monday 17 July 2006, 3:58 Makka Time, 0:58 GMT
Eight Lebanese soldiers were among 13 people killed in a spate of Israeli raids on Lebanon overnight, Lebanese police said on Monday
The eight soldiers were killed when a military intelligence centre was hit by Israeli fire in the coastal town of Abde in the north of Lebanon.
At least 53 people were wounded, including 20 soldiers in the attacks.
Israeli jets also launched nine raids in less than a quarter of an hour on the town of Baalbeck, a bastion of Hezbollah, killing three civilians and wounding six others.
Police said the bombing targeted two petrol stations and several Hezbollah buildings including a commercial cooperative and a school.
Two civilians were killed when three Israeli missiles landed on homes in the village of Jalala in the Zahle region in eastern Lebanon, the Lebanese Red Cross said.
Three more civilians were killed south east of Beirut just before midnight when Israeli air raids hit a house in the Chouf mountains region, police said.
Eight Lebanese soldiers were among 13 people killed in a spate of Israeli raids on Lebanon overnight, Lebanese police said on Monday
The eight soldiers were killed when a military intelligence centre was hit by Israeli fire in the coastal town of Abde in the north of Lebanon.
At least 53 people were wounded, including 20 soldiers in the attacks.
Israeli jets also launched nine raids in less than a quarter of an hour on the town of Baalbeck, a bastion of Hezbollah, killing three civilians and wounding six others.
Police said the bombing targeted two petrol stations and several Hezbollah buildings including a commercial cooperative and a school.
Two civilians were killed when three Israeli missiles landed on homes in the village of Jalala in the Zahle region in eastern Lebanon, the Lebanese Red Cross said.
Three more civilians were killed south east of Beirut just before midnight when Israeli air raids hit a house in the Chouf mountains region, police said.
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theone666
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Annan, Blair call for Mideast 'stabilization force'
International presence urged as way to curb fighting
Monday, July 17, 2006; Posted: 3:29 a.m. EDT (07:29 GMT)
BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday called for an international stabilization force to go to the Mideast to help end the cross-border attacks between Hezbollah militants in Lebanon and the Israeli military.
Fighting continued Monday, with Israeli bombings of Beirut's port, an army barracks and the capital's southern suburbs, following Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern cities in Israel Sunday that left at least eight people dead.
The proposed international force would be the first step in what Annan and Blair said should be a series of actions that would stop the hostilities.
"The only way we are going to get a cessation of hostilities is the deployment of an international force to stop the bombardment of Israel and get Israel to stop its attacks on Hezbollah," Blair told reporters at a news conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, at the end of the G-8 summit.
Annan said the U.N. Security Council would have to discuss the matter but said such a force would be only a part of a comprehensive plan of action to stop the fighting across the Israeli-Lebanese border.
Lebanese internal security forces said the six days of cross-border fighting have killed a total of 142 people in Lebanon and wounded 382.
Video of the aftermath of the strike on the port of Beirut showed black smoke billowing into the air amid large shipping containers and the charred remains of a truck.
At least two people died in the attack.
About 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Beirut, in the city of Abdeh, three Israeli missiles struck an army barracks, officials said, killing six soldiers and wounding 28.
Israeli strikes Monday in the Bekaa Valley killed seven people, authorities said. Forty-three others were wounded and one girl is missing.
Deadly rocket attack in Haifa
The bombardments began Wednesday, following the abduction of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah guerrillas in a cross-border raid.
Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim militia that holds seats in Lebanon's government, has responded by firing volleys of short-range missiles into towns in northern Israel.
Eight Israeli civilians died Sunday when one rocket struck a train station in Haifa, Israel's third-largest city. Warning sirens sounded across Haifa soon after daybreak Monday, but the rockets landed just off the shoreline, causing no damage, the Israel Defense Forces said.
Other rockets fell across northern Israel Monday morning, injuring four people, according to the IDF. Some of the strikes hit cities 40 km (25 miles) south of the Lebanese border -- the farthest Hezbollah has reached into northern Israel to date.
At about the same time, explosions rocked the southern suburbs of Beirut, sending plumes of smoke into the morning sky. People fleeing those attacks are moving into schools in the capital's center, where local relief agencies are trying to help them.
Israel said 12 civilians and nine soldiers and sailors had been killed since the conflict erupted Wednesday.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" that the Israeli attack had opened "the gates of hell" with what he called a disproportionate response to Hezbollah's Wednesday raid.
Evacuation efforts
Meanwhile, several countries continued with efforts to evacuate their citizens from Lebanon.
A bus filled with German tourists left a hotel in Beirut Monday, hoping to make it to the Syrian border.
France dispatched a ferry from Cyprus late Sunday to help its citizens and others, mostly Europeans, to leave Lebanon. The vessel can carry 1,300 people and could begin taking on passengers Monday afternoon, the French Embassy in Beirut said. (Full story)
U.S. Marine helicopters flew 21 Americans to Cyprus, including a family of four with a sick child and another person needing medical attention, on Sunday, State Department officials said. The officials estimate that about 15 percent of the roughly 25,000 Americans in Lebanon would evacuate. (Watch a family cope with being stranded in Lebanon -- 2:08)
Lebanon has called for a cease-fire, but Israel says it will only stop its campaign when its kidnapped troops are freed, Hezbollah withdraws from southern Lebanon and rocket attacks on its territory stop.
Israel is also fighting Palestinian militants in Gaza who kidnapped an Israeli soldier from a border post three weeks ago.
Early Monday, one Israeli soldier was killed and six were wounded -- three of them critically -- in the West Bank city of Nablus, the IDF said.
The soldiers were conducting an operation to arrest Palestinian militants in the town when an explosive device went off near them, the IDF said.
Militant leader: 'We will humiliate them'
Meanwhile, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah called on the Lebanese people to support Hezbollah's battle with Israel, which he said was being waged for them. (Watch Beirut airport burn -- 1:25)
"We are leading the battle for the nation," Nasrallah said. "We will humiliate them in the future as we have humiliated them in the past." (What is Hezbollah?)
He accused Israel of attacking civilian targets, while insisting that Hezbollah has aimed its rocket attacks only at the Israeli military. The Lebanese towns bombed and shelled by Israel were "civilian homes, with no rockets or bases," he said.
CNN's Nic Robertson, John Vause, Paula Hancocks, Barbara Starr and Elise Labott contributed to this report.
Monday, July 17, 2006; Posted: 3:29 a.m. EDT (07:29 GMT)
BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday called for an international stabilization force to go to the Mideast to help end the cross-border attacks between Hezbollah militants in Lebanon and the Israeli military.
Fighting continued Monday, with Israeli bombings of Beirut's port, an army barracks and the capital's southern suburbs, following Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern cities in Israel Sunday that left at least eight people dead.
The proposed international force would be the first step in what Annan and Blair said should be a series of actions that would stop the hostilities.
"The only way we are going to get a cessation of hostilities is the deployment of an international force to stop the bombardment of Israel and get Israel to stop its attacks on Hezbollah," Blair told reporters at a news conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, at the end of the G-8 summit.
Annan said the U.N. Security Council would have to discuss the matter but said such a force would be only a part of a comprehensive plan of action to stop the fighting across the Israeli-Lebanese border.
Lebanese internal security forces said the six days of cross-border fighting have killed a total of 142 people in Lebanon and wounded 382.
Video of the aftermath of the strike on the port of Beirut showed black smoke billowing into the air amid large shipping containers and the charred remains of a truck.
At least two people died in the attack.
About 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Beirut, in the city of Abdeh, three Israeli missiles struck an army barracks, officials said, killing six soldiers and wounding 28.
Israeli strikes Monday in the Bekaa Valley killed seven people, authorities said. Forty-three others were wounded and one girl is missing.
Deadly rocket attack in Haifa
The bombardments began Wednesday, following the abduction of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah guerrillas in a cross-border raid.
Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim militia that holds seats in Lebanon's government, has responded by firing volleys of short-range missiles into towns in northern Israel.
Eight Israeli civilians died Sunday when one rocket struck a train station in Haifa, Israel's third-largest city. Warning sirens sounded across Haifa soon after daybreak Monday, but the rockets landed just off the shoreline, causing no damage, the Israel Defense Forces said.
Other rockets fell across northern Israel Monday morning, injuring four people, according to the IDF. Some of the strikes hit cities 40 km (25 miles) south of the Lebanese border -- the farthest Hezbollah has reached into northern Israel to date.
At about the same time, explosions rocked the southern suburbs of Beirut, sending plumes of smoke into the morning sky. People fleeing those attacks are moving into schools in the capital's center, where local relief agencies are trying to help them.
Israel said 12 civilians and nine soldiers and sailors had been killed since the conflict erupted Wednesday.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" that the Israeli attack had opened "the gates of hell" with what he called a disproportionate response to Hezbollah's Wednesday raid.
Evacuation efforts
Meanwhile, several countries continued with efforts to evacuate their citizens from Lebanon.
A bus filled with German tourists left a hotel in Beirut Monday, hoping to make it to the Syrian border.
France dispatched a ferry from Cyprus late Sunday to help its citizens and others, mostly Europeans, to leave Lebanon. The vessel can carry 1,300 people and could begin taking on passengers Monday afternoon, the French Embassy in Beirut said. (Full story)
U.S. Marine helicopters flew 21 Americans to Cyprus, including a family of four with a sick child and another person needing medical attention, on Sunday, State Department officials said. The officials estimate that about 15 percent of the roughly 25,000 Americans in Lebanon would evacuate. (Watch a family cope with being stranded in Lebanon -- 2:08)
Lebanon has called for a cease-fire, but Israel says it will only stop its campaign when its kidnapped troops are freed, Hezbollah withdraws from southern Lebanon and rocket attacks on its territory stop.
Israel is also fighting Palestinian militants in Gaza who kidnapped an Israeli soldier from a border post three weeks ago.
Early Monday, one Israeli soldier was killed and six were wounded -- three of them critically -- in the West Bank city of Nablus, the IDF said.
The soldiers were conducting an operation to arrest Palestinian militants in the town when an explosive device went off near them, the IDF said.
Militant leader: 'We will humiliate them'
Meanwhile, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah called on the Lebanese people to support Hezbollah's battle with Israel, which he said was being waged for them. (Watch Beirut airport burn -- 1:25)
"We are leading the battle for the nation," Nasrallah said. "We will humiliate them in the future as we have humiliated them in the past." (What is Hezbollah?)
He accused Israel of attacking civilian targets, while insisting that Hezbollah has aimed its rocket attacks only at the Israeli military. The Lebanese towns bombed and shelled by Israel were "civilian homes, with no rockets or bases," he said.
CNN's Nic Robertson, John Vause, Paula Hancocks, Barbara Starr and Elise Labott contributed to this report.
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theone666
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Israeli Forces Unleash Massive Attack
By HAMZA HENDAWI and LEE KEATH, AP
BEIRUT, Lebanon (July 17) - Fighter bombers pummeled Lebanese infrastructure Monday, setting Beirut's port ablaze and hitting a Hezbollah stronghold in attacks that killed at least 17 people. Hezbollah retaliated by firing rockets that flew further into Israel than ever before.
The Katyusha rockets landed in the town of Atlit, about 35 miles south of the border and some five miles south of the port city of Haifa. Nobody was hurt in the Monday attack, but Hezbollah rockets killed eight people in Haifa on Sunday.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan called for the deployment of international forces to stop the bombardment of Israel and to persuade the Jewish state to stop attacks on Hezbollah.
Speaking on the margin of the Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, Blair said the fighting would not stop until the conditions for a ceasefire were created.
"The only way is if we have a deployment of international forces that can stop bombardment coming into Israel," he said.
Annan appealed to Israel to spare civilian lives and infrastructure. The G-8 nations, who had struggled to reach a consensus on the escalating warfare between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, have expressed concern on the "rising civilian casualties" and urged both sides to stop the violence.
Separately, the European Union said it was considering the deployment of a peacekeeping force in Lebanon.
Israeli planes and artillery guns killed 17 people and wounded at least 53 others in the overnight attacks, Lebanese security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Israel said its planes and artillery struck 60 targets overnight. Its military sought to punish Lebanon for the barrage of 20 rockets on Haifa, the country's third-largest city and one that had not been hit before the current round of fighting began last Wednesday.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed "far-reaching consequences" for the Haifa attack. The eight deaths made it Hezbollah's deadliest strike ever on Israel.
Israeli officials accused Syria and Iran of providing Lebanese guerrillas with sophisticated weapons, saying the missiles that hit Haifa had greater range and heavier warheads than those Hezbollah had fired before.
In their raids on Beirut Monday, Israeli planes killed two people in the harbor and started a large fire that was later extinguished. A French ship was due to arrive in the port later Monday to evacuate Europeans.
The Israeli jets also set fire to a gas storage tank in the northern neighborhood of Dawra and another fuel storage tank at Beirut airport, sending plumes of smoke billowing into the sky. The airport has been closed since Thursday, when Israeli jets blasted its runways.
Israeli missiles also blasted southern Beirut, causing three explosions that shook the city. The targets were not immediately clear, but Hezbollah has a host of offices, clinics, schools, social clubs and the homes of its leaders in the southern suburbs.
Elsewhere in Lebanon, Israeli planes again hit the Beirut to Damascus highway, which has been targeted as part of a strategy of severing Lebanon's links to the outside world. Monday's attacks struck the highway in the eastern Bekaa Valley and killed two people.
In another attack, eight Lebanese soldiers were killed when Israeli aircraft attacked a small fishing port at Abdeh in northern Lebanon near a highway leading to Syria. Witnesses and security officials said 12 Lebanese soldiers were wounded in the attack.
An Israeli army spokesman said his force was investigating the attack. "In principle, the Israeli military does not target Lebanese soldiers," he said.
Hezbollah is not known to operate in northern Lebanon, but the Israeli army said it had targeted radar stations there because they had been used by Hezbollah to hit a warship on Friday. It all but accused the Lebanese military of lending its support to Hezbollah.
"The attacks ... are against radar stations used, among other things, in the attack on the Israeli missile boat, by Hezbollah in cooperation with the Lebanese military," the Israeli army spokesman told The Associated Press.
Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said Sunday that despite Israel's attacks, the guerrillas were "in their full strength and power" and that their "missile stockpiles are still full."
"When the Zionists behave like there are no rules and no red lines and no limits to the confrontation, it is our right to behave in the same way," Nasrallah said in a televised address, looking tired. He said Hezbollah had hit Haifa because of Israel's strikes on Lebanese civilians.
The Israeli military warned residents of south Lebanon to flee, promising heavy retaliation after the Haifa assault.
In one airstrike on southern Lebanon early Monday, an Israeli missile missed its apparent target - a Hezbollah site - and hit a private house, killing two people, according to security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Hamza Hendawi reported from Beirut. Lee Keath reported from Damascus, Syria.
7/17/2006 05:16:42
BEIRUT, Lebanon (July 17) - Fighter bombers pummeled Lebanese infrastructure Monday, setting Beirut's port ablaze and hitting a Hezbollah stronghold in attacks that killed at least 17 people. Hezbollah retaliated by firing rockets that flew further into Israel than ever before.
The Katyusha rockets landed in the town of Atlit, about 35 miles south of the border and some five miles south of the port city of Haifa. Nobody was hurt in the Monday attack, but Hezbollah rockets killed eight people in Haifa on Sunday.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan called for the deployment of international forces to stop the bombardment of Israel and to persuade the Jewish state to stop attacks on Hezbollah.
Speaking on the margin of the Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, Blair said the fighting would not stop until the conditions for a ceasefire were created.
"The only way is if we have a deployment of international forces that can stop bombardment coming into Israel," he said.
Annan appealed to Israel to spare civilian lives and infrastructure. The G-8 nations, who had struggled to reach a consensus on the escalating warfare between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, have expressed concern on the "rising civilian casualties" and urged both sides to stop the violence.
Separately, the European Union said it was considering the deployment of a peacekeeping force in Lebanon.
Israeli planes and artillery guns killed 17 people and wounded at least 53 others in the overnight attacks, Lebanese security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Israel said its planes and artillery struck 60 targets overnight. Its military sought to punish Lebanon for the barrage of 20 rockets on Haifa, the country's third-largest city and one that had not been hit before the current round of fighting began last Wednesday.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed "far-reaching consequences" for the Haifa attack. The eight deaths made it Hezbollah's deadliest strike ever on Israel.
Israeli officials accused Syria and Iran of providing Lebanese guerrillas with sophisticated weapons, saying the missiles that hit Haifa had greater range and heavier warheads than those Hezbollah had fired before.
In their raids on Beirut Monday, Israeli planes killed two people in the harbor and started a large fire that was later extinguished. A French ship was due to arrive in the port later Monday to evacuate Europeans.
The Israeli jets also set fire to a gas storage tank in the northern neighborhood of Dawra and another fuel storage tank at Beirut airport, sending plumes of smoke billowing into the sky. The airport has been closed since Thursday, when Israeli jets blasted its runways.
Israeli missiles also blasted southern Beirut, causing three explosions that shook the city. The targets were not immediately clear, but Hezbollah has a host of offices, clinics, schools, social clubs and the homes of its leaders in the southern suburbs.
Elsewhere in Lebanon, Israeli planes again hit the Beirut to Damascus highway, which has been targeted as part of a strategy of severing Lebanon's links to the outside world. Monday's attacks struck the highway in the eastern Bekaa Valley and killed two people.
In another attack, eight Lebanese soldiers were killed when Israeli aircraft attacked a small fishing port at Abdeh in northern Lebanon near a highway leading to Syria. Witnesses and security officials said 12 Lebanese soldiers were wounded in the attack.
An Israeli army spokesman said his force was investigating the attack. "In principle, the Israeli military does not target Lebanese soldiers," he said.
Hezbollah is not known to operate in northern Lebanon, but the Israeli army said it had targeted radar stations there because they had been used by Hezbollah to hit a warship on Friday. It all but accused the Lebanese military of lending its support to Hezbollah.
"The attacks ... are against radar stations used, among other things, in the attack on the Israeli missile boat, by Hezbollah in cooperation with the Lebanese military," the Israeli army spokesman told The Associated Press.
Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said Sunday that despite Israel's attacks, the guerrillas were "in their full strength and power" and that their "missile stockpiles are still full."
"When the Zionists behave like there are no rules and no red lines and no limits to the confrontation, it is our right to behave in the same way," Nasrallah said in a televised address, looking tired. He said Hezbollah had hit Haifa because of Israel's strikes on Lebanese civilians.
The Israeli military warned residents of south Lebanon to flee, promising heavy retaliation after the Haifa assault.
In one airstrike on southern Lebanon early Monday, an Israeli missile missed its apparent target - a Hezbollah site - and hit a private house, killing two people, according to security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Hamza Hendawi reported from Beirut. Lee Keath reported from Damascus, Syria.
7/17/2006 05:16:42
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theone666
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Israel Briefly Sends Troops Into Lebanon
By MATT MOORE, AP
JERUSALEM (July 17) - Israeli ground troops entered southern Lebanon to attack Hezbollah bases on the border, but they rapidly returned to Israel after conducting their military operations, officials said Monday.
Israel's six-day-old offensive against Hezbollah following the capture of two Israeli soldiers has been primarily an aerial campaign, but government spokesman, Asaf Shariv, said the Israeli army chief of staff confirmed that ground troops had gone into Lebanon, if only briefly.
Meanwhile, Israeli fighter bombers pummeled Lebanese infrastructure, setting Beirut's port ablaze and hitting a Hezbollah stronghold in attacks that killed at least 17 people.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for the deployment of international forces to stop the bombardment of Israel and to persuade the Jewish state to stop attacks on Hezbollah, while the European Union said it was considering the deployment of a peacekeeping force.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki also arrived in Syria for talks with the government on the crisis. Syria and Iran have applauded Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers, which triggered the offensive.
Also, three rounds of rockets fired by Hezbollah guerrillas struck Haifa, with one destroying a three-story building and wounding at least three people, Israeli medics said.
The medics said other victims may be trapped in the rubble of the building in Israel's third-largest city. The attacks came one day after Hezbollah attack on the port city killed eight people.
A military official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, said that a small group of Israeli troops had crossed into Lebanon overnight to attack a Hezbollah position, but then returned to Israel.
"There was a small operation in a very limited area overnight," the official said. "That is over."
Israel has been reluctant to send ground troops into southern Lebanon, an area that officials say has been heavily mined by Hezbollah and could lead to many Israeli casualties.
Israel would also want to quickly withdraw from the area, rather than get involved in a prolonged conflict like its 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon that ended in May 2000. The bloody nature of the fighting at the that time and the high number of casualties finally forced the government to cave into public pressure to withdraw from southern Lebanon and end the contentious occupation.
A Lebanese TV station showed video Monday of an object falling from the sky, but Israel said that reports that it was an Israeli aircraft were false.
The video, aired by Lebanese Broadcasting Corp., showed a burning object spiraling down to the ground in the Jamhour district near the Hezbollah stronghold of southern Beirut, which have been under Israeli air attack for several days.
It described the object as an F-16 fighter jet, while Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV said the aircraft was a helicopter gunship.
But the Israeli army says reports of Israeli aircraft being shot down over Beirut are false, and Israel's Channel 10 TV reported that the object apparently was a container of leaflets that fell from an Israeli military plane.
7/17/2006 08:57:28
JERUSALEM (July 17) - Israeli ground troops entered southern Lebanon to attack Hezbollah bases on the border, but they rapidly returned to Israel after conducting their military operations, officials said Monday.
Israel's six-day-old offensive against Hezbollah following the capture of two Israeli soldiers has been primarily an aerial campaign, but government spokesman, Asaf Shariv, said the Israeli army chief of staff confirmed that ground troops had gone into Lebanon, if only briefly.
Meanwhile, Israeli fighter bombers pummeled Lebanese infrastructure, setting Beirut's port ablaze and hitting a Hezbollah stronghold in attacks that killed at least 17 people.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for the deployment of international forces to stop the bombardment of Israel and to persuade the Jewish state to stop attacks on Hezbollah, while the European Union said it was considering the deployment of a peacekeeping force.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki also arrived in Syria for talks with the government on the crisis. Syria and Iran have applauded Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers, which triggered the offensive.
Also, three rounds of rockets fired by Hezbollah guerrillas struck Haifa, with one destroying a three-story building and wounding at least three people, Israeli medics said.
The medics said other victims may be trapped in the rubble of the building in Israel's third-largest city. The attacks came one day after Hezbollah attack on the port city killed eight people.
A military official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, said that a small group of Israeli troops had crossed into Lebanon overnight to attack a Hezbollah position, but then returned to Israel.
"There was a small operation in a very limited area overnight," the official said. "That is over."
Israel has been reluctant to send ground troops into southern Lebanon, an area that officials say has been heavily mined by Hezbollah and could lead to many Israeli casualties.
Israel would also want to quickly withdraw from the area, rather than get involved in a prolonged conflict like its 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon that ended in May 2000. The bloody nature of the fighting at the that time and the high number of casualties finally forced the government to cave into public pressure to withdraw from southern Lebanon and end the contentious occupation.
A Lebanese TV station showed video Monday of an object falling from the sky, but Israel said that reports that it was an Israeli aircraft were false.
The video, aired by Lebanese Broadcasting Corp., showed a burning object spiraling down to the ground in the Jamhour district near the Hezbollah stronghold of southern Beirut, which have been under Israeli air attack for several days.
It described the object as an F-16 fighter jet, while Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV said the aircraft was a helicopter gunship.
But the Israeli army says reports of Israeli aircraft being shot down over Beirut are false, and Israel's Channel 10 TV reported that the object apparently was a container of leaflets that fell from an Israeli military plane.
7/17/2006 08:57:28
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theone666
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Rockets again hit Israeli city of Haifa
Blair, Annan urge international force to help curb fighting
Monday, July 17, 2006; Posted: 9:11 a.m. EDT (13:11 GMT)
BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- Several suspected Hezbollah rockets hit the northern Israeli city of Haifa on Monday.
A large cloud of smoke could be seen coming from near the port area of Haifa, Israel's third-largest city. Another landed in the sea.
A rocket also struck a residential building. Two wounded people were removed from the building.
The barrage also hit the towns of Sefad and Tiberias, but no casualties were reported, Israeli medical sources said.
Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said Monday that Israel intends to create a buffer zone in southern Lebanon to stop the rocket attacks from Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim militia that holds seats in the Lebanese government.
"We intend to complete this operation. We have no intention of allowing anyone to stop us before we complete the creation of a buffer zone," Peretz said.
Earlier reports suggested Israeli ground forces had entered southern Lebanon, but an Israeli military source said that there is no Israeli ground operation going on at present. The source said a small Israeli military unit "destroyed one or two Hezbollah outposts just over the line in Lebanon last night."
"At the moment, there are no military ground troops in Lebanon, and we are working primarily with an air campaign," the source said.
Meanwhile, an Israel Defense Forces spokesman denied an Israeli plane had gone down over east Beirut. Video footage showing an aircraft falling from the sky may have been a missile crashing instead, the spokesman said.
Arabic-language television networks earlier reported an Israeli plane went down.
Reaction at G-8 summit
In the face of the escalating violence, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday called for an international stabilization force to go to the Mideast to help end the cross-border attacks between Hezbollah and the Israeli military.
The proposed international force would be the first step in what Annan and Blair said should be a series of actions that would stop the hostilities.
"The only way we are going to get a cessation of hostilities is the deployment of an international force to stop the bombardment of Israel and get Israel to stop its attacks on Hezbollah," Blair told reporters at a news conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, at the end of the Group of Eight summit.
Annan said the U.N. Security Council would have to discuss the matter but said such a force would be only a part of a comprehensive plan of action to stop the fighting across the Israeli-Lebanese border.
Beirut port bombed
Earlier Monday, Israel bombed Beirut's port, an army barracks and the capital's southern suburbs.
Video footage of the strike's aftermath showed black smoke billowing into the air over the port against a backdrop of large shipping containers and the charred remains of a truck.
At least two people died in the attack.
In the city of Abdeh, about 50 miles (about 80 kilometers) north of Beirut, three Israeli missiles struck an army barracks, officials said, killing six soldiers and wounding 28.
Israeli strikes Monday in the Bekaa Valley near the Syrian border killed seven people, authorities said. Forty-three others were wounded, and a girl is missing.
The attacks followed Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern cities in Israel on Sunday. One of those rockets struck a train depot in Haifa, killing eight Israelis.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora told CNN's "Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer" on Sunday that the Israeli attack had opened "the gates of hell" with what he called a disproportionate response to Hezbollah's initial raid last week.
The bombardments began Wednesday following the abduction of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah guerrillas in a cross-border raid.
Hezbollah has responded by firing volleys of short-range missiles into towns in northern Israel.
Lebanon has called for a cease-fire, but Israel says it will only stop its campaign when kidnapped troops are freed, Hezbollah withdraws from southern Lebanon and rocket attacks stop.
Evacuation efforts under way
Meanwhile, several countries continued efforts to evacuate their citizens from Lebanon.
A bus filled with German tourists left a hotel in the capital Monday, hoping to make it to the Syrian border
A U.S. military helicopter was scheduled Monday to remove another few dozen Americans from Beirut, a State Department official said. The evacuees are priority cases, the official said, including people who are ill, the elderly and unaccompanied children.
U.S. Marine helicopters flew 21 Americans to Cyprus on Sunday, including a family of four with a sick child and another person needing medical attention, State Department officials said. The officials estimate that about 15 percent of the roughly 25,000 Americans in Lebanon would evacuate. (Watch a family cope with being stranded in Lebanon -- 2:08)
Blair said two ships were on the way to Lebanon to evacuate British citizens. A British helicopter with 40 people on board left Lebanon on Monday en route to Cyprus, according to George Stylianou, a spokesman for the British Embassy in Beirut said.
France dispatched a ferry from Cyprus late Sunday to help its citizens and others, mostly Europeans. The vessel can carry 1,300 people and could begin taking passengers Monday afternoon, the French Embassy. (Full story)
An Italian vessel also is expected to dock in the Cypriot port of Larnaca later Monday, carrying evacuees from Beirut, port officials said.
CNN's Christiane Amanpour, Anderson Cooper, Paula Hancocks, Elise Labott, Nic Robertson, Barbara Starr and John Vause contributed to this report.
Monday, July 17, 2006; Posted: 9:11 a.m. EDT (13:11 GMT)
BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- Several suspected Hezbollah rockets hit the northern Israeli city of Haifa on Monday.
A large cloud of smoke could be seen coming from near the port area of Haifa, Israel's third-largest city. Another landed in the sea.
A rocket also struck a residential building. Two wounded people were removed from the building.
The barrage also hit the towns of Sefad and Tiberias, but no casualties were reported, Israeli medical sources said.
Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said Monday that Israel intends to create a buffer zone in southern Lebanon to stop the rocket attacks from Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim militia that holds seats in the Lebanese government.
"We intend to complete this operation. We have no intention of allowing anyone to stop us before we complete the creation of a buffer zone," Peretz said.
Earlier reports suggested Israeli ground forces had entered southern Lebanon, but an Israeli military source said that there is no Israeli ground operation going on at present. The source said a small Israeli military unit "destroyed one or two Hezbollah outposts just over the line in Lebanon last night."
"At the moment, there are no military ground troops in Lebanon, and we are working primarily with an air campaign," the source said.
Meanwhile, an Israel Defense Forces spokesman denied an Israeli plane had gone down over east Beirut. Video footage showing an aircraft falling from the sky may have been a missile crashing instead, the spokesman said.
Arabic-language television networks earlier reported an Israeli plane went down.
Reaction at G-8 summit
In the face of the escalating violence, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday called for an international stabilization force to go to the Mideast to help end the cross-border attacks between Hezbollah and the Israeli military.
The proposed international force would be the first step in what Annan and Blair said should be a series of actions that would stop the hostilities.
"The only way we are going to get a cessation of hostilities is the deployment of an international force to stop the bombardment of Israel and get Israel to stop its attacks on Hezbollah," Blair told reporters at a news conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, at the end of the Group of Eight summit.
Annan said the U.N. Security Council would have to discuss the matter but said such a force would be only a part of a comprehensive plan of action to stop the fighting across the Israeli-Lebanese border.
Beirut port bombed
Earlier Monday, Israel bombed Beirut's port, an army barracks and the capital's southern suburbs.
Video footage of the strike's aftermath showed black smoke billowing into the air over the port against a backdrop of large shipping containers and the charred remains of a truck.
At least two people died in the attack.
In the city of Abdeh, about 50 miles (about 80 kilometers) north of Beirut, three Israeli missiles struck an army barracks, officials said, killing six soldiers and wounding 28.
Israeli strikes Monday in the Bekaa Valley near the Syrian border killed seven people, authorities said. Forty-three others were wounded, and a girl is missing.
The attacks followed Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern cities in Israel on Sunday. One of those rockets struck a train depot in Haifa, killing eight Israelis.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora told CNN's "Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer" on Sunday that the Israeli attack had opened "the gates of hell" with what he called a disproportionate response to Hezbollah's initial raid last week.
The bombardments began Wednesday following the abduction of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah guerrillas in a cross-border raid.
Hezbollah has responded by firing volleys of short-range missiles into towns in northern Israel.
Lebanon has called for a cease-fire, but Israel says it will only stop its campaign when kidnapped troops are freed, Hezbollah withdraws from southern Lebanon and rocket attacks stop.
Evacuation efforts under way
Meanwhile, several countries continued efforts to evacuate their citizens from Lebanon.
A bus filled with German tourists left a hotel in the capital Monday, hoping to make it to the Syrian border
A U.S. military helicopter was scheduled Monday to remove another few dozen Americans from Beirut, a State Department official said. The evacuees are priority cases, the official said, including people who are ill, the elderly and unaccompanied children.
U.S. Marine helicopters flew 21 Americans to Cyprus on Sunday, including a family of four with a sick child and another person needing medical attention, State Department officials said. The officials estimate that about 15 percent of the roughly 25,000 Americans in Lebanon would evacuate. (Watch a family cope with being stranded in Lebanon -- 2:08)
Blair said two ships were on the way to Lebanon to evacuate British citizens. A British helicopter with 40 people on board left Lebanon on Monday en route to Cyprus, according to George Stylianou, a spokesman for the British Embassy in Beirut said.
France dispatched a ferry from Cyprus late Sunday to help its citizens and others, mostly Europeans. The vessel can carry 1,300 people and could begin taking passengers Monday afternoon, the French Embassy. (Full story)
An Italian vessel also is expected to dock in the Cypriot port of Larnaca later Monday, carrying evacuees from Beirut, port officials said.
CNN's Christiane Amanpour, Anderson Cooper, Paula Hancocks, Elise Labott, Nic Robertson, Barbara Starr and John Vause contributed to this report.
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theone666
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Israel plans Lebanon buffer zone to stop attacks
Rockets again hit Israeli city of Haifa
Monday, July 17, 2006; Posted: 11:11 a.m. EDT (15:11 GMT)
BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- Amid renewed cross-border fighting between Israeli and Hezbollah forces, Israel said Monday that it plans to create a buffer zone in southern Lebanon to stop rocket attacks from the militant group.
"We intend to complete this operation. We have no intention of allowing anyone to stop us before we complete the creation of a buffer zone," Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said.
Several suspected Hezbollah rockets hit the northern Israeli city of Haifa on Monday -- the sixth day of fighting that began after Hezbollah guerrillas abducted two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid.
A large cloud of smoke could be seen coming from near the port area of Haifa, Israel's third-largest city. Another rocket landed in the sea.
A rocket also struck a residential building. Two wounded people were removed from the building.
The barrage also hit the towns of Sefad and Tiberias, but no casualties were reported, Israeli medical sources said.
Earlier reports suggested Israeli ground forces had entered southern Lebanon, but an Israeli military source said that there is no Israeli ground operation going on at present. The source said a small Israeli military unit "destroyed one or two Hezbollah outposts just over the line in Lebanon last night."
"At the moment, there are no military ground troops in Lebanon, and we are working primarily with an air campaign," the source said.
Meanwhile, an Israel Defense Forces spokesman denied an Israeli plane had gone down over east Beirut. Video footage showing an aircraft falling from the sky may have been a missile crashing instead, the spokesman said.
Arabic-language television networks earlier reported an Israeli plane went down.
Reaction at G-8 summit
In the face of the escalating violence, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday called for an international stabilization force to go to the Mideast to help end the cross-border attacks between Hezbollah and the Israeli military.
The proposed international force would be the first step in what Annan and Blair said should be a series of actions that would stop the hostilities.
"The only way we are going to get a cessation of hostilities is the deployment of an international force to stop the bombardment of Israel and get Israel to stop its attacks on Hezbollah," Blair told reporters at a news conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, at the end of the Group of Eight summit.
Annan said the U.N. Security Council would have to discuss the matter but said such a force would be only a part of a comprehensive plan of action to stop the fighting across the Israeli-Lebanese border.
Beirut port bombed
Earlier Monday, Israel bombed Beirut's port, an army barracks and the capital's southern suburbs.
Video footage of the strike's aftermath showed black smoke billowing into the air over the port against a backdrop of large shipping containers and the charred remains of a truck. (Watch Beirut airport burn -- :46)
At least two people died in the attack.
In the city of Abdeh, about 50 miles (about 80 kilometers) north of Beirut, three Israeli missiles struck an army barracks, officials said, killing six soldiers and wounding 28.
Israeli strikes Monday in the Bekaa Valley near the Syrian border killed seven people, authorities said. Forty-three others were wounded, and a girl is missing. (Watch Lebanese town bombarded -- 3:25)
The attacks followed Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern cities in Israel on Sunday. One of those rockets struck a train depot in Haifa, killing eight Israelis.(Watch panic in Haifa Sunday as rockets hit -- 2:13)
Meanwhile, several countries continued efforts to evacuate their citizens from Lebanon. (Full story)
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora told CNN's "Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer" on Sunday that the Israeli attack had opened "the gates of hell" with what he called a disproportionate response to Hezbollah's initial raid last week.
Lebanon has called for a cease-fire, but Israel says it will only stop its campaign when kidnapped troops are freed, Hezbollah withdraws from southern Lebanon and rocket attacks stop.
CNN's Christiane Amanpour, Anderson Cooper, Paula Hancocks, Elise Labott, Nic Robertson, Barbara Starr and John Vause contributed to this report.
Monday, July 17, 2006; Posted: 11:11 a.m. EDT (15:11 GMT)
BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- Amid renewed cross-border fighting between Israeli and Hezbollah forces, Israel said Monday that it plans to create a buffer zone in southern Lebanon to stop rocket attacks from the militant group.
"We intend to complete this operation. We have no intention of allowing anyone to stop us before we complete the creation of a buffer zone," Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said.
Several suspected Hezbollah rockets hit the northern Israeli city of Haifa on Monday -- the sixth day of fighting that began after Hezbollah guerrillas abducted two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid.
A large cloud of smoke could be seen coming from near the port area of Haifa, Israel's third-largest city. Another rocket landed in the sea.
A rocket also struck a residential building. Two wounded people were removed from the building.
The barrage also hit the towns of Sefad and Tiberias, but no casualties were reported, Israeli medical sources said.
Earlier reports suggested Israeli ground forces had entered southern Lebanon, but an Israeli military source said that there is no Israeli ground operation going on at present. The source said a small Israeli military unit "destroyed one or two Hezbollah outposts just over the line in Lebanon last night."
"At the moment, there are no military ground troops in Lebanon, and we are working primarily with an air campaign," the source said.
Meanwhile, an Israel Defense Forces spokesman denied an Israeli plane had gone down over east Beirut. Video footage showing an aircraft falling from the sky may have been a missile crashing instead, the spokesman said.
Arabic-language television networks earlier reported an Israeli plane went down.
Reaction at G-8 summit
In the face of the escalating violence, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday called for an international stabilization force to go to the Mideast to help end the cross-border attacks between Hezbollah and the Israeli military.
The proposed international force would be the first step in what Annan and Blair said should be a series of actions that would stop the hostilities.
"The only way we are going to get a cessation of hostilities is the deployment of an international force to stop the bombardment of Israel and get Israel to stop its attacks on Hezbollah," Blair told reporters at a news conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, at the end of the Group of Eight summit.
Annan said the U.N. Security Council would have to discuss the matter but said such a force would be only a part of a comprehensive plan of action to stop the fighting across the Israeli-Lebanese border.
Beirut port bombed
Earlier Monday, Israel bombed Beirut's port, an army barracks and the capital's southern suburbs.
Video footage of the strike's aftermath showed black smoke billowing into the air over the port against a backdrop of large shipping containers and the charred remains of a truck. (Watch Beirut airport burn -- :46)
At least two people died in the attack.
In the city of Abdeh, about 50 miles (about 80 kilometers) north of Beirut, three Israeli missiles struck an army barracks, officials said, killing six soldiers and wounding 28.
Israeli strikes Monday in the Bekaa Valley near the Syrian border killed seven people, authorities said. Forty-three others were wounded, and a girl is missing. (Watch Lebanese town bombarded -- 3:25)
The attacks followed Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern cities in Israel on Sunday. One of those rockets struck a train depot in Haifa, killing eight Israelis.(Watch panic in Haifa Sunday as rockets hit -- 2:13)
Meanwhile, several countries continued efforts to evacuate their citizens from Lebanon. (Full story)
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora told CNN's "Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer" on Sunday that the Israeli attack had opened "the gates of hell" with what he called a disproportionate response to Hezbollah's initial raid last week.
Lebanon has called for a cease-fire, but Israel says it will only stop its campaign when kidnapped troops are freed, Hezbollah withdraws from southern Lebanon and rocket attacks stop.
CNN's Christiane Amanpour, Anderson Cooper, Paula Hancocks, Elise Labott, Nic Robertson, Barbara Starr and John Vause contributed to this report.
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theone666
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Americans Begin Leaving Beirut
By HAMZA HENDAWI and GEORGE PSYLLIDES, AP
BEIRUT, Lebanon (July 17) - A handful of military helicopters flew Americans out of Beirut on Monday and U.S. officials said a rented cruise ship would help the evacuation of possibly thousands more citizens.
About 15,000 of the estimated 25,000 U.S. citizens in Lebanon have registered with the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, but not all appeared to be trying to get out.
Only 64 Americans were known to have departed by late Monday.
The proportion of those who want to flee could range from 10 percent to all of them, U.S. officials said, basing the estimate on similar crises.
"Our planning assumptions are on the order of thousands," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. "You don't actually know how many people are going to want to leave until you actually start the larger-scale operations."
Two Arab-American organizations criticized the slow start. Many of the U.S. citizens in Lebanon are Arab-Americans visiting family over the summer.
Three CH-53 Super Stallion helicopters - each able to carry 36 people - were available to fly evacuees from Beirut to a British air base on the nearby Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said, and some flights were taking place Monday.
He declined to provide details about the flights, citing security reasons.
He said more choppers will be available Tuesday.
Two CH-53s from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which has been conducting an exercise with Jordanian forces, evacuated 21 Americans from the U.S. Embassy compound Sunday.
Whitman said that the cruise ship Orient Queen, which can carry up to 750 people, had been contracted to help the evacuation starting Tuesday.
The Navy destroyer USS Gonzalez, and possibly the USS Iwo Jima amphibious assault ship, will accompany it to Cyprus.
The government of Cyprus prepared to help with the evacuation of the thousands expected to be brought by the United States and European countries.
Israel appeared to be allowing evacuation ships through the blockade of Lebanon it imposed after Hezbollah militants based there captured two Israeli soldiers last week.
The U.S. Embassy has advised those who wish to leave that they should prepare one bag for each person, weighing no more than 30 pounds, and be ready for announcements on how to depart.
An Embassy statement Monday did not say how it planned to evacuate Americans. Further instructions, it said, would be in local media and on the embassy's Web site.
Some Americans have driven themselves to Syria and then flown to Jordan, although the U.S. government has advised Americans not to leave that way.
Hundreds of French citizens and other Europeans boarded a Greek cruise liner chartered by the French government. French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, there after a meeting with his Lebanese counterpart, watched busloads of evacuees board the Ierapetra.
France has more than 20,000 citizens in Lebanon.
"Who knows when this will end?" said Habib al-Saad, who was sending his three sons. "If any of our Arab leaders had a brain, this would have been resolved a long time ago. But they don't," al-Saad said as his sons _ Marwan, 20, Thomas, 17, and Pierre, 10 _ looking bewildered and anxious _ listened to their father in silence.
"I am not worried about them," al-Saad said. "They will look after themselves."
An Italian ship evacuated some 350 people, including 187 Italians.
Greece was sending a navy frigate to a Lebanese port to pick up 100 people and has three additional warships on standby.
Hundreds of thousands in Lebanon left areas considered dangerous for the relative safety of the hills east of Beirut, the eastern Bekaa valley and northern Lebanon.
Wisam Musalam, a statistics student in Lyons, France, was standing in line outside the French Culture Center, waiting to register his name for evacuation. He is not a French national, but has a residence permit in France.
"Slowly, slowly we will become like the Palestinians," he said. "A nation of refugees."
The Arab-American organizations criticized U.S. evacuation planning, and the administration's reluctance to promote a cease-fire.
"The absence of American leadership to secure a cease-fire and protect its own citizens is appalling," said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute.
Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said "the highest duty of any president is to protect the lives of Americans."
About 850 of about 5,000 Swedes in Lebanon have been evacuated. Sweden chartered three ships to help and was awaiting security guarantees.
A British aircraft carrier and another warship - both in the Mediterranean - set off Sunday on a three-day trip to the Middle East in preparation for the possible evacuation of Britons. A British Foreign Office spokesman said the first wave of Britons - children, elderly and ill people - left Sunday aboard a helicopter that also transported European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
Denmark began evacuating some 2,300 people by bus to Damascus, Syria. So far, some 700 have returned home, the Danish government said.
Russia's Foreign Ministry said there were more than 1,400 Russian citizens in Lebanon and more than 1,000 were ready to leave.
AP Military Writer Robert Burns and Diplomatic Writer Barry Schweid contributed to this report from Washington.
07-17-06 16:03 EDT
BEIRUT, Lebanon (July 17) - A handful of military helicopters flew Americans out of Beirut on Monday and U.S. officials said a rented cruise ship would help the evacuation of possibly thousands more citizens.
About 15,000 of the estimated 25,000 U.S. citizens in Lebanon have registered with the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, but not all appeared to be trying to get out.
Only 64 Americans were known to have departed by late Monday.
The proportion of those who want to flee could range from 10 percent to all of them, U.S. officials said, basing the estimate on similar crises.
"Our planning assumptions are on the order of thousands," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. "You don't actually know how many people are going to want to leave until you actually start the larger-scale operations."
Two Arab-American organizations criticized the slow start. Many of the U.S. citizens in Lebanon are Arab-Americans visiting family over the summer.
Three CH-53 Super Stallion helicopters - each able to carry 36 people - were available to fly evacuees from Beirut to a British air base on the nearby Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said, and some flights were taking place Monday.
He declined to provide details about the flights, citing security reasons.
He said more choppers will be available Tuesday.
Two CH-53s from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which has been conducting an exercise with Jordanian forces, evacuated 21 Americans from the U.S. Embassy compound Sunday.
Whitman said that the cruise ship Orient Queen, which can carry up to 750 people, had been contracted to help the evacuation starting Tuesday.
The Navy destroyer USS Gonzalez, and possibly the USS Iwo Jima amphibious assault ship, will accompany it to Cyprus.
The government of Cyprus prepared to help with the evacuation of the thousands expected to be brought by the United States and European countries.
Israel appeared to be allowing evacuation ships through the blockade of Lebanon it imposed after Hezbollah militants based there captured two Israeli soldiers last week.
The U.S. Embassy has advised those who wish to leave that they should prepare one bag for each person, weighing no more than 30 pounds, and be ready for announcements on how to depart.
An Embassy statement Monday did not say how it planned to evacuate Americans. Further instructions, it said, would be in local media and on the embassy's Web site.
Some Americans have driven themselves to Syria and then flown to Jordan, although the U.S. government has advised Americans not to leave that way.
Hundreds of French citizens and other Europeans boarded a Greek cruise liner chartered by the French government. French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, there after a meeting with his Lebanese counterpart, watched busloads of evacuees board the Ierapetra.
France has more than 20,000 citizens in Lebanon.
"Who knows when this will end?" said Habib al-Saad, who was sending his three sons. "If any of our Arab leaders had a brain, this would have been resolved a long time ago. But they don't," al-Saad said as his sons _ Marwan, 20, Thomas, 17, and Pierre, 10 _ looking bewildered and anxious _ listened to their father in silence.
"I am not worried about them," al-Saad said. "They will look after themselves."
An Italian ship evacuated some 350 people, including 187 Italians.
Greece was sending a navy frigate to a Lebanese port to pick up 100 people and has three additional warships on standby.
Hundreds of thousands in Lebanon left areas considered dangerous for the relative safety of the hills east of Beirut, the eastern Bekaa valley and northern Lebanon.
Wisam Musalam, a statistics student in Lyons, France, was standing in line outside the French Culture Center, waiting to register his name for evacuation. He is not a French national, but has a residence permit in France.
"Slowly, slowly we will become like the Palestinians," he said. "A nation of refugees."
The Arab-American organizations criticized U.S. evacuation planning, and the administration's reluctance to promote a cease-fire.
"The absence of American leadership to secure a cease-fire and protect its own citizens is appalling," said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute.
Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said "the highest duty of any president is to protect the lives of Americans."
About 850 of about 5,000 Swedes in Lebanon have been evacuated. Sweden chartered three ships to help and was awaiting security guarantees.
A British aircraft carrier and another warship - both in the Mediterranean - set off Sunday on a three-day trip to the Middle East in preparation for the possible evacuation of Britons. A British Foreign Office spokesman said the first wave of Britons - children, elderly and ill people - left Sunday aboard a helicopter that also transported European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
Denmark began evacuating some 2,300 people by bus to Damascus, Syria. So far, some 700 have returned home, the Danish government said.
Russia's Foreign Ministry said there were more than 1,400 Russian citizens in Lebanon and more than 1,000 were ready to leave.
AP Military Writer Robert Burns and Diplomatic Writer Barry Schweid contributed to this report from Washington.
07-17-06 16:03 EDT
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theone666
- Major [O-4]
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- Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2005 5:00 am
Westerners Flee Lebanon as Attacks Continue
By SAM F. GHATTAS, AP
BEIRUT, Lebanon (July 18) -- Israel struck a Lebanese army base outside Beirut and flattened a house near the border, killing at least 16 people in a new wave of bombings, while Hezbollah fired more rockets at northern Israel. Diplomats stepped up efforts to end the conflict, which has sent foreigners fleeing by land, sea and air.
A cruise ship, the Orient Queen, was due to begin evacuating some of the 25,000 Americans in Lebanon on Tuesday, and the Pentagon said a U.S. Naval destroyer was available to escort it. U.S. military helicopters have already ferried about a score of U.S. citizens to a British base on the nearby Mediterranean island of Cyprus. More helicopter transfers were planned, a U.S. official said.
The base in the southern area of Kfar Chima took a direct hit as the soldiers rushed to their bomb shelters, leaving at least 11 soldiers dead and 35 wounded, the Lebanese military said.
The Lebanese army has largely stayed out of the fighting, but its positions have been repeatedly attacked by Israeli warplanes, undermining Israel's call for it to help push back Hezbollah from the border.
At least five people also were killed when a bomb hit a house in the village of Aitaroun, near the border with Israel, witnesses said. Israeli warplanes also fired four missiles on the eastern city of Baalbek, wounding four, and southern Beirut -- both Hezbollah strongholds, according to witnesses and news reports. Another attack targeted the southern town of Qana, Lebanese TV reported.
The Islamic militant group fired rockets that knocked down a three-story house in northern Israel, but no casualties were immediately reported.
An Associated Press reporter saw rockets strike near the port and a railway depot in Haifa, Israel's third-largest city. Medical services said there were no injuries in the attack.
Tuesday's deaths raised the toll from seven days of fighting to at least 226 people killed in Lebanon and 24 in Israel.
Israel was allowing evacuation ships through its blockade of the country. France and Italy moved hundreds of nationals and other Europeans out Monday on a Greek cruise liner. An Italian ship left earlier with 350 people and other governments were organizing pullouts by land to Syria.
India also has evacuated 49 of its citizens from embattled Beirut and stationed four naval vessels off the Lebanese coast to assist in future evacuations, officials said Tuesday.
Diplomatic efforts gained traction with Israel signaling it might scale back its demands. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said two Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah had to be released and Hezbollah must pull back from the border for fighting to halt.
An aide to Olmert indicated, however, that the prime minister was ready to compromise on the question of dismantling the Islamic militant group. But the aide said Olmert might oppose a U.N. and British idea of deploying international forces to Lebanon.
The current U.N. force in southern Lebanon has proven impotent and a larger, stronger force could hamper any future Israeli attacks, should any deal fall apart.
An Israeli Cabinet minister, Avi Dichter, meanwhile, said Tuesday that Israel may consider a prisoner swap with Lebanon to win the release of two soldiers captured by Hezbollah, but only after its military operation is complete.
"If one of the ways to bring home the soldiers will be negotiations on the possibility of releasing Lebanese prisoners I think the day will come when we will also have to consider this," the public security minister told Israel's Army Radio.
The crisis began on June 25 when Hamas-linked militants in the Gaza Strip carried out a cross-border attack on a military outpost in Israel, killing two soldiers and capturing one. Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas joined the fray in July, attacking a military patrol on the border in northern Israel, killing three soldiers and capturing two. Both Hamas and Hezbollah have said the two attacks were not related.
Dichter also said efforts to gain the release of the soldier being held by Hamas-linked militants in Gaza and the two being held by Hezbollah were not connected to one another.
Delivering an impassioned speech to Israel's parliament on Monday, Olmert said the country would have no mercy on Lebanese militants who attack its cities with rockets.
"We shall seek out every installation, hit every terrorist helping to attack Israeli citizens, destroy all the terrorist infrastructure, in every place. We shall continue this until Hezbollah does the basic and fair things required of it by every civilized person," he said.
Hezbollah's patron Iran, meanwhile, said a cease-fire and prisoner exchange would be acceptable and fair.
That was followed by a warning Tuesday from Iranian parliamentary speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, who said no part of Israel is safe from Hezbollah rockets. However, he is not among the most influential power brokers in the regime.
"The towns you have built in northern Palestine (Israel) are within the range of the brave Lebanese children. No part of Israel will be safe," he told thousands of anti-Israel demonstrators in Tehran.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special political adviser emerged from talks Monday with Lebanon's prime minister to say he would present Israel "concrete ideas" to end the fighting.
"We have made some promising first efforts on the way forward," the adviser, Vijay Nambiar, told reporters, while warning that much works needs to be done.
One U.N. official said Nambiar's mission had "very useful discussions" with Lebanon's prime minister and the speaker of Lebanon's parliament -- a close ally of Hezbollah's leader.
"They have agreed on some specifics, and this is going to be carried to Israel, and they will probably go back to Lebanon if they are a promising signal," said the official, U.N. Undersecretary-General for Political Affairs Ibrahim Gambari.
Late Monday, Hezbollah dismissed international cease-fire proposals as "Israeli conditions," accusing foreign envoys of allowing Israel time to continue its military offensive to force Lebanon into submission.
"The international envoys have conveyed Israeli conditions. These conditions are rejected," said Hezbollah legislator Hussein Haj Hassan. "We accept what secures our country's interest and pride and dignity and not to submit to Israeli conditions," he said on al-Jazeera television late Monday.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Annan called for sending international forces to southern Lebanon, and the United States said it did not oppose the idea.
But President Bush also suggested, in a moment of unscripted frank discussion caught on tape, that Annan simply call the president of Syria, another Hezbollah backer, to "make something happen."
Speaking with Blair privately before the G-8 leaders began their final lunch in St. Petersburg, Russia -- in an exchange caught on tape -- Bush swore over Hezbollah's border raids and rockets.
"See, the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this s--- and it's over," Bush said.
Associated Press writer Hussein Dakroub contributed to this report in Beirut.
07-18-06 06:51 EDT
BEIRUT, Lebanon (July 18) -- Israel struck a Lebanese army base outside Beirut and flattened a house near the border, killing at least 16 people in a new wave of bombings, while Hezbollah fired more rockets at northern Israel. Diplomats stepped up efforts to end the conflict, which has sent foreigners fleeing by land, sea and air.
A cruise ship, the Orient Queen, was due to begin evacuating some of the 25,000 Americans in Lebanon on Tuesday, and the Pentagon said a U.S. Naval destroyer was available to escort it. U.S. military helicopters have already ferried about a score of U.S. citizens to a British base on the nearby Mediterranean island of Cyprus. More helicopter transfers were planned, a U.S. official said.
The base in the southern area of Kfar Chima took a direct hit as the soldiers rushed to their bomb shelters, leaving at least 11 soldiers dead and 35 wounded, the Lebanese military said.
The Lebanese army has largely stayed out of the fighting, but its positions have been repeatedly attacked by Israeli warplanes, undermining Israel's call for it to help push back Hezbollah from the border.
At least five people also were killed when a bomb hit a house in the village of Aitaroun, near the border with Israel, witnesses said. Israeli warplanes also fired four missiles on the eastern city of Baalbek, wounding four, and southern Beirut -- both Hezbollah strongholds, according to witnesses and news reports. Another attack targeted the southern town of Qana, Lebanese TV reported.
The Islamic militant group fired rockets that knocked down a three-story house in northern Israel, but no casualties were immediately reported.
An Associated Press reporter saw rockets strike near the port and a railway depot in Haifa, Israel's third-largest city. Medical services said there were no injuries in the attack.
Tuesday's deaths raised the toll from seven days of fighting to at least 226 people killed in Lebanon and 24 in Israel.
Israel was allowing evacuation ships through its blockade of the country. France and Italy moved hundreds of nationals and other Europeans out Monday on a Greek cruise liner. An Italian ship left earlier with 350 people and other governments were organizing pullouts by land to Syria.
India also has evacuated 49 of its citizens from embattled Beirut and stationed four naval vessels off the Lebanese coast to assist in future evacuations, officials said Tuesday.
Diplomatic efforts gained traction with Israel signaling it might scale back its demands. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said two Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah had to be released and Hezbollah must pull back from the border for fighting to halt.
An aide to Olmert indicated, however, that the prime minister was ready to compromise on the question of dismantling the Islamic militant group. But the aide said Olmert might oppose a U.N. and British idea of deploying international forces to Lebanon.
The current U.N. force in southern Lebanon has proven impotent and a larger, stronger force could hamper any future Israeli attacks, should any deal fall apart.
An Israeli Cabinet minister, Avi Dichter, meanwhile, said Tuesday that Israel may consider a prisoner swap with Lebanon to win the release of two soldiers captured by Hezbollah, but only after its military operation is complete.
"If one of the ways to bring home the soldiers will be negotiations on the possibility of releasing Lebanese prisoners I think the day will come when we will also have to consider this," the public security minister told Israel's Army Radio.
The crisis began on June 25 when Hamas-linked militants in the Gaza Strip carried out a cross-border attack on a military outpost in Israel, killing two soldiers and capturing one. Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas joined the fray in July, attacking a military patrol on the border in northern Israel, killing three soldiers and capturing two. Both Hamas and Hezbollah have said the two attacks were not related.
Dichter also said efforts to gain the release of the soldier being held by Hamas-linked militants in Gaza and the two being held by Hezbollah were not connected to one another.
Delivering an impassioned speech to Israel's parliament on Monday, Olmert said the country would have no mercy on Lebanese militants who attack its cities with rockets.
"We shall seek out every installation, hit every terrorist helping to attack Israeli citizens, destroy all the terrorist infrastructure, in every place. We shall continue this until Hezbollah does the basic and fair things required of it by every civilized person," he said.
Hezbollah's patron Iran, meanwhile, said a cease-fire and prisoner exchange would be acceptable and fair.
That was followed by a warning Tuesday from Iranian parliamentary speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, who said no part of Israel is safe from Hezbollah rockets. However, he is not among the most influential power brokers in the regime.
"The towns you have built in northern Palestine (Israel) are within the range of the brave Lebanese children. No part of Israel will be safe," he told thousands of anti-Israel demonstrators in Tehran.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special political adviser emerged from talks Monday with Lebanon's prime minister to say he would present Israel "concrete ideas" to end the fighting.
"We have made some promising first efforts on the way forward," the adviser, Vijay Nambiar, told reporters, while warning that much works needs to be done.
One U.N. official said Nambiar's mission had "very useful discussions" with Lebanon's prime minister and the speaker of Lebanon's parliament -- a close ally of Hezbollah's leader.
"They have agreed on some specifics, and this is going to be carried to Israel, and they will probably go back to Lebanon if they are a promising signal," said the official, U.N. Undersecretary-General for Political Affairs Ibrahim Gambari.
Late Monday, Hezbollah dismissed international cease-fire proposals as "Israeli conditions," accusing foreign envoys of allowing Israel time to continue its military offensive to force Lebanon into submission.
"The international envoys have conveyed Israeli conditions. These conditions are rejected," said Hezbollah legislator Hussein Haj Hassan. "We accept what secures our country's interest and pride and dignity and not to submit to Israeli conditions," he said on al-Jazeera television late Monday.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Annan called for sending international forces to southern Lebanon, and the United States said it did not oppose the idea.
But President Bush also suggested, in a moment of unscripted frank discussion caught on tape, that Annan simply call the president of Syria, another Hezbollah backer, to "make something happen."
Speaking with Blair privately before the G-8 leaders began their final lunch in St. Petersburg, Russia -- in an exchange caught on tape -- Bush swore over Hezbollah's border raids and rockets.
"See, the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this s--- and it's over," Bush said.
Associated Press writer Hussein Dakroub contributed to this report in Beirut.
07-18-06 06:51 EDT
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theone666
- Major [O-4]
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Overnight attacks hit Israel, Lebanon
Blasts shake south Beirut; Hezbollah rockets wound 5 in Israel
Monday, July 17, 2006; Posted: 7:46 p.m. EDT (23:46 GMT)
BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- Loud explosions echoed across the southern suburbs of Beirut early Tuesday, indicating another Israeli airstrike a short time after a volley of Hezbollah rockets rained across northern Israel.
The Beirut explosions could be felt more than two miles away and lit up the sky over the south side of the city, where Hezbollah is headquartered. There was no immediate report of injuries from the blasts.
The Lebanese Army confirmed that a military base near Beirut had been attacked.
The latest round of Hezbollah rockets wounded at least five Israelis and shattering the windows of a hospital in Safed, the Israel Defense Forces said.
The IDF said Hezbollah rockets fell from as far west as the kibbutz Rosh Hanikra to Kiryat Shmona in the east, striking at least nine towns and villages in between. The five wounded came from the Safed rocket, which the IDF said landed near the hospital but did not strike it.
Israel's prime minister said Monday that Israel will continue fighting in Lebanon until the release of two Israeli soldiers abducted last week.
In a speech to the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel's conditions for stopping the fighting include "bringing home the soldiers, complete peace and quiet, removing Hezbollah from the area."
Olmert's comments came after Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz indicated Israel planned to create a buffer zone in southern Lebanon to stop rocket attacks from Hezbollah.
The fighting began last week after Hezbollah guerrillas kidnapped two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid.
Israel responded with an offensive in Lebanon aimed at Hezbollah, a Shiite militant group with a strong presence in the southern part of the country. It also holds seats in the Lebanese government.
In six days of fighting, 170 people have been killed and 415 wounded in Lebanon, Lebanese internal security sources said.
Twenty-four Israelis have died in the conflict, including 12 soldiers, and more than 300 have been wounded, Israeli military sources said.
IDF: Longer-range missiles taken out
An Israeli airstrike in Beirut Monday hit a truck -- believed to belong to Hezbollah -- carrying rockets that could reach Tel Aviv from southern Lebanon, the IDF said.
The missiles had a range of 120 to 160 km (75 to 100 miles), IDF said. Tel Aviv is about 70 miles from the Israel-Lebanon border.
The strike started a fire that ignited a missile loaded on the truck, causing it to launch, the IDF said. The missile exploded in the air and landed on a Beirut beach, the Israeli military said.
Late Monday afternoon, the IDF said it had destroyed "a big number" of Hezbollah outposts in southern Lebanon.
Earlier reports Monday suggesting Israeli ground forces had entered southern Lebanon were denied by an Israeli military source.
Also Monday, a volley of Hezbollah rockets hit the northern Israeli city of Haifa, a day after a deadly strike on a train depot in the city. (Watch Haifa endure a second day of attacks -- 1:13)
A residential building also partially collapsed when a rocket hit it, injuring at least 11 people.
The barrage also hit the towns of Safed and Tiberias, but no casualties were reported, Israeli medical sources said.
In his speech Monday, Olmert said Israelis refuse to live under the threat of rocket fire and missiles.
"There are moments in the life of a people when it has to look at the present reality and say, 'This far and no farther.' And I say to everybody: This far and no farther."
Gaza attacks
Olmert linked Israel's fight with Hezbollah in Lebanon and its ongoing operations against militants in Gaza.
Israel has been attacking Gaza from the air and conducting raids into the Palestinian territory since three militant groups claimed responsibility for abducting an Israeli soldier last month.
Hamas leads the Palestinian government, and its military wing was one of the three groups.
At least two Palestinians were killed in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun on Monday, Palestinian medical sources said amid an Israeli campaign to free the abducted soldier.
Palestinian military sources said at least five homemade rockets were fired into Israel from Beit Hanoun, and three Israeli soldiers were wounded by a rocket-propelled grenade attack on their tank, the Israeli military said.
Olmert said Hamas and Hezbollah are acting as "subcontractors working with the encouragement and financing of regimes that support terrorism ... the axis of evil that stretches from Tehran to Damascus."
The United States and Israel say Hezbollah receives financial and political assistance, as well as weapons and training, from Iran and Syria.
International force proposed
President Bush disclosed Monday that he is sending Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the Middle East.
Bush revealed the move in a conversation with British Prime Minister Tony Blair that was inadvertently picked up by an open microphone during the Group of Eight summit in Russia. (Full story)
Blair and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Monday called for an international stabilization force to be sent to the Israeli-Lebanese border to help end the fighting.
The proposed force would be the first step in what Annan and Blair said should be a series of actions that would stop the hostilities.
"The only way we are going to get a cessation of hostilities is the deployment of an international force," Blair said at a news conference in St. Petersburg at the end of the G-8 summit.
Beirut port bombed
Earlier Monday, Israel bombed Beirut's port, an army barracks and the capital's southern suburbs.
Video footage showed black smoke billowing into the air over the port against a backdrop of large shipping containers and the charred remains of a truck. At least two people died in the attack.
In the city of Abdeh, about 50 miles (about 80 kilometers) north of Beirut, three Israeli missiles struck an army barracks, officials said, killing six soldiers and wounding 28.
Israeli strikes Monday in the Bekaa Valley near the Syrian border killed seven people, authorities said. Forty-three others were wounded, and a girl was missing. (Watch as civilians bear the brunt of the fighting -- 3:25)
The strikes followed Hezbollah rocket attacks Sunday on northern Israeli cities, including one that struck a train depot in Haifa and killed eight Israelis.
The Lebanese government insists it has nothing to do with the Hezbollah attacks and has called for a cease-fire.
Meanwhile, a commercial ship escorted by a U.S. destroyer will begin evacuating Americans on Tuesday, a U.S. official said. (Full story)
Monday, July 17, 2006; Posted: 7:46 p.m. EDT (23:46 GMT)
BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- Loud explosions echoed across the southern suburbs of Beirut early Tuesday, indicating another Israeli airstrike a short time after a volley of Hezbollah rockets rained across northern Israel.
The Beirut explosions could be felt more than two miles away and lit up the sky over the south side of the city, where Hezbollah is headquartered. There was no immediate report of injuries from the blasts.
The Lebanese Army confirmed that a military base near Beirut had been attacked.
The latest round of Hezbollah rockets wounded at least five Israelis and shattering the windows of a hospital in Safed, the Israel Defense Forces said.
The IDF said Hezbollah rockets fell from as far west as the kibbutz Rosh Hanikra to Kiryat Shmona in the east, striking at least nine towns and villages in between. The five wounded came from the Safed rocket, which the IDF said landed near the hospital but did not strike it.
Israel's prime minister said Monday that Israel will continue fighting in Lebanon until the release of two Israeli soldiers abducted last week.
In a speech to the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel's conditions for stopping the fighting include "bringing home the soldiers, complete peace and quiet, removing Hezbollah from the area."
Olmert's comments came after Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz indicated Israel planned to create a buffer zone in southern Lebanon to stop rocket attacks from Hezbollah.
The fighting began last week after Hezbollah guerrillas kidnapped two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid.
Israel responded with an offensive in Lebanon aimed at Hezbollah, a Shiite militant group with a strong presence in the southern part of the country. It also holds seats in the Lebanese government.
In six days of fighting, 170 people have been killed and 415 wounded in Lebanon, Lebanese internal security sources said.
Twenty-four Israelis have died in the conflict, including 12 soldiers, and more than 300 have been wounded, Israeli military sources said.
IDF: Longer-range missiles taken out
An Israeli airstrike in Beirut Monday hit a truck -- believed to belong to Hezbollah -- carrying rockets that could reach Tel Aviv from southern Lebanon, the IDF said.
The missiles had a range of 120 to 160 km (75 to 100 miles), IDF said. Tel Aviv is about 70 miles from the Israel-Lebanon border.
The strike started a fire that ignited a missile loaded on the truck, causing it to launch, the IDF said. The missile exploded in the air and landed on a Beirut beach, the Israeli military said.
Late Monday afternoon, the IDF said it had destroyed "a big number" of Hezbollah outposts in southern Lebanon.
Earlier reports Monday suggesting Israeli ground forces had entered southern Lebanon were denied by an Israeli military source.
Also Monday, a volley of Hezbollah rockets hit the northern Israeli city of Haifa, a day after a deadly strike on a train depot in the city. (Watch Haifa endure a second day of attacks -- 1:13)
A residential building also partially collapsed when a rocket hit it, injuring at least 11 people.
The barrage also hit the towns of Safed and Tiberias, but no casualties were reported, Israeli medical sources said.
In his speech Monday, Olmert said Israelis refuse to live under the threat of rocket fire and missiles.
"There are moments in the life of a people when it has to look at the present reality and say, 'This far and no farther.' And I say to everybody: This far and no farther."
Gaza attacks
Olmert linked Israel's fight with Hezbollah in Lebanon and its ongoing operations against militants in Gaza.
Israel has been attacking Gaza from the air and conducting raids into the Palestinian territory since three militant groups claimed responsibility for abducting an Israeli soldier last month.
Hamas leads the Palestinian government, and its military wing was one of the three groups.
At least two Palestinians were killed in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun on Monday, Palestinian medical sources said amid an Israeli campaign to free the abducted soldier.
Palestinian military sources said at least five homemade rockets were fired into Israel from Beit Hanoun, and three Israeli soldiers were wounded by a rocket-propelled grenade attack on their tank, the Israeli military said.
Olmert said Hamas and Hezbollah are acting as "subcontractors working with the encouragement and financing of regimes that support terrorism ... the axis of evil that stretches from Tehran to Damascus."
The United States and Israel say Hezbollah receives financial and political assistance, as well as weapons and training, from Iran and Syria.
International force proposed
President Bush disclosed Monday that he is sending Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the Middle East.
Bush revealed the move in a conversation with British Prime Minister Tony Blair that was inadvertently picked up by an open microphone during the Group of Eight summit in Russia. (Full story)
Blair and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Monday called for an international stabilization force to be sent to the Israeli-Lebanese border to help end the fighting.
The proposed force would be the first step in what Annan and Blair said should be a series of actions that would stop the hostilities.
"The only way we are going to get a cessation of hostilities is the deployment of an international force," Blair said at a news conference in St. Petersburg at the end of the G-8 summit.
Beirut port bombed
Earlier Monday, Israel bombed Beirut's port, an army barracks and the capital's southern suburbs.
Video footage showed black smoke billowing into the air over the port against a backdrop of large shipping containers and the charred remains of a truck. At least two people died in the attack.
In the city of Abdeh, about 50 miles (about 80 kilometers) north of Beirut, three Israeli missiles struck an army barracks, officials said, killing six soldiers and wounding 28.
Israeli strikes Monday in the Bekaa Valley near the Syrian border killed seven people, authorities said. Forty-three others were wounded, and a girl was missing. (Watch as civilians bear the brunt of the fighting -- 3:25)
The strikes followed Hezbollah rocket attacks Sunday on northern Israeli cities, including one that struck a train depot in Haifa and killed eight Israelis.
The Lebanese government insists it has nothing to do with the Hezbollah attacks and has called for a cease-fire.
Meanwhile, a commercial ship escorted by a U.S. destroyer will begin evacuating Americans on Tuesday, a U.S. official said. (Full story)
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theone666
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Israel vows no let-up on Lebanon
Monday, 17 July 2006, 23:53 GMT 00:53 UK
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says the attacks on Lebanon will be kept up until two captured soldiers are freed.
He also insisted Hezbollah guerrillas had to be disarmed and the Lebanese army had to control southern Lebanon.
"We are not looking for war or direct conflict, but if necessary we will not be frightened by it," he said.
More than 200 Lebanese people have died in six days of Israeli bombardment. Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets into Israel, killing about 12 people.
A fresh barrage of rockets was fired at Israel on Monday evening, officials said. One landed close to a hospital in the northern town of Safed, injuring at least six people, medics quoted by Reuters news agency said.
There were also reports of renewed Israeli air strikes on Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon overnight.
In Israeli strikes on Monday, at least 10 Lebanese people died when their vehicles were hit on a bridge in the south of the country, reports said.
At least 17 people died elsewhere, as Israeli air strikes targeted the northern city of Tripoli, the nearby port of Abdeh and the capital, Beirut.
The bodies of nine people, including six children, were reportedly found in the rubble of a building in Tyre hit by Israeli missiles on Sunday. One report said they had been trying to shelter in the basement.
Israeli ground forces also entered southern Lebanon, but Israeli officials said it was not the start of a large-scale invasion.
Israel launched its offensive last Wednesday following the capture of the two soldiers in a cross-border raid by Hezbollah.
As the Israeli attacks continue, large numbers of people in the south have abandoned their homes.
A BBC correspondent travelling through the south says the roads are clogged with packed vehicles. Many of the displaced, he says, appear exhausted and bewildered.
A number of countries are planning major sea evacuations of its nationals from Lebanon.
The European Union has appealed for an end to hostilities. The UN Security Council has again met to discuss the crisis, although a BBC correspondent says it will not take any action until a team of UN envoys returns from the region later in the week.
UN chief Kofi Annan and UK PM Tony Blair have called for an international force to be sent to Lebanon.
The force could "stop the bombardment coming over into Israel and therefore gives Israel a reason to stop its attacks on Hezbollah", Mr Blair said.
Mr Annan suggested a "package of actions, not exhortations" that would require parties to release prisoners, stop both rocket attacks into Israel and retaliatory action and "pursue this idea of a stabilisation force".
Israeli spokeswoman Miri Eisin told the BBC it was too early to consider a new force.
In other developments:
Lebanese TV showed footage of what it said was an Israeli F-16 fighter aircraft falling from the sky over Beirut in flames, but Israel said none of its aircraft had been shot down, and said it was a missile
An Italian ship took some 366 Europeans out of Beirut to Cyprus, while a cruise ship chartered by France is due to arrive in Larnaca with hundreds more
French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin arrived in Beirut as an expression of solidarity with the Lebanese people
The US said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would be travelling to the region, although a date was not set
UN special envoy Vijay Nambiar spoke of "promising" first steps after ceasefire talks in Beirut, but said much work remained to be done; he meets Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Tuesday
Israeli forces have also kept up their offensive in the Gaza Strip - which began after an Israeli soldier was seized by Palestinian militants last month.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says the attacks on Lebanon will be kept up until two captured soldiers are freed.
He also insisted Hezbollah guerrillas had to be disarmed and the Lebanese army had to control southern Lebanon.
"We are not looking for war or direct conflict, but if necessary we will not be frightened by it," he said.
More than 200 Lebanese people have died in six days of Israeli bombardment. Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets into Israel, killing about 12 people.
A fresh barrage of rockets was fired at Israel on Monday evening, officials said. One landed close to a hospital in the northern town of Safed, injuring at least six people, medics quoted by Reuters news agency said.
There were also reports of renewed Israeli air strikes on Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon overnight.
In Israeli strikes on Monday, at least 10 Lebanese people died when their vehicles were hit on a bridge in the south of the country, reports said.
At least 17 people died elsewhere, as Israeli air strikes targeted the northern city of Tripoli, the nearby port of Abdeh and the capital, Beirut.
The bodies of nine people, including six children, were reportedly found in the rubble of a building in Tyre hit by Israeli missiles on Sunday. One report said they had been trying to shelter in the basement.
Israeli ground forces also entered southern Lebanon, but Israeli officials said it was not the start of a large-scale invasion.
Israel launched its offensive last Wednesday following the capture of the two soldiers in a cross-border raid by Hezbollah.
As the Israeli attacks continue, large numbers of people in the south have abandoned their homes.
A BBC correspondent travelling through the south says the roads are clogged with packed vehicles. Many of the displaced, he says, appear exhausted and bewildered.
A number of countries are planning major sea evacuations of its nationals from Lebanon.
The European Union has appealed for an end to hostilities. The UN Security Council has again met to discuss the crisis, although a BBC correspondent says it will not take any action until a team of UN envoys returns from the region later in the week.
UN chief Kofi Annan and UK PM Tony Blair have called for an international force to be sent to Lebanon.
The force could "stop the bombardment coming over into Israel and therefore gives Israel a reason to stop its attacks on Hezbollah", Mr Blair said.
Mr Annan suggested a "package of actions, not exhortations" that would require parties to release prisoners, stop both rocket attacks into Israel and retaliatory action and "pursue this idea of a stabilisation force".
Israeli spokeswoman Miri Eisin told the BBC it was too early to consider a new force.
In other developments:
Lebanese TV showed footage of what it said was an Israeli F-16 fighter aircraft falling from the sky over Beirut in flames, but Israel said none of its aircraft had been shot down, and said it was a missile
An Italian ship took some 366 Europeans out of Beirut to Cyprus, while a cruise ship chartered by France is due to arrive in Larnaca with hundreds more
French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin arrived in Beirut as an expression of solidarity with the Lebanese people
The US said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would be travelling to the region, although a date was not set
UN special envoy Vijay Nambiar spoke of "promising" first steps after ceasefire talks in Beirut, but said much work remained to be done; he meets Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Tuesday
Israeli forces have also kept up their offensive in the Gaza Strip - which began after an Israeli soldier was seized by Palestinian militants last month.
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theone666
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Hezbollah Rockets Hit Northern Israel
AP
JERUSALEM (July 17) - A new barrage of rockets fired by guerrillas in southern Lebanon hit northern Israel late Monday, causing at least five injuries, Israeli officials said.
One rocket landed near a hospital in the northern town of Safed, injuring five people, one moderately and four lightly.
Other rockets hit the northern city of Haifa, where a three-story apartment building was destroyed by a rocket earlier in the day, and the border town of Kiryat Shemona, officials said.
"The Hezbollah intentionally cowers and takes cover behind its own civilians, neighborhoods and hospitals and then proceeds to fire indiscriminately at Israeli civilians and hospitals," said David Baker, an official in the Prime Minister's office, referring to the attack in Safed.
Police commander Daniel Haddad told Israel Radio that 40 Katyusha rockets fell in northern Israel in the space of a few minutes.
07/17/06 17:12 EDT
JERUSALEM (July 17) - A new barrage of rockets fired by guerrillas in southern Lebanon hit northern Israel late Monday, causing at least five injuries, Israeli officials said.
One rocket landed near a hospital in the northern town of Safed, injuring five people, one moderately and four lightly.
Other rockets hit the northern city of Haifa, where a three-story apartment building was destroyed by a rocket earlier in the day, and the border town of Kiryat Shemona, officials said.
"The Hezbollah intentionally cowers and takes cover behind its own civilians, neighborhoods and hospitals and then proceeds to fire indiscriminately at Israeli civilians and hospitals," said David Baker, an official in the Prime Minister's office, referring to the attack in Safed.
Police commander Daniel Haddad told Israel Radio that 40 Katyusha rockets fell in northern Israel in the space of a few minutes.
07/17/06 17:12 EDT
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theone666
- Major [O-4]
- Posts: 1434
- Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2005 5:00 am
Administration Pledges to Evacuate Americans
By BARRY SCHWEID, AP
WASHINGTON (July 18) - By air and increasingly by sea, an evacuation is under way to take Americans out of danger in Lebanon.
An estimated 25,000 Americans are there. Some 15,000 have registered with the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, but evidently not all are trying to get out.
"Our planning assumptions are on the order of thousands," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Monday. "You don't actually know how many people are going to want to leave until you actually start the larger-scale operations."
The operation began slowly. By late Monday only 64 were known to have departed.
U.S. government officials, basing their estimates on similar situations in the past, say the range of Americans planning to leave could range from 10 percent of those in the country up to 100 percent.
Most other countries have a far less difficult evacuation task since they have fewer of their people in Lebanon. Convoys of buses have been used effectively.
The U.S. government is discouraging travel by land to the Lebanon-Syria border. Two of the three major roads have been bombed severely, Maura Harty, assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, told CNN. And Syria denied entry to some Americans who got to the border.
"We did not think that was a wise way to counsel people to leave the country," she said.
At the Pentagon, spokesman Bryan Whitman said a commercial ship, the Orient Queen, had been contracted to ferry evacuating Americans to Cyprus. He said it could carry 750 people at a time. A U.S. Navy destroyer, the USS Gonzales, will be available to escort the Orient Queen, he said.
The French lent a hand. In Paris, the foreign ministry said 50 U.S. citizens were evacuated with 800 French citizens and 400 other Europeans on a Greek ferry, Iera Petra, chartered by the French government.
Most of the first Americans to depart were removed by U.S. helicopters, some of which flew to a British base on Cyprus.
At the State Department, McCormack said the cost of a massive evacuation was beyond U.S. resources. He said evacuated Americans would be asked to pay commercial rates, and if they did not have the money, to promise to pay in the future.
"Everybody who wishes to leave will be able to leave," he promised.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and national security adviser Stephen Hadley were briefed on the evacuation Monday as they returned to the United States aboard Air Force One, McCormack said. Rice and Hadley were part of the U.S. delegation at this weekend's G-8 summit in Russia.
The U.S. Embassy advised Americans to carry a valid passport, a birth certificate and marriage or other civil documents. Each traveler is limited to one suitcase weighing up to 30 pounds. Pets will not be allowed to travel.
The embassy is not being evacuated, Harty said in an ABC News interview. But dependents of U.S. personnel who have chosen to leave will be able to depart, she said.
Two organizations, one Arab-American and the other Muslim-American, criticized the slow start and that the United States was not promoting a cease-fire.
"The absence of American leadership to secure a cease-fire and protect its own citizens is appalling," said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute.
Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said, "The highest duty of any president is to protect the lives of Americans."
Many of the U.S. citizens in Lebanon are Arab-Americans making regular summer pilgrimages to visit family members.
07-18-06 02:12 EDT
WASHINGTON (July 18) - By air and increasingly by sea, an evacuation is under way to take Americans out of danger in Lebanon.
An estimated 25,000 Americans are there. Some 15,000 have registered with the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, but evidently not all are trying to get out.
"Our planning assumptions are on the order of thousands," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Monday. "You don't actually know how many people are going to want to leave until you actually start the larger-scale operations."
The operation began slowly. By late Monday only 64 were known to have departed.
U.S. government officials, basing their estimates on similar situations in the past, say the range of Americans planning to leave could range from 10 percent of those in the country up to 100 percent.
Most other countries have a far less difficult evacuation task since they have fewer of their people in Lebanon. Convoys of buses have been used effectively.
The U.S. government is discouraging travel by land to the Lebanon-Syria border. Two of the three major roads have been bombed severely, Maura Harty, assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, told CNN. And Syria denied entry to some Americans who got to the border.
"We did not think that was a wise way to counsel people to leave the country," she said.
At the Pentagon, spokesman Bryan Whitman said a commercial ship, the Orient Queen, had been contracted to ferry evacuating Americans to Cyprus. He said it could carry 750 people at a time. A U.S. Navy destroyer, the USS Gonzales, will be available to escort the Orient Queen, he said.
The French lent a hand. In Paris, the foreign ministry said 50 U.S. citizens were evacuated with 800 French citizens and 400 other Europeans on a Greek ferry, Iera Petra, chartered by the French government.
Most of the first Americans to depart were removed by U.S. helicopters, some of which flew to a British base on Cyprus.
At the State Department, McCormack said the cost of a massive evacuation was beyond U.S. resources. He said evacuated Americans would be asked to pay commercial rates, and if they did not have the money, to promise to pay in the future.
"Everybody who wishes to leave will be able to leave," he promised.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and national security adviser Stephen Hadley were briefed on the evacuation Monday as they returned to the United States aboard Air Force One, McCormack said. Rice and Hadley were part of the U.S. delegation at this weekend's G-8 summit in Russia.
The U.S. Embassy advised Americans to carry a valid passport, a birth certificate and marriage or other civil documents. Each traveler is limited to one suitcase weighing up to 30 pounds. Pets will not be allowed to travel.
The embassy is not being evacuated, Harty said in an ABC News interview. But dependents of U.S. personnel who have chosen to leave will be able to depart, she said.
Two organizations, one Arab-American and the other Muslim-American, criticized the slow start and that the United States was not promoting a cease-fire.
"The absence of American leadership to secure a cease-fire and protect its own citizens is appalling," said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute.
Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said, "The highest duty of any president is to protect the lives of Americans."
Many of the U.S. citizens in Lebanon are Arab-Americans making regular summer pilgrimages to visit family members.
07-18-06 02:12 EDT