Tuesday, 18 July 2006, 04:09 GMT 05:09 UK
Israel has carried out fresh air strikes on Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon overnight.
The Israeli military said it had struck the militants' Beirut HQ again, as well as a weapons depot and rocket-laden trucks in the eastern town of Baalbek.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah fired a barrage of missiles into northern Israel.
The UN's emergency relief co-ordinator has warned of a humanitarian disaster in southern Lebanon as people abandon their homes to flee the violence.
More than 200 Lebanese citizens have been killed in six days of Israeli strikes. Twenty-four Israelis have died - 12 as a result of Hezbollah rocket attacks.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the attacks would not cease until two of the country's soldiers - captured by Hezbollah last week in a cross-border raid - were freed.
He also insisted that Hezbollah guerrillas should be disarmed, and that the Lebanese army should take control southern Lebanon. "We are not looking for war or direct conflict, but if necessary we will not be frightened by it," he said in a televised address.
Roads clogged
At least 10 Lebanese civilians were reported to have been killed in the overnight Israeli air strikes.
The bodies of six people were pulled from the rubble of a family home in the border village of Aitaroun, local officials said.
And a woman and her two daughters, along with their Sri Lankan maid, were killed in an Israeli air strike in the coastal city of Tyre, police said.
Lebanese army barracks near Beirut were also reportedly targeted.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army says 15 towns and cities in northern Israel were hit by a late night barrage of rockets by Hezbollah.
No-one was killed, but military officials say five people were injured when a missile hit a synagogue.
With the violence continuing, many thousands of people in southern Lebanon and in northern Israel have been abandoning their homes.
The BBC's Jim Muir in southern Lebanon said the roads were clogged with packed vehicles. Many of the displaced, he said, appeared exhausted and bewildered.
Many were living in fear that Israeli jets cruising overhead would target them after several incidents in which travellers were hit by Israeli missiles, he said.
'Threat to peace'
The UN's top humanitarian official, Jan Egeland, said air strikes on roads and bridges were hampering relief teams from reaching the displaced.
"It's already very bad, and it is deteriorating by the hour," he told the BBC.
"Now it seems we are headed for another scenario where we will have to do a lot of rebuilding, a lot of humanitarian relief, a lot of life-saving relief".
Meanwhile, several countries have begun removing their nationals from Lebanon - sending ships because the country's air and land routes have been destroyed in the Israeli bombardment.
An Italian naval vessel carried about 400 European evacuees from Beirut to neighbouring Cyprus on Monday, and was followed early on Tuesday by a ship chartered by the French government.
The British government is sending six warships to rescue more than 22,000 people in what Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells called "the biggest evacuation since Dunkirk" - referring to the rescue by sea of some 330,000 soldiers from France in 1940.
The European Union has called on both sides to end the hostilities, saying they "poses a serious threat to peace and security in the region".
The 15-member UN Security Council again met to discuss the crisis, but decided to await the return of a team of UN envoys from the Middle East later in the week before making any move.
Meanwhile, the US says Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will travel to the Middle East on a peace mission, but has not said when she will go.
CRISIS in the MIDDLE EAST
Moderators: Cell_Leader, ikaotiki, Julstar
-
theone666
- Major [O-4]
- Posts: 1434
- Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2005 5:00 am
-
theone666
- Major [O-4]
- Posts: 1434
- Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2005 5:00 am
Lebanon evacuation gathers pace
Tuesday, 18 July 2006, 09:20 GMT 10:20 UK
The evacuation of foreigners from Lebanon is being stepped up, as Israeli warplanes carry out a seventh day of air strikes.
France and Italy have moved 1,600 Europeans by ship to Cyprus, and British warships are preparing to transport thousands of Britons.
The United Nations has warned of a humanitarian disaster in Lebanon as people flee their homes.
Israel is targeting Hezbollah fighters, who have captured two of its soldiers.
More than 200 Lebanese citizens have been killed since Israel launched air strikes last Wednesday. Twenty-four Israelis have died - 12 as a result of Hezbollah rocket attacks.
'Scary'
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni reiterated on Tuesday her government's demands that soldiers captured last Wednesday should be freed without condition and that Hezbollah should be disarmed.
She was speaking after talks on Tuesday with a UN team trying to negotiate a ceasefire.
Tens of thousands of foreigners are set to leave Lebanon by land, sea, and air in the coming days.
On Tuesday morning, a ferry chartered by France brought 1,200 Europeans to the Cypriot port of Larnaca.
Nearly 400 people arrived on an Italian navy vessel on Monday night.
They appeared tired, but relieved to be away from the violence.
"It's getting worse and worse, the bombs are actually so close that we could see the smoke and the fire," one evacuee told Reuters news agency. "Kids were crying. It's quite scary."
Another said: "It was hell, it was scary. We're glad we're here but at the same time we're very sad."
British warships are standing by to transport up to 12,000 Britons and a further 10,000 people with dual British-Lebanese nationality to Cyprus.
British military bases on the island have offered to provide short-term shelter for people as they wait for repatriation flights.
'Worse by the hour'
US military helicopters have started flying American citizens from Lebanon to Cyprus.
A commercial ship escorted by a US destroyer is due to move another 25,000 people to safety.
Other governments are organising pullouts by land to Syria.
The BBC's Jim Muir in southern Lebanon says the roads are clogged with packed vehicles.
The UN's top humanitarian official, Jan Egeland, said air strikes on roads and bridges were hampering efforts to help the people fleeing their homes.
"It's already very bad, and it is deteriorating by the hour," he told the BBC.
Israel has continued its air raids over southern Beirut, where Hezbollah has its headquarters, and others parts of Lebanon.
At least 10 Lebanese civilians were reported to have been killed in overnight strikes.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said he expects European nations to contribute troops to a proposed stabilisation force to end the fighting.
"It is urgent that the international community acts to make a difference on the ground," Mr Annan told reporters in Brussels.
The evacuation of foreigners from Lebanon is being stepped up, as Israeli warplanes carry out a seventh day of air strikes.
France and Italy have moved 1,600 Europeans by ship to Cyprus, and British warships are preparing to transport thousands of Britons.
The United Nations has warned of a humanitarian disaster in Lebanon as people flee their homes.
Israel is targeting Hezbollah fighters, who have captured two of its soldiers.
More than 200 Lebanese citizens have been killed since Israel launched air strikes last Wednesday. Twenty-four Israelis have died - 12 as a result of Hezbollah rocket attacks.
'Scary'
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni reiterated on Tuesday her government's demands that soldiers captured last Wednesday should be freed without condition and that Hezbollah should be disarmed.
She was speaking after talks on Tuesday with a UN team trying to negotiate a ceasefire.
Tens of thousands of foreigners are set to leave Lebanon by land, sea, and air in the coming days.
On Tuesday morning, a ferry chartered by France brought 1,200 Europeans to the Cypriot port of Larnaca.
Nearly 400 people arrived on an Italian navy vessel on Monday night.
They appeared tired, but relieved to be away from the violence.
"It's getting worse and worse, the bombs are actually so close that we could see the smoke and the fire," one evacuee told Reuters news agency. "Kids were crying. It's quite scary."
Another said: "It was hell, it was scary. We're glad we're here but at the same time we're very sad."
British warships are standing by to transport up to 12,000 Britons and a further 10,000 people with dual British-Lebanese nationality to Cyprus.
British military bases on the island have offered to provide short-term shelter for people as they wait for repatriation flights.
'Worse by the hour'
US military helicopters have started flying American citizens from Lebanon to Cyprus.
A commercial ship escorted by a US destroyer is due to move another 25,000 people to safety.
Other governments are organising pullouts by land to Syria.
The BBC's Jim Muir in southern Lebanon says the roads are clogged with packed vehicles.
The UN's top humanitarian official, Jan Egeland, said air strikes on roads and bridges were hampering efforts to help the people fleeing their homes.
"It's already very bad, and it is deteriorating by the hour," he told the BBC.
Israel has continued its air raids over southern Beirut, where Hezbollah has its headquarters, and others parts of Lebanon.
At least 10 Lebanese civilians were reported to have been killed in overnight strikes.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said he expects European nations to contribute troops to a proposed stabilisation force to end the fighting.
"It is urgent that the international community acts to make a difference on the ground," Mr Annan told reporters in Brussels.
-
theone666
- Major [O-4]
- Posts: 1434
- Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2005 5:00 am
UN call for Middle East ceasefire
Tuesday, 18 July 2006, 10:21 GMT 11:21 UK
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has called for urgent action from the international community to stop the violence between Israel and Lebanon.
He reiterated calls for a new international force to be deployed in the border region.
However, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said it was too early for such a force or for an Israeli ceasefire.
But a UN envoy, who held talks with Ms Livni in Israel, described them as "intensive" and "productive".
Mr Annan made his comments after talks with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso in Brussels.
He said the proposed stabilisation force would need to be bigger and have a stronger mandate than the current UN force of 2,000 deployed in Lebanon's southern border region.
UN proposals
Mr Barroso said some European Union member states had said they would be willing to contribute troops to the force, which was proposed by Mr Annan and British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday.
Terje Roed-Larsen, a senior UN negotiator, said the UN delegation visiting Jerusalem had put forward ideas for ways to end the violence during talks with Ms Livni.
He said the ideas were being considered by the Israeli and Lebanese governments.
After the talks Ms Livni called for the disarmament of Hezbollah, which she said threatened peace and security in the region.
She said that Iran and Syria must be stopped from arming Hezbollah in the future and called for the unconditional return of the captured Israeli soldiers.
More than 200 Lebanese citizens have been killed since Israel launched air strikes last Wednesday following the capture of two Israeli soldiers by militant group Hezbollah.
Twenty-four Israelis have died in the violence - 12 as a result of Hezbollah rocket attacks.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has called for urgent action from the international community to stop the violence between Israel and Lebanon.
He reiterated calls for a new international force to be deployed in the border region.
However, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said it was too early for such a force or for an Israeli ceasefire.
But a UN envoy, who held talks with Ms Livni in Israel, described them as "intensive" and "productive".
Mr Annan made his comments after talks with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso in Brussels.
He said the proposed stabilisation force would need to be bigger and have a stronger mandate than the current UN force of 2,000 deployed in Lebanon's southern border region.
UN proposals
Mr Barroso said some European Union member states had said they would be willing to contribute troops to the force, which was proposed by Mr Annan and British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday.
Terje Roed-Larsen, a senior UN negotiator, said the UN delegation visiting Jerusalem had put forward ideas for ways to end the violence during talks with Ms Livni.
He said the ideas were being considered by the Israeli and Lebanese governments.
After the talks Ms Livni called for the disarmament of Hezbollah, which she said threatened peace and security in the region.
She said that Iran and Syria must be stopped from arming Hezbollah in the future and called for the unconditional return of the captured Israeli soldiers.
More than 200 Lebanese citizens have been killed since Israel launched air strikes last Wednesday following the capture of two Israeli soldiers by militant group Hezbollah.
Twenty-four Israelis have died in the violence - 12 as a result of Hezbollah rocket attacks.
-
theone666
- Major [O-4]
- Posts: 1434
- Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2005 5:00 am
Lebanon toll passes 254
Wednesday 19 July 2006, 2:32 Makka Time, 23:32 GMT
At least 29 people have been killed in the latest air strikes by Israeli warplanes in Lebanon, raising the toll there to more than 254.
Israeli aircraft struck targets across Lebanon on Tuesday, hitting many areas north and east of Beirut that have so far been quiet.
Nine civilians, all from one family and including children, were killed and four wounded in an air strike that destroyed a house in the south Lebanese village of Aitarun. Four others died in strikes elsewhere in the south.
Another strike at a Lebanese army barracks at Jumhur area, east of Beirut, killed 11 Lebanese soldiers and wounded 30.
Aljazeera television reported that Israeli forces had also attacked targets around Zahle, a mainly Christian town in central Lebanon, and attacked ambulances on nearby roads.
A truck carrying medical supplies donated by the United Arab Emirates was hit on the Beirut-Damascus highway and its driver was killed, the Lebanese health ministry said.
Hezbollah also announced that one of its fighters was killed in fighting with Israeli forces near the border.
Diplomatic efforts
Diplomatic efforts have brought no signs of an end to the week-old assault that began after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers.
Israel's military action in Lebanon has so far killed at least 230 people, all but 26 of them civilians, and inflicted the heaviest destruction in the country for two decades, with attacks on ports, roads, bridges, factories and petrol stations.
The Israeli prime minister told United Nations envoys in Israel trying to broker a ceasefire that its offensive would continue until Hezbollah releases its two soldiers and rocket attacks end.
"Israel will continue the battle against Hezbollah and will continue to strike targets belonging to the group until it obtains the release of its captured soldiers and restores the security of Israeli citizens," Ehud Olmert was quoted as saying in a statement following talks with the UN team.
Earlier, Israel's deputy army chief, Major-General Moshe Kaplinsky, told Army Radio: "The fighting in Lebanon will end within a few weeks. We will not take months.
"We need more time to complete our very clear goals. When we fight terror it is a war that needs to be very accurate, very schematic and it takes time.
"Hezbollah has a very large system of different types of rockets. The [group] still has an ability to fire at the north and residents still feel this. We will do everything to shorten this suffering."
Ground invasion
He added that a ground invasion into Lebanon had been considered.
"At this stage we do not think we have to activate massive ground forces into Lebanon but if we have to do this, we will. We are not ruling it out," Kaplinsky said.
Israeli aircraft also struck Beirut's southern suburbs, the northern city of Tripoli as well as two Lebanese army barracks in the Jumhur and Kafarshima areas early on Tuesday.
Television footage showed balls of fire and clouds of smoke billowing from a Lebanese army position east of Beirut. Eleven soldiers were killed and thirty were wounded, a security source said.
Lebanon's army has so far tried to remain on the sidelines of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
Loud explosions caused by other raids on Beirut's southern suburb were also heard across the capital.
Previous strikes on the area had destroyed Hezbollah's headquarters.
Raids on the Christian coastal town of Byblos north of Beirut damaged two trucks without inflicting casualties, police said.
Warplanes also hit the eastern town of Baalbek.
Aljazeera's correspondent reported that there was relative calm in south Lebanon on Tuesday morning after the overnight air raids and artillery shelling.
Hezbollah attacks
One Israeli was killed, and several others wounded, in the town of Nahariya, as Hezbollah continued to hit northern Israel with rocket attacks on Tuesday afternoon.
Rockets also hit the northern city of Haifa, where air raid sirens sounded throughout the day, and the towns of Safed, Acre and Kiryat Shemona.
Hezbollah's attacks on Israeli forces and the firing of hundreds of rockets at northern Israel have killed 25 people so far, 13 of them civilians.
A senior Israeli officer has said that the rocket attacks had begun to ease off, but that the army needed perhaps three to four weeks to destroy the Hezbollah's military stockpiles.
"We have hit a large part of their weapons arsenal, their anti-aircraft missiles and their rockets," Udi Adam, head of Israel's northern command, told Channel 1 Television.
A Hezbollah spokesman dismissed the claim, describing it as part of Israel's psychological warfare against the group.
Fighting erupted after Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia resistance group, backed by Syria and Iran and part of Lebanon's government, seized two Israeli soldiers and killed eight in a cross-border raid on northern Israel on July 12.
Lebanon's government has repeatedly called for an immediate ceasefire, but world powers have said any solution must include the release of the two soldiers, which Hezbollah wants to swap for prisoners in Israeli jails.
Kaplinsky said the two missing soldiers, along with a third, who was captured by Palestinian fighters on June 25, were thought to be alive and safe.
"We know that all three are alive. We know who is holding them and, as I said, we will do everything to bring them home," he said.
At least 29 people have been killed in the latest air strikes by Israeli warplanes in Lebanon, raising the toll there to more than 254.
Israeli aircraft struck targets across Lebanon on Tuesday, hitting many areas north and east of Beirut that have so far been quiet.
Nine civilians, all from one family and including children, were killed and four wounded in an air strike that destroyed a house in the south Lebanese village of Aitarun. Four others died in strikes elsewhere in the south.
Another strike at a Lebanese army barracks at Jumhur area, east of Beirut, killed 11 Lebanese soldiers and wounded 30.
Aljazeera television reported that Israeli forces had also attacked targets around Zahle, a mainly Christian town in central Lebanon, and attacked ambulances on nearby roads.
A truck carrying medical supplies donated by the United Arab Emirates was hit on the Beirut-Damascus highway and its driver was killed, the Lebanese health ministry said.
Hezbollah also announced that one of its fighters was killed in fighting with Israeli forces near the border.
Diplomatic efforts
Diplomatic efforts have brought no signs of an end to the week-old assault that began after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers.
Israel's military action in Lebanon has so far killed at least 230 people, all but 26 of them civilians, and inflicted the heaviest destruction in the country for two decades, with attacks on ports, roads, bridges, factories and petrol stations.
The Israeli prime minister told United Nations envoys in Israel trying to broker a ceasefire that its offensive would continue until Hezbollah releases its two soldiers and rocket attacks end.
"Israel will continue the battle against Hezbollah and will continue to strike targets belonging to the group until it obtains the release of its captured soldiers and restores the security of Israeli citizens," Ehud Olmert was quoted as saying in a statement following talks with the UN team.
Earlier, Israel's deputy army chief, Major-General Moshe Kaplinsky, told Army Radio: "The fighting in Lebanon will end within a few weeks. We will not take months.
"We need more time to complete our very clear goals. When we fight terror it is a war that needs to be very accurate, very schematic and it takes time.
"Hezbollah has a very large system of different types of rockets. The [group] still has an ability to fire at the north and residents still feel this. We will do everything to shorten this suffering."
Ground invasion
He added that a ground invasion into Lebanon had been considered.
"At this stage we do not think we have to activate massive ground forces into Lebanon but if we have to do this, we will. We are not ruling it out," Kaplinsky said.
Israeli aircraft also struck Beirut's southern suburbs, the northern city of Tripoli as well as two Lebanese army barracks in the Jumhur and Kafarshima areas early on Tuesday.
Television footage showed balls of fire and clouds of smoke billowing from a Lebanese army position east of Beirut. Eleven soldiers were killed and thirty were wounded, a security source said.
Lebanon's army has so far tried to remain on the sidelines of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
Loud explosions caused by other raids on Beirut's southern suburb were also heard across the capital.
Previous strikes on the area had destroyed Hezbollah's headquarters.
Raids on the Christian coastal town of Byblos north of Beirut damaged two trucks without inflicting casualties, police said.
Warplanes also hit the eastern town of Baalbek.
Aljazeera's correspondent reported that there was relative calm in south Lebanon on Tuesday morning after the overnight air raids and artillery shelling.
Hezbollah attacks
One Israeli was killed, and several others wounded, in the town of Nahariya, as Hezbollah continued to hit northern Israel with rocket attacks on Tuesday afternoon.
Rockets also hit the northern city of Haifa, where air raid sirens sounded throughout the day, and the towns of Safed, Acre and Kiryat Shemona.
Hezbollah's attacks on Israeli forces and the firing of hundreds of rockets at northern Israel have killed 25 people so far, 13 of them civilians.
A senior Israeli officer has said that the rocket attacks had begun to ease off, but that the army needed perhaps three to four weeks to destroy the Hezbollah's military stockpiles.
"We have hit a large part of their weapons arsenal, their anti-aircraft missiles and their rockets," Udi Adam, head of Israel's northern command, told Channel 1 Television.
A Hezbollah spokesman dismissed the claim, describing it as part of Israel's psychological warfare against the group.
Fighting erupted after Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia resistance group, backed by Syria and Iran and part of Lebanon's government, seized two Israeli soldiers and killed eight in a cross-border raid on northern Israel on July 12.
Lebanon's government has repeatedly called for an immediate ceasefire, but world powers have said any solution must include the release of the two soldiers, which Hezbollah wants to swap for prisoners in Israeli jails.
Kaplinsky said the two missing soldiers, along with a third, who was captured by Palestinian fighters on June 25, were thought to be alive and safe.
"We know that all three are alive. We know who is holding them and, as I said, we will do everything to bring them home," he said.
-
theone666
- Major [O-4]
- Posts: 1434
- Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2005 5:00 am
People by the Thousands Evacuate Lebanon
By ZEINA KARAM and GEORGE PSYLLI, AP
BEIRUT, Lebanon (July 18) -- Europeans and Lebanese with foreign passports fled Lebanon by the thousands, while Americans expressed frustration at the slow pace of U.S. evacuation efforts Tuesday as a cruise ship chugged toward the country to pick them up.
A Greek cruise ship carrying about 700 French citizens and others -- many women and children -- out of Lebanon arrived in Cyprus' port of Larnaca, while scores of people waited to board the Hual Transporter, a Swedish chartered ship docked at Beirut's port.
Haakon Svane, an official with the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, said the ship was expected to carry about 1,000 passengers, including Swedes, Finns, Norwegians and a few Americans.
An American man and his wife boarding the Swedish chartered ship expressed anger at how long the process to evacuate U.S. citizens was taking as fighting between the Israelis and Hezbollah guerrillas entered its seventh day.
"I can't wait any more. I'm sorry it's taking them too long," he said. The man, who said he was from Pennsylvania, said he was too distraught to be interviewed and declined to give his name.
Jonathan Chakhtoura, a 19-year-old Lebanese-American fashion design student in Boston, said he registered with the U.S. Embassy electronically to be evacuated three days ago, but he has not heard from the embassy except for an e-mail acknowledging his registration.
Chakhtoura, who would like to be back in the U.S. before classes start on Sept. 6, said he was disappointed with the way the embassy has handled the evacuation.
"Every time I call to see what's going on the lines are busy. When they answer, they say they don't know," he complained. "I am extremely disappointed. A lot of people don't know what is going on. There is so much confusion. If it's security they are worried about, then I think we will be more secure if we know what is going on."
The U.S. Navy said the cruise ship Orient Queen left Cyprus's port of Limassol for Beirut. Escorted by a U.S. destroyer, it was to join U.S. military helicopters that have ferried a few dozen U.S. citizens to a British base on Cyprus. Officials said the Orient Queen can carry 750 people at a time and it was expected to be full. A U.S. Navy destroyer, the USS Gonzales, will be available to escort the Orient Queen, the Pentagon said, although officials declined to provide times for the ship's arrival or departure from Beirut.
U.S. military helicopters have ferried about 20 U.S. citizens to a British base on the nearby Mediterranean island of Cyprus, and more took off on Tuesday, the U.S. Embassy said, but it did not give a number.
Israel instituted a sea blockade three miles off shore as part of its campaign of retribution after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers on July 12 in a cross-border raid, but it was allowing evacuation ships through. Lebanon's only international airport has been shut since Thursday when Israeli jets bombed all three runways.
"I am extremely sad for Lebanon and for all my new friends here," said Tara Olsson, a 19-year-old Swedish student who was leaving just two weeks after she arrived in Lebanon to study Arabic. "I actually didn't want to leave, but when I heard foreign embassies were organizing evacuations I got worried."
Leila Issa, a 45-year-old Swedish woman of Lebanese origin who had come to spend the summer in Lebanon, said she would never return. "I have learned my lesson, this country is hopeless," the teacher said as she helped her 75-year-old mother board the ship.
Ali Khreiss, a 46-year-old man said he wamted to stay behind and fight with Hezbollah but his wife begged him to leave.
"I want to be part of this. This is the first time an Arab country bombs Haifa," he said, referring to the Israel's third-largest city targeted by Hezbollah rockets for the first time this week. "I will drop them off in Sweden and return," he added.
The Canadian government said Tuesday it has arranged for sea vessels to assist Canadians wishing to depart Lebanon beginning Wednesday.
A Turkish ship, the "Su," left northern Cyprus on Tuesday to evacuate Swedish and other EU citizens stranded in Beirut, according to the Turkish Cypriot news agency, TAK. The ship was to reach Lebanon later Tuesday and take some 450 Europeans to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Mersin, it said.
France, which ruled Lebanon as a colony until 1943, has more than 20,000 citizens in Lebanon. Most of those who left Monday were of Lebanese origin. Many of the French passengers were reportedly to be flown to France aboard chartered jumbo jets.
The Greek cruise ship Ierapetra arrived just after dawn at Cyprus port of Larnaca, and some of the evacuees expressed regret about having to leave.
The passengers included many children, including one who was taken off on a stretcher, and 34 Americans -- many students.
Ryan Furhu, 20, from Baltimore was studying Arabic during a summer session at the American University of Beirut. "In last few days we were waiting to get out," he said. "We were studying Arabic at summer school but obviously that ended."
Renee Codsi, a 29-year-old teacher from California, said she had been living in Beirut for the past four years.
"Lebanon has become my home. I'm worried about the people I left behind. I wasn't really worried about myself," she said.
A teacher of environmental science at the American Community School in Beirut, Codsi said she had a 73-year-old Lebanese father whom she left behind.
The Ierapetra arrived in Larnaca a few hours after an Italian warship brought more than 300 Italians and other Westerners to Cyprus.
Zeina Karam was reporting from Beirut, while George Psyllides was in Larnaca, Cyprus; Partick Quinn contributed to this report from Nicosia, Cyprus.
07-18-06 09:11 EDT
BEIRUT, Lebanon (July 18) -- Europeans and Lebanese with foreign passports fled Lebanon by the thousands, while Americans expressed frustration at the slow pace of U.S. evacuation efforts Tuesday as a cruise ship chugged toward the country to pick them up.
A Greek cruise ship carrying about 700 French citizens and others -- many women and children -- out of Lebanon arrived in Cyprus' port of Larnaca, while scores of people waited to board the Hual Transporter, a Swedish chartered ship docked at Beirut's port.
Haakon Svane, an official with the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, said the ship was expected to carry about 1,000 passengers, including Swedes, Finns, Norwegians and a few Americans.
An American man and his wife boarding the Swedish chartered ship expressed anger at how long the process to evacuate U.S. citizens was taking as fighting between the Israelis and Hezbollah guerrillas entered its seventh day.
"I can't wait any more. I'm sorry it's taking them too long," he said. The man, who said he was from Pennsylvania, said he was too distraught to be interviewed and declined to give his name.
Jonathan Chakhtoura, a 19-year-old Lebanese-American fashion design student in Boston, said he registered with the U.S. Embassy electronically to be evacuated three days ago, but he has not heard from the embassy except for an e-mail acknowledging his registration.
Chakhtoura, who would like to be back in the U.S. before classes start on Sept. 6, said he was disappointed with the way the embassy has handled the evacuation.
"Every time I call to see what's going on the lines are busy. When they answer, they say they don't know," he complained. "I am extremely disappointed. A lot of people don't know what is going on. There is so much confusion. If it's security they are worried about, then I think we will be more secure if we know what is going on."
The U.S. Navy said the cruise ship Orient Queen left Cyprus's port of Limassol for Beirut. Escorted by a U.S. destroyer, it was to join U.S. military helicopters that have ferried a few dozen U.S. citizens to a British base on Cyprus. Officials said the Orient Queen can carry 750 people at a time and it was expected to be full. A U.S. Navy destroyer, the USS Gonzales, will be available to escort the Orient Queen, the Pentagon said, although officials declined to provide times for the ship's arrival or departure from Beirut.
U.S. military helicopters have ferried about 20 U.S. citizens to a British base on the nearby Mediterranean island of Cyprus, and more took off on Tuesday, the U.S. Embassy said, but it did not give a number.
Israel instituted a sea blockade three miles off shore as part of its campaign of retribution after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers on July 12 in a cross-border raid, but it was allowing evacuation ships through. Lebanon's only international airport has been shut since Thursday when Israeli jets bombed all three runways.
"I am extremely sad for Lebanon and for all my new friends here," said Tara Olsson, a 19-year-old Swedish student who was leaving just two weeks after she arrived in Lebanon to study Arabic. "I actually didn't want to leave, but when I heard foreign embassies were organizing evacuations I got worried."
Leila Issa, a 45-year-old Swedish woman of Lebanese origin who had come to spend the summer in Lebanon, said she would never return. "I have learned my lesson, this country is hopeless," the teacher said as she helped her 75-year-old mother board the ship.
Ali Khreiss, a 46-year-old man said he wamted to stay behind and fight with Hezbollah but his wife begged him to leave.
"I want to be part of this. This is the first time an Arab country bombs Haifa," he said, referring to the Israel's third-largest city targeted by Hezbollah rockets for the first time this week. "I will drop them off in Sweden and return," he added.
The Canadian government said Tuesday it has arranged for sea vessels to assist Canadians wishing to depart Lebanon beginning Wednesday.
A Turkish ship, the "Su," left northern Cyprus on Tuesday to evacuate Swedish and other EU citizens stranded in Beirut, according to the Turkish Cypriot news agency, TAK. The ship was to reach Lebanon later Tuesday and take some 450 Europeans to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Mersin, it said.
France, which ruled Lebanon as a colony until 1943, has more than 20,000 citizens in Lebanon. Most of those who left Monday were of Lebanese origin. Many of the French passengers were reportedly to be flown to France aboard chartered jumbo jets.
The Greek cruise ship Ierapetra arrived just after dawn at Cyprus port of Larnaca, and some of the evacuees expressed regret about having to leave.
The passengers included many children, including one who was taken off on a stretcher, and 34 Americans -- many students.
Ryan Furhu, 20, from Baltimore was studying Arabic during a summer session at the American University of Beirut. "In last few days we were waiting to get out," he said. "We were studying Arabic at summer school but obviously that ended."
Renee Codsi, a 29-year-old teacher from California, said she had been living in Beirut for the past four years.
"Lebanon has become my home. I'm worried about the people I left behind. I wasn't really worried about myself," she said.
A teacher of environmental science at the American Community School in Beirut, Codsi said she had a 73-year-old Lebanese father whom she left behind.
The Ierapetra arrived in Larnaca a few hours after an Italian warship brought more than 300 Italians and other Westerners to Cyprus.
Zeina Karam was reporting from Beirut, while George Psyllides was in Larnaca, Cyprus; Partick Quinn contributed to this report from Nicosia, Cyprus.
07-18-06 09:11 EDT
-
theone666
- Major [O-4]
- Posts: 1434
- Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2005 5:00 am
Israel Says Lebanon Offensive Could Last for Weeks
By LAURIE COPANS, AP
JERUSALEM (July 18) -- Israeli officials said Tuesday their offensive in Lebanon could last several more weeks and involve large numbers of ground forces, casting doubt on diplomatic efforts to broker a cease-fire.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told a visiting U.N. delegation that "Israel will continue to combat Hezbollah and will continue to strike targets of the group" until captured Israeli soldiers are released and Israeli citizens are safe from attacks.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said diplomatic efforts were under way, but a cease-fire would be impossible unless the captured soldiers are returned unharmed and Lebanese troops are deployed along the countries' border, with a guarantee that the Hezbollah militia would be disarmed.
Livni's remarks after meeting the U.N. delegation were the first indication that both sides were making significant efforts to end the weeklong conflict.
But military officials said the offensive was likely to go on, and perhaps expand.
Maj. Gen. Udi Adam, the head of the Israeli army's northern command, said the offensive against Hezbollah, which has mostly been limited to Israel's air force and navy, would continue.
"I think that we should assume that it will take a few more weeks," he told Israel's Army Radio.
The army's deputy chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Moshe Kaplinski, told Israel Radio that Israel has not ruled out deploying "massive ground forces into Lebanon."
"We certainly won't reach months and I hope it also won't be many more weeks, but we still need time to complete the operation's very clear objectives," Kaplinsky said.
Public Security Minister Avi Dichter said 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," Dichter told Army Radio.
Hezbollah fired more missiles at northern Israel, killing one Israeli in the northern town of Nahariya and wounding several others, Israeli officials said.
Rockets also hit the northern city of Haifa.
Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets at northern Israeli towns from the Lebanese border since fighting began July 12, forcing hundreds of thousands of Israelis to take cover in underground shelters or flee to the south.
Israeli strikes in Lebanon raised the death toll in that country to at least 226.
Israelis strongly support the military operation against Hezbollah, according a to poll in the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot. It said 86 percent of Israelis believe the operation is justified, 81 percent want it to continue and 58 percent say it should last until Hezbollah is destroyed. The poll had a margin of error of 4.2 percentage points.
Nevertheless, Livni said, "We are beginning a diplomatic process alongside the military operation that will continue."
"The diplomatic process is not meant to shorten the window of time of the army's operation, but rather is meant to be an extension of it and to prevent a need for future military operations," she told reporters.
Israel's two-front offensive against Islamic militants began on June 25 when Hamas-linked guerrillas 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 this month, attacking a military patrol on the border in northern Israel, killing three soldiers and capturing two.
Israel has been reluctant to use ground forces because of memories of its ill-fated 18-year occupation of south Lebanon, which ended in 2000.
Livni signaled Israel might be willing to accept a temporary international "stabilization" force in south Lebanon to bolster the 2,000-strong force already there. Western nations have been proposing the increased force as part of a possible cease-fire agreement _ an idea Israel had previously brushed off.
She said securing south Lebanon "requires activity by the Lebanese government, with the oversight (and) assistance of the international community." She said Israel's experience with the current U.N. force was "not satisfactory" and that it prefers no such force in the long-term.
In Belgium, U.N Secretary-General Kofi Annan said any international stabilization force must be "considerably" larger and better armed than the U.N.'s current force in Lebanon, which numbers some 2,000 troops and long has been viewed by all sides in the Middle East as ineffectual and lacking a strong mandate.
In recent days, Israeli officials have sent conflicting signals about whether Israel would demand Hezbollah's immediate disarmament as a condition for a cease-fire. Livni's comments indicated Israel would accept future disarmament, provided that Lebanon immediately deploy its own troops along the border to prevent any future rocket attacks against northern Israel.
U.N. negotiator Terje Roed-Larsen said in Jerusalem after meeting Livni that "concrete ideas" had been presented to the Israeli government to solve the crisis, and that Israel would deliberate on them in the coming days.
"I think both parties agreed that it is necessary to have a political framework in order to reach, eventually, a cease-fire," Roed-Larsen said.
He did not elaborate on the proposals.
The U.N. team, led by Annan's special political adviser Vijay Nambiar and Mideast envoy Alvaro de Soto and including Roed-Larsen, arrived in Jerusalem Monday night to try to broker an end to the week of violence.
07-18-06 13:45 EDT
JERUSALEM (July 18) -- Israeli officials said Tuesday their offensive in Lebanon could last several more weeks and involve large numbers of ground forces, casting doubt on diplomatic efforts to broker a cease-fire.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told a visiting U.N. delegation that "Israel will continue to combat Hezbollah and will continue to strike targets of the group" until captured Israeli soldiers are released and Israeli citizens are safe from attacks.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said diplomatic efforts were under way, but a cease-fire would be impossible unless the captured soldiers are returned unharmed and Lebanese troops are deployed along the countries' border, with a guarantee that the Hezbollah militia would be disarmed.
Livni's remarks after meeting the U.N. delegation were the first indication that both sides were making significant efforts to end the weeklong conflict.
But military officials said the offensive was likely to go on, and perhaps expand.
Maj. Gen. Udi Adam, the head of the Israeli army's northern command, said the offensive against Hezbollah, which has mostly been limited to Israel's air force and navy, would continue.
"I think that we should assume that it will take a few more weeks," he told Israel's Army Radio.
The army's deputy chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Moshe Kaplinski, told Israel Radio that Israel has not ruled out deploying "massive ground forces into Lebanon."
"We certainly won't reach months and I hope it also won't be many more weeks, but we still need time to complete the operation's very clear objectives," Kaplinsky said.
Public Security Minister Avi Dichter said 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," Dichter told Army Radio.
Hezbollah fired more missiles at northern Israel, killing one Israeli in the northern town of Nahariya and wounding several others, Israeli officials said.
Rockets also hit the northern city of Haifa.
Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets at northern Israeli towns from the Lebanese border since fighting began July 12, forcing hundreds of thousands of Israelis to take cover in underground shelters or flee to the south.
Israeli strikes in Lebanon raised the death toll in that country to at least 226.
Israelis strongly support the military operation against Hezbollah, according a to poll in the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot. It said 86 percent of Israelis believe the operation is justified, 81 percent want it to continue and 58 percent say it should last until Hezbollah is destroyed. The poll had a margin of error of 4.2 percentage points.
Nevertheless, Livni said, "We are beginning a diplomatic process alongside the military operation that will continue."
"The diplomatic process is not meant to shorten the window of time of the army's operation, but rather is meant to be an extension of it and to prevent a need for future military operations," she told reporters.
Israel's two-front offensive against Islamic militants began on June 25 when Hamas-linked guerrillas 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 this month, attacking a military patrol on the border in northern Israel, killing three soldiers and capturing two.
Israel has been reluctant to use ground forces because of memories of its ill-fated 18-year occupation of south Lebanon, which ended in 2000.
Livni signaled Israel might be willing to accept a temporary international "stabilization" force in south Lebanon to bolster the 2,000-strong force already there. Western nations have been proposing the increased force as part of a possible cease-fire agreement _ an idea Israel had previously brushed off.
She said securing south Lebanon "requires activity by the Lebanese government, with the oversight (and) assistance of the international community." She said Israel's experience with the current U.N. force was "not satisfactory" and that it prefers no such force in the long-term.
In Belgium, U.N Secretary-General Kofi Annan said any international stabilization force must be "considerably" larger and better armed than the U.N.'s current force in Lebanon, which numbers some 2,000 troops and long has been viewed by all sides in the Middle East as ineffectual and lacking a strong mandate.
In recent days, Israeli officials have sent conflicting signals about whether Israel would demand Hezbollah's immediate disarmament as a condition for a cease-fire. Livni's comments indicated Israel would accept future disarmament, provided that Lebanon immediately deploy its own troops along the border to prevent any future rocket attacks against northern Israel.
U.N. negotiator Terje Roed-Larsen said in Jerusalem after meeting Livni that "concrete ideas" had been presented to the Israeli government to solve the crisis, and that Israel would deliberate on them in the coming days.
"I think both parties agreed that it is necessary to have a political framework in order to reach, eventually, a cease-fire," Roed-Larsen said.
He did not elaborate on the proposals.
The U.N. team, led by Annan's special political adviser Vijay Nambiar and Mideast envoy Alvaro de Soto and including Roed-Larsen, arrived in Jerusalem Monday night to try to broker an end to the week of violence.
07-18-06 13:45 EDT
-
theone666
- Major [O-4]
- Posts: 1434
- Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2005 5:00 am
Lebanon condemns Israel 'madness'
Tuesday, 18 July 2006, 16:19 GMT 17:19 UK
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora says Israel is "opening the gates of hell and madness" on his country.
In a BBC interview, he urged Hezbollah to release two captured Israeli soldiers but said Israel's response to the crisis had been disproportionate.
The UN is evacuating all non-essential staff, joining tens of thousands of foreigners fleeing the crisis.
Fresh Israeli strikes have killed 11 Lebanese soldiers, while Hezbollah rockets killed an Israeli in Nahariya.
Israel launched its assault and blockade last Wednesday after Hezbollah fighters captured two of its soldiers.
About 230 Lebanese people have been killed since then - the vast majority of them civilians, but including about 30 soldiers. The number of Hezbollah fighters killed is not known.
Twenty-five Israelis have died - 13 civilians and 12 members of the military.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has reiterated his government's demands for the captured soldiers to be freed without condition and for Hezbollah to be disarmed.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni held talks on Tuesday with a UN team trying to negotiate a ceasefire, but said the soldiers' release and the deployment of the Lebanese army in the south would have to precede a ceasefire.
Her comments came as tens of thousands more foreigners were set to leave Lebanon by land, sea, and air.
A British warship docked in Beirut at the start of a mission to transport up to 12,000 Britons and a further 10,000 people with dual British-Lebanese nationality to Cyprus.
The US, Canada and other governments were also organising evacuations by land, air or sea.
In other developments:
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said he expected European nations to contribute troops to a proposed stabilisation force to end the fighting
The UN has warned of a humanitarian disaster as Lebanese flee their homes, with air strikes on roads and bridges hampering efforts to help them
Lebanon's pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud has vowed to stand by Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
Shlomo Goldwasser, the father of one of the missing Israeli soldiers, said he hoped all means - legal or illegal - would be used to get his son Ehud back
As Israel launched fresh cross-border attacks on Tuesday, six bodies were pulled from the rubble of a home in the Lebanese border village of Aitaroun, and another family was killed in the coastal city of Tyre.
The 11 Lebanese soldiers were killed at a barracks east of Beirut.
The Lebanese army has been ordered not to respond to the Israeli attacks. But Lebanese soldiers have now died in several strikes, including one on the port of Abdeh on Monday in which nine died.
In Tuesday's attacks by Hezbollah, rockets hit the northern city of Haifa, as well as Safed, Acre, Kiryat Shemona, and Gush Halav region near Safed, Israeli officials told AP news agency.
"I was near the bomb shelter, there was a humongous boom, and I saw it was two meters (yards) next to my house, really two meters," Eli Dayari, a resident in Nahariya, told Israel's Channel 10 television.
"People are panicking and the house was on fire, really big flames, the firefighters are here."
Israeli military officials say more than 700 Hezbollah rockets have landed in Israel since the crisis began.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora says Israel is "opening the gates of hell and madness" on his country.
In a BBC interview, he urged Hezbollah to release two captured Israeli soldiers but said Israel's response to the crisis had been disproportionate.
The UN is evacuating all non-essential staff, joining tens of thousands of foreigners fleeing the crisis.
Fresh Israeli strikes have killed 11 Lebanese soldiers, while Hezbollah rockets killed an Israeli in Nahariya.
Israel launched its assault and blockade last Wednesday after Hezbollah fighters captured two of its soldiers.
About 230 Lebanese people have been killed since then - the vast majority of them civilians, but including about 30 soldiers. The number of Hezbollah fighters killed is not known.
Twenty-five Israelis have died - 13 civilians and 12 members of the military.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has reiterated his government's demands for the captured soldiers to be freed without condition and for Hezbollah to be disarmed.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni held talks on Tuesday with a UN team trying to negotiate a ceasefire, but said the soldiers' release and the deployment of the Lebanese army in the south would have to precede a ceasefire.
Her comments came as tens of thousands more foreigners were set to leave Lebanon by land, sea, and air.
A British warship docked in Beirut at the start of a mission to transport up to 12,000 Britons and a further 10,000 people with dual British-Lebanese nationality to Cyprus.
The US, Canada and other governments were also organising evacuations by land, air or sea.
In other developments:
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said he expected European nations to contribute troops to a proposed stabilisation force to end the fighting
The UN has warned of a humanitarian disaster as Lebanese flee their homes, with air strikes on roads and bridges hampering efforts to help them
Lebanon's pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud has vowed to stand by Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
Shlomo Goldwasser, the father of one of the missing Israeli soldiers, said he hoped all means - legal or illegal - would be used to get his son Ehud back
As Israel launched fresh cross-border attacks on Tuesday, six bodies were pulled from the rubble of a home in the Lebanese border village of Aitaroun, and another family was killed in the coastal city of Tyre.
The 11 Lebanese soldiers were killed at a barracks east of Beirut.
The Lebanese army has been ordered not to respond to the Israeli attacks. But Lebanese soldiers have now died in several strikes, including one on the port of Abdeh on Monday in which nine died.
In Tuesday's attacks by Hezbollah, rockets hit the northern city of Haifa, as well as Safed, Acre, Kiryat Shemona, and Gush Halav region near Safed, Israeli officials told AP news agency.
"I was near the bomb shelter, there was a humongous boom, and I saw it was two meters (yards) next to my house, really two meters," Eli Dayari, a resident in Nahariya, told Israel's Channel 10 television.
"People are panicking and the house was on fire, really big flames, the firefighters are here."
Israeli military officials say more than 700 Hezbollah rockets have landed in Israel since the crisis began.
-
theone666
- Major [O-4]
- Posts: 1434
- Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2005 5:00 am
Israel claims Iran link to crisis
Tuesday, 18 July 2006, 20:54 GMT 21:54 UK
Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers last week was timed to divert attention from Tehran's nuclear programme, the Israeli PM has claimed.
Ehud Olmert said that the cross-border raid in which the two soldiers were taken and eight others killed was co-ordinated with Tehran.
US President George W Bush meanwhile accused Syria of trying to use the crisis to get back into Lebanon.
About 30 people died in a seventh day of conflict, most of them in Lebanon.
Lebanese PM Fouad Siniora said Israel was "opening the gates of hell and madness" on his country.
In a BBC interview, he urged Hezbollah to release the two Israeli soldiers but said Israel's response to the crisis had been disproportionate.
As the unrest continues, the UN has announced that its non-essential staff are to join the tens of thousands of foreigners fleeing the crisis.
Israel launched its assault and blockade last Wednesday after the two soldiers were captured.
About 230 Lebanese people have been killed since then - the vast majority of them civilians, but including about 30 soldiers. The number of Hezbollah fighters killed is not known.
Twenty-five Israelis have died - 13 civilians and 12 members of the military.
Israel has frequently blamed Syria and Iran for arming and backing Hezbollah, but Mr Olmert's comments were the first explicit claim of Tehran's direct involvement in the capture of the soldiers, correspondents say.
Mr Olmert said the timing of the incident was not an accident, and the international community at the G8 summit in Russia had fallen for it - discussing Lebanon rather than Iran's nuclear programme.
His comments came at a meeting of Israeli ambassadors.
Earlier, Israel's foreign minister met a UN team trying to negotiate a ceasefire, but said the soldiers' release and the deployment of the Lebanese army in the south would have to precede any ceasefire.
Thousands more foreigners have continued to flee Lebanon as the crisis deepens.
A British warship docked in Beirut at the start of a mission to transport up to 12,000 Britons and a further 10,000 people with dual British-Lebanese nationality to Cyprus.
The US, Canada and other governments were also organising evacuations by land, air or sea.
In other developments:
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said he expected European nations to contribute troops to a proposed stabilisation force to end the fighting
The UN has warned of a humanitarian disaster as Lebanese flee their homes, with air strikes on roads and bridges hampering efforts to help them
Lebanon's pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud has vowed to stand by Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
Shlomo Goldwasser, the father of one of the missing Israeli soldiers, said he hoped all means - legal or illegal - would be used to get his son Ehud back
As Israel launched fresh cross-border attacks on Tuesday, six bodies were pulled from the rubble of a home in the Lebanese border village of Aitaroun, and another family was killed in the coastal city of Tyre.
Eleven Lebanese soldiers were killed at a barracks east of Beirut.
The Lebanese army has been ordered not to respond to the Israeli attacks. But Lebanese soldiers have now died in several strikes, including one on the port of Abdeh on Monday in which nine died.
In Tuesday's attacks by Hezbollah, an Israeli was killed in Nahariya.
Rockets also hit the northern city of Haifa, Safed, Acre, Kiryat Shemona, and Gush Halav region near Safed, Israeli officials told AP news agency.
Israeli military officials say more than 700 Hezbollah rockets have now landed in Israel since the crisis began.
Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers last week was timed to divert attention from Tehran's nuclear programme, the Israeli PM has claimed.
Ehud Olmert said that the cross-border raid in which the two soldiers were taken and eight others killed was co-ordinated with Tehran.
US President George W Bush meanwhile accused Syria of trying to use the crisis to get back into Lebanon.
About 30 people died in a seventh day of conflict, most of them in Lebanon.
Lebanese PM Fouad Siniora said Israel was "opening the gates of hell and madness" on his country.
In a BBC interview, he urged Hezbollah to release the two Israeli soldiers but said Israel's response to the crisis had been disproportionate.
As the unrest continues, the UN has announced that its non-essential staff are to join the tens of thousands of foreigners fleeing the crisis.
Israel launched its assault and blockade last Wednesday after the two soldiers were captured.
About 230 Lebanese people have been killed since then - the vast majority of them civilians, but including about 30 soldiers. The number of Hezbollah fighters killed is not known.
Twenty-five Israelis have died - 13 civilians and 12 members of the military.
Israel has frequently blamed Syria and Iran for arming and backing Hezbollah, but Mr Olmert's comments were the first explicit claim of Tehran's direct involvement in the capture of the soldiers, correspondents say.
Mr Olmert said the timing of the incident was not an accident, and the international community at the G8 summit in Russia had fallen for it - discussing Lebanon rather than Iran's nuclear programme.
His comments came at a meeting of Israeli ambassadors.
Earlier, Israel's foreign minister met a UN team trying to negotiate a ceasefire, but said the soldiers' release and the deployment of the Lebanese army in the south would have to precede any ceasefire.
Thousands more foreigners have continued to flee Lebanon as the crisis deepens.
A British warship docked in Beirut at the start of a mission to transport up to 12,000 Britons and a further 10,000 people with dual British-Lebanese nationality to Cyprus.
The US, Canada and other governments were also organising evacuations by land, air or sea.
In other developments:
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said he expected European nations to contribute troops to a proposed stabilisation force to end the fighting
The UN has warned of a humanitarian disaster as Lebanese flee their homes, with air strikes on roads and bridges hampering efforts to help them
Lebanon's pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud has vowed to stand by Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
Shlomo Goldwasser, the father of one of the missing Israeli soldiers, said he hoped all means - legal or illegal - would be used to get his son Ehud back
As Israel launched fresh cross-border attacks on Tuesday, six bodies were pulled from the rubble of a home in the Lebanese border village of Aitaroun, and another family was killed in the coastal city of Tyre.
Eleven Lebanese soldiers were killed at a barracks east of Beirut.
The Lebanese army has been ordered not to respond to the Israeli attacks. But Lebanese soldiers have now died in several strikes, including one on the port of Abdeh on Monday in which nine died.
In Tuesday's attacks by Hezbollah, an Israeli was killed in Nahariya.
Rockets also hit the northern city of Haifa, Safed, Acre, Kiryat Shemona, and Gush Halav region near Safed, Israeli officials told AP news agency.
Israeli military officials say more than 700 Hezbollah rockets have now landed in Israel since the crisis began.
-
theone666
- Major [O-4]
- Posts: 1434
- Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2005 5:00 am
Some Israeli Ground Troops Enter Lebanon
By RAVI NESSMAN, AP
JERUSALEM (July 19) - Israel declared Tuesday it was ready to fight Hezbollah guerrillas for several more weeks, raising doubts about international efforts to broker an immediate cease-fire in the fighting that has killed more than 260 people and displaced 500,000. The military said early Wednesday it sent some troops into southern Lebanon in search of tunnels and weapons.
Despite the diplomatic activity, Israel is in no hurry to end its offensive, which it sees as a unique opportunity to crush Hezbollah. The Islamic militants appear to have steadily built up their military strength after Israel pulled its troops out of southern Lebanon in 2000.
Israeli warplanes struck an army base outside Beirut and other areas in south Lebanon on Tuesday, killing 27 people, and Hezbollah rockets battered Israeli towns, killing one Israeli. Five big explosions reverberated over Beirut early Wednesday, and missiles hit towns to the east and south of the capital.
At daybreak Wednesday, a small number of Israeli troops were operating just across the border inside southern Lebanon, looking for tunnels and weapons, the Israeli military said without providing any more details.
The incursion came a day after Israel indicated that it might send large numbers of ground troops into the southern Lebanon, but Israel's U.N. Ambassador Dan Gillerman denied Wednesday's operation was part of any such operation.
"What is going on at the moment is a number of Israeli ground troops very near to the border on the Lebanese side, trying to destroy some Hezbollah outposts," he told CNN.
"This is an operation which is very measured, very local," he said. "This is no way an invasion of Lebanon. This is no way the beginning of any kind of occupation of Lebanon."
Israel's forecast of a lengthy campaign, coupled with President Bush's evident reluctance to bring pressure on Israel to agree to a cease-fire, seemed to quash any hopes for an early resolution of the crisis, now entering its second week.
Hundreds of Americans and Europeans fled Lebanon aboard ships, and hundreds of other foreigners prepared to evacuate in coming days. Many Americans complained over what they saw as a slow U.S. response. And after criticism from Congress, the State Department dropped plans to ask Americans to pay for their evacuations on commercial vessels.
About 200 Americans gathered near the fortified U.S. Embassy compound Wednesday to be taken to Beirut's port to board a ship out of the country.
Families in southern Lebanon, the site of most Israeli airstrikes, drove north on side roads, winding among orange and banana groves and waving improvised white flags from their car windows.
In an interview with the BBC, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said Israel is "opening the gates of hell and madness" on his country. He urged Hezbollah, which is backed by Syria and Iran, to release two captured Israeli soldiers but said Israel's response had been disproportionate.
Bush said he suspects Syria is trying to reassert influence in Lebanon more than a year after Damascus ended what had effectively been a long-term military occupation of its smaller, weaker neighbor.
"We have made it very clear that Israel should be allowed to defend herself," Bush said in Washington. "We've asked that as she does so that she be mindful of the Saniora government. It's very important that this government in Lebanon succeed and survive."
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert blamed Iran for sparking the clashes between Israel and Hezbollah, saying the country was trying to distract the world from the controversy over its nuclear program.
The offensive was sparked by the soldiers' capture July 12 but has now broadened into a campaign to neutralize Hezbollah.
"I think that we should assume that it will take a few more weeks," Maj. Gen. Udi Adam, head of the army's northern command, told Army Radio.
The army's deputy chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Moshe Kaplinski, said Israel has not ruled out deploying "massive ground forces into Lebanon."
Israel, which has mainly limited itself to attacks from the air and sea, had been reluctant to send in ground troops because Hezbollah is far more familiar with the terrain and because of memories of Israel's ill-fated 18-year-occupation of south Lebanon that ended in 2000.
But Kaplinski said Israel had no intention of getting bogged down for a second time.
"We certainly won't reach months, and I hope it also won't be many more weeks. But we still need time to complete the operation's very clear objectives," he told Israel Radio.
Israeli Cabinet minister Avi Dichter said the country may consider a prisoner swap with Lebanon to win the soldiers' release, but only after the military operation.
White House spokesman Tony Snow declined to react to Kaplinski's comments, but said the administration opposed a return to the situation before the outbreak of violence.
"A cease-fire that would leave intact a terrorist infrastructure is unacceptable," Snow said. "So what we're trying to do is work as best we can toward a cease-fire that is going to create not only the conditions, but the institutions for peace and democracy in the region."
Diplomatic efforts to end the fighting, which has killed at least 237 people in Lebanon and 25 in Israel, continued Tuesday, as a U.N. mediation team met with Israeli leaders a day after speaking with Lebanese officials in Beirut.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said a cease-fire is impossible unless the soldiers captured by Hezbollah in a cross-border raid are released and Lebanese troops are deployed along the border with a guarantee that Hezbollah would be disarmed. Her comments indicated Israel would not demand that Hezbollah be disarmed before any cease-fire deal can take effect.
A proposal to send a new international force to bolster the 2,000-member U.N. force in south Lebanon gained momentum.
Western nations have proposed the stronger force as part of a possible cease-fire agreement, and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Tuesday that a new force must be "considerably" larger and better armed than the current force, which is viewed as weak and ineffectual. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also called for the introduction of a strong peacekeeping operation.
Livni said Israel's experience with the current U.N. force was "not satisfactory," and it prefers no such force in the long-term, but left open the possibility of a temporary international force.
In a statement, Olmert said he would be cautious about a new force. "It seems to be it's too early to debate it," he said.
The Israeli air force kept up its strikes early Wednesday with two major blasts that appeared to be from hits in Beirut's southern suburbs. Missiles also hit Chuweifat - a coastal town where several factories are located, just south of the capital - and Hadath, a mainly Christian town just east of Beirut, local television said. There were no immediate word of casualties.
On Tuesday, Israeli jets struck across southern Lebanon, hitting a military base at Kfar Chima as soldiers rushed to their bomb shelters, the Lebanese military said. At least 11 soldiers were killed in an engineering unit and 35 were wounded, it said. The base is adjacent to Hezbollah strongholds often targeted by recent Israeli strikes.
Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr denounced the strike as a "massacre," saying the regiment's main job was to help rebuild infrastructure. The Lebanese army has largely stayed out of the fighting, confining itself to firing anti-aircraft guns at Israeli planes. But Israeli jets have struck Lebanese army positions.
Israel did not give a reason for the strike on the base.
Nine members of the same family were killed when a bomb hit their house in the village of Aitaroun, near the border, Lebanon's state-run news agency said, citing the police. Israeli warplanes also struck southern Beirut, and hit four trucks that Israeli officials said were bringing in weapons.
"That is intolerable terrorist activity," said Capt. Jacob Dallal, an Israeli army spokesman.
Hezbollah guerrillas fired a barrage of rockets into northern Israel on Tuesday afternoon, killing a man in the town of Nahariya and setting fire to the top of a two-story apartment building.
At least 100 rockets fell into Israel, hitting a string of towns, including the city of Haifa.
More than 750 rockets have hit Israel since the violence began, forcing hundreds of thousands of Israelis to take cover in underground shelters.
Some 500,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon by the violence, according to the U.N.'s most recent estimate.
With the fighting unabated, foreign citizens fled Lebanon on Tuesday.
Military helicopters ferried 120 Americans from the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, and 200 more left on a ship chartered by Sweden to rush out nearly 1,000 Europeans. About 180 British also left on a warship.
But a plan to evacuate more of the 25,000 Americans in the country on a cruise liner, the Orient Queen, was delayed a day.
Lebanese-American Jonathan Chakhtoura said he was extremely disappointed with the Americans' response.
"Every time I call to see what's going on the lines are busy. When they answer, they say they don't know," the 19-year-old fashion design student said. "A lot of people don't know what is going on. There is so much confusion. If it's security they are worried about, then I think we will be more secure if we know what is going on."
AP correspondents Sam F. Ghattas and Zeina Karam in Beirut, Lebanon, contributed to this report.
07-19-06 01:23 EDT
JERUSALEM (July 19) - Israel declared Tuesday it was ready to fight Hezbollah guerrillas for several more weeks, raising doubts about international efforts to broker an immediate cease-fire in the fighting that has killed more than 260 people and displaced 500,000. The military said early Wednesday it sent some troops into southern Lebanon in search of tunnels and weapons.
Despite the diplomatic activity, Israel is in no hurry to end its offensive, which it sees as a unique opportunity to crush Hezbollah. The Islamic militants appear to have steadily built up their military strength after Israel pulled its troops out of southern Lebanon in 2000.
Israeli warplanes struck an army base outside Beirut and other areas in south Lebanon on Tuesday, killing 27 people, and Hezbollah rockets battered Israeli towns, killing one Israeli. Five big explosions reverberated over Beirut early Wednesday, and missiles hit towns to the east and south of the capital.
At daybreak Wednesday, a small number of Israeli troops were operating just across the border inside southern Lebanon, looking for tunnels and weapons, the Israeli military said without providing any more details.
The incursion came a day after Israel indicated that it might send large numbers of ground troops into the southern Lebanon, but Israel's U.N. Ambassador Dan Gillerman denied Wednesday's operation was part of any such operation.
"What is going on at the moment is a number of Israeli ground troops very near to the border on the Lebanese side, trying to destroy some Hezbollah outposts," he told CNN.
"This is an operation which is very measured, very local," he said. "This is no way an invasion of Lebanon. This is no way the beginning of any kind of occupation of Lebanon."
Israel's forecast of a lengthy campaign, coupled with President Bush's evident reluctance to bring pressure on Israel to agree to a cease-fire, seemed to quash any hopes for an early resolution of the crisis, now entering its second week.
Hundreds of Americans and Europeans fled Lebanon aboard ships, and hundreds of other foreigners prepared to evacuate in coming days. Many Americans complained over what they saw as a slow U.S. response. And after criticism from Congress, the State Department dropped plans to ask Americans to pay for their evacuations on commercial vessels.
About 200 Americans gathered near the fortified U.S. Embassy compound Wednesday to be taken to Beirut's port to board a ship out of the country.
Families in southern Lebanon, the site of most Israeli airstrikes, drove north on side roads, winding among orange and banana groves and waving improvised white flags from their car windows.
In an interview with the BBC, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said Israel is "opening the gates of hell and madness" on his country. He urged Hezbollah, which is backed by Syria and Iran, to release two captured Israeli soldiers but said Israel's response had been disproportionate.
Bush said he suspects Syria is trying to reassert influence in Lebanon more than a year after Damascus ended what had effectively been a long-term military occupation of its smaller, weaker neighbor.
"We have made it very clear that Israel should be allowed to defend herself," Bush said in Washington. "We've asked that as she does so that she be mindful of the Saniora government. It's very important that this government in Lebanon succeed and survive."
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert blamed Iran for sparking the clashes between Israel and Hezbollah, saying the country was trying to distract the world from the controversy over its nuclear program.
The offensive was sparked by the soldiers' capture July 12 but has now broadened into a campaign to neutralize Hezbollah.
"I think that we should assume that it will take a few more weeks," Maj. Gen. Udi Adam, head of the army's northern command, told Army Radio.
The army's deputy chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Moshe Kaplinski, said Israel has not ruled out deploying "massive ground forces into Lebanon."
Israel, which has mainly limited itself to attacks from the air and sea, had been reluctant to send in ground troops because Hezbollah is far more familiar with the terrain and because of memories of Israel's ill-fated 18-year-occupation of south Lebanon that ended in 2000.
But Kaplinski said Israel had no intention of getting bogged down for a second time.
"We certainly won't reach months, and I hope it also won't be many more weeks. But we still need time to complete the operation's very clear objectives," he told Israel Radio.
Israeli Cabinet minister Avi Dichter said the country may consider a prisoner swap with Lebanon to win the soldiers' release, but only after the military operation.
White House spokesman Tony Snow declined to react to Kaplinski's comments, but said the administration opposed a return to the situation before the outbreak of violence.
"A cease-fire that would leave intact a terrorist infrastructure is unacceptable," Snow said. "So what we're trying to do is work as best we can toward a cease-fire that is going to create not only the conditions, but the institutions for peace and democracy in the region."
Diplomatic efforts to end the fighting, which has killed at least 237 people in Lebanon and 25 in Israel, continued Tuesday, as a U.N. mediation team met with Israeli leaders a day after speaking with Lebanese officials in Beirut.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said a cease-fire is impossible unless the soldiers captured by Hezbollah in a cross-border raid are released and Lebanese troops are deployed along the border with a guarantee that Hezbollah would be disarmed. Her comments indicated Israel would not demand that Hezbollah be disarmed before any cease-fire deal can take effect.
A proposal to send a new international force to bolster the 2,000-member U.N. force in south Lebanon gained momentum.
Western nations have proposed the stronger force as part of a possible cease-fire agreement, and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Tuesday that a new force must be "considerably" larger and better armed than the current force, which is viewed as weak and ineffectual. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also called for the introduction of a strong peacekeeping operation.
Livni said Israel's experience with the current U.N. force was "not satisfactory," and it prefers no such force in the long-term, but left open the possibility of a temporary international force.
In a statement, Olmert said he would be cautious about a new force. "It seems to be it's too early to debate it," he said.
The Israeli air force kept up its strikes early Wednesday with two major blasts that appeared to be from hits in Beirut's southern suburbs. Missiles also hit Chuweifat - a coastal town where several factories are located, just south of the capital - and Hadath, a mainly Christian town just east of Beirut, local television said. There were no immediate word of casualties.
On Tuesday, Israeli jets struck across southern Lebanon, hitting a military base at Kfar Chima as soldiers rushed to their bomb shelters, the Lebanese military said. At least 11 soldiers were killed in an engineering unit and 35 were wounded, it said. The base is adjacent to Hezbollah strongholds often targeted by recent Israeli strikes.
Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr denounced the strike as a "massacre," saying the regiment's main job was to help rebuild infrastructure. The Lebanese army has largely stayed out of the fighting, confining itself to firing anti-aircraft guns at Israeli planes. But Israeli jets have struck Lebanese army positions.
Israel did not give a reason for the strike on the base.
Nine members of the same family were killed when a bomb hit their house in the village of Aitaroun, near the border, Lebanon's state-run news agency said, citing the police. Israeli warplanes also struck southern Beirut, and hit four trucks that Israeli officials said were bringing in weapons.
"That is intolerable terrorist activity," said Capt. Jacob Dallal, an Israeli army spokesman.
Hezbollah guerrillas fired a barrage of rockets into northern Israel on Tuesday afternoon, killing a man in the town of Nahariya and setting fire to the top of a two-story apartment building.
At least 100 rockets fell into Israel, hitting a string of towns, including the city of Haifa.
More than 750 rockets have hit Israel since the violence began, forcing hundreds of thousands of Israelis to take cover in underground shelters.
Some 500,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon by the violence, according to the U.N.'s most recent estimate.
With the fighting unabated, foreign citizens fled Lebanon on Tuesday.
Military helicopters ferried 120 Americans from the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, and 200 more left on a ship chartered by Sweden to rush out nearly 1,000 Europeans. About 180 British also left on a warship.
But a plan to evacuate more of the 25,000 Americans in the country on a cruise liner, the Orient Queen, was delayed a day.
Lebanese-American Jonathan Chakhtoura said he was extremely disappointed with the Americans' response.
"Every time I call to see what's going on the lines are busy. When they answer, they say they don't know," the 19-year-old fashion design student said. "A lot of people don't know what is going on. There is so much confusion. If it's security they are worried about, then I think we will be more secure if we know what is going on."
AP correspondents Sam F. Ghattas and Zeina Karam in Beirut, Lebanon, contributed to this report.
07-19-06 01:23 EDT
-
theone666
- Major [O-4]
- Posts: 1434
- Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2005 5:00 am
Europeans Flee as Americans Stew at Slow Evacuation
BEIRUT, Lebanon (July 19) - A cruise ship sailed into Beirut late Tuesday to begin shuttling thousands of Americans to safety from Mideast fighting, amid fierce criticism that the U.S. effort had lagged behind Europe's.
The commander of the Fifth Fleet said the ship would begin boarding evacuees at dawn, but there was no sign shortly after sunrise that the operation had begun.
"We're trying to move quickly, trying to move large numbers of people as fast as we can," said Vice Adm. Patrick Walsh, the top U.S. naval officer in the Middle East. A larger commercial vessel also would be used, he said. A Pentagon spokesman said the U.S. government was considering hiring as many as four more cruise ships to carry Americans.
Thousands of Europeans already have fled the country, which is under fierce Israeli air attack.
Earlier in the day, 320 Americans, mostly children, students and the elderly, left by military helicopter and a European ship. U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey D. Feltman told The Associated Press more than 1,000 Americans would depart Wednesday.
The ambassador said the evacuation's slow start was intended to safeguard Americans.
"We at the embassy don't have the experience to move a lot of people," Feltman said. "Luckily, the U.S. government does," he said. "Security and safe travel were what's on our minds."
An estimated 8,000 of the 25,000 Americans in Lebanon want to leave.
European countries began moving hundreds of their citizens to Cyprus on Monday. Nearly 1,000 were on a Swedish-chartered ship that left Beirut on Tuesday, and a British warship and Greek frigate transported nearly 600 of those countries' nationals away from Lebanon .
Six chartered passenger ships were to be in position off the coast of Lebanon on Wednesday to begin evacuating up to 30,000 Canadians stranded in the crossfire. Authorities intend to evacuate some 4,500 a day, ferrying them to Cyprus. There are as many as 50,000 Canadian-Lebanese in Lebanon but it was unclear how many would want to be evacuated.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the primary concern was that people be taken out in a safe and organized manner. He said the Beirut port was working at a higher capacity than normal, making it challenging to get ships from various countries in and out.
The Orient Queen, the ship that docked late Tuesday, was carrying a number of Lebanese passengers, and "we needed to do some coordination" to allow them to pass through the Israeli naval blockade of Lebanon and leave the ship in Beirut, Whitman said.
Outside the gates of the U.S. Embassy, Californian Elie Kawkabani, who lives in Beirut, was angry about the delay.
"The embassy is providing us with sketchy information and they are being rude to us here at the gate," he said. "We have other options, like leaving through Syria, but they keep stringing us along day after day."
White House spokesman Tony Snow said the United States has determined it was not safe to travel by road, adding: "We understand the anxieties of people in Lebanon."
After criticism from Congress, the State Department dropped plans to ask Americans to pay for their rides on commercial vessels.
Earlier, authorities planned to make Americans sign a note pledging to reimburse the U.S. government before they got on board. They were charging the price of a single commercial flight from Beirut to Cyprus - usually $150-$200, although officials refused to specify.
Before the State Department dropped the plan, Snow defended it by saying the government has to charge evacuees because of a 2003 law.
"I dare say that it's something that is causing heartburn for a number of people, but it's the law," he said.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi objected, saying it was not Congress' intent to prevent evacuations by making people sign a commitment to pay.
"A nation that can provide more than $300 billion for a war in Iraq can provide the money to get its people out of Lebanon," Pelosi told CNN.
Some other European countries, including the Netherlands, said they asked for repayment but did not expect it in many cases.
The Orient Queen - which can carry 876 passengers - had been on a cruise of the eastern Mediterranean with 400 people aboard, mostly Lebanese. It was supposed to have returned to Beirut three days ago but was unable to do so because of the Israeli blockade, a U.S. official in Beirut said. While it was in Cyprus, it was chartered by the U.S. to evacuate Americans.
Speaking to Pentagon reporters from Bahrain, Walsh said there were no plans yet to put U.S. Marines ashore in Beirut for security.
The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, conducting exercises in the Red Sea, was ordered into the waters off Lebanon to help with the evacuation. U.S. ships expected in the area include the amphibious assault ships USS Iwo Jima, USS Nashville and USS Whidbey Island.
The ships, part of a five-vessel Navy unit, carry a battalion of Marines with a helicopter squadron. The ships also have hospital facilities.
European nations also intensified their evacuation effort, moving thousands out of harm's way.
· Britain's HMS Gloucester departed with 180 people on board, the vast majority of them British. Another Royal Navy warship, York, was offshore.
Up to 3,000 Britons want to be evacuated, said British Ambassador James Watt. He called Tuesday's departures "an experiment," adding that there will be more and in bigger numbers in coming days, using navy and chartered ships.
· A Greek navy frigate steamed out of Beirut harbor with about 400 Greeks, Cypriots and other Europeans aboard.
Associated Press writers Pauline Jelinek in Washington, and George Psyllides and Patrick Quinn in Cyprus contributed to this report.
07-19-06 00:54 EDT
The commander of the Fifth Fleet said the ship would begin boarding evacuees at dawn, but there was no sign shortly after sunrise that the operation had begun.
"We're trying to move quickly, trying to move large numbers of people as fast as we can," said Vice Adm. Patrick Walsh, the top U.S. naval officer in the Middle East. A larger commercial vessel also would be used, he said. A Pentagon spokesman said the U.S. government was considering hiring as many as four more cruise ships to carry Americans.
Thousands of Europeans already have fled the country, which is under fierce Israeli air attack.
Earlier in the day, 320 Americans, mostly children, students and the elderly, left by military helicopter and a European ship. U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey D. Feltman told The Associated Press more than 1,000 Americans would depart Wednesday.
The ambassador said the evacuation's slow start was intended to safeguard Americans.
"We at the embassy don't have the experience to move a lot of people," Feltman said. "Luckily, the U.S. government does," he said. "Security and safe travel were what's on our minds."
An estimated 8,000 of the 25,000 Americans in Lebanon want to leave.
European countries began moving hundreds of their citizens to Cyprus on Monday. Nearly 1,000 were on a Swedish-chartered ship that left Beirut on Tuesday, and a British warship and Greek frigate transported nearly 600 of those countries' nationals away from Lebanon .
Six chartered passenger ships were to be in position off the coast of Lebanon on Wednesday to begin evacuating up to 30,000 Canadians stranded in the crossfire. Authorities intend to evacuate some 4,500 a day, ferrying them to Cyprus. There are as many as 50,000 Canadian-Lebanese in Lebanon but it was unclear how many would want to be evacuated.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the primary concern was that people be taken out in a safe and organized manner. He said the Beirut port was working at a higher capacity than normal, making it challenging to get ships from various countries in and out.
The Orient Queen, the ship that docked late Tuesday, was carrying a number of Lebanese passengers, and "we needed to do some coordination" to allow them to pass through the Israeli naval blockade of Lebanon and leave the ship in Beirut, Whitman said.
Outside the gates of the U.S. Embassy, Californian Elie Kawkabani, who lives in Beirut, was angry about the delay.
"The embassy is providing us with sketchy information and they are being rude to us here at the gate," he said. "We have other options, like leaving through Syria, but they keep stringing us along day after day."
White House spokesman Tony Snow said the United States has determined it was not safe to travel by road, adding: "We understand the anxieties of people in Lebanon."
After criticism from Congress, the State Department dropped plans to ask Americans to pay for their rides on commercial vessels.
Earlier, authorities planned to make Americans sign a note pledging to reimburse the U.S. government before they got on board. They were charging the price of a single commercial flight from Beirut to Cyprus - usually $150-$200, although officials refused to specify.
Before the State Department dropped the plan, Snow defended it by saying the government has to charge evacuees because of a 2003 law.
"I dare say that it's something that is causing heartburn for a number of people, but it's the law," he said.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi objected, saying it was not Congress' intent to prevent evacuations by making people sign a commitment to pay.
"A nation that can provide more than $300 billion for a war in Iraq can provide the money to get its people out of Lebanon," Pelosi told CNN.
Some other European countries, including the Netherlands, said they asked for repayment but did not expect it in many cases.
The Orient Queen - which can carry 876 passengers - had been on a cruise of the eastern Mediterranean with 400 people aboard, mostly Lebanese. It was supposed to have returned to Beirut three days ago but was unable to do so because of the Israeli blockade, a U.S. official in Beirut said. While it was in Cyprus, it was chartered by the U.S. to evacuate Americans.
Speaking to Pentagon reporters from Bahrain, Walsh said there were no plans yet to put U.S. Marines ashore in Beirut for security.
The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, conducting exercises in the Red Sea, was ordered into the waters off Lebanon to help with the evacuation. U.S. ships expected in the area include the amphibious assault ships USS Iwo Jima, USS Nashville and USS Whidbey Island.
The ships, part of a five-vessel Navy unit, carry a battalion of Marines with a helicopter squadron. The ships also have hospital facilities.
European nations also intensified their evacuation effort, moving thousands out of harm's way.
· Britain's HMS Gloucester departed with 180 people on board, the vast majority of them British. Another Royal Navy warship, York, was offshore.
Up to 3,000 Britons want to be evacuated, said British Ambassador James Watt. He called Tuesday's departures "an experiment," adding that there will be more and in bigger numbers in coming days, using navy and chartered ships.
· A Greek navy frigate steamed out of Beirut harbor with about 400 Greeks, Cypriots and other Europeans aboard.
Associated Press writers Pauline Jelinek in Washington, and George Psyllides and Patrick Quinn in Cyprus contributed to this report.
07-19-06 00:54 EDT
-
theone666
- Major [O-4]
- Posts: 1434
- Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2005 5:00 am
Bush accuses Damascus over crisis
Wednesday, 19 July 2006, 06:57 GMT 07:57 UK
US President George W Bush has said he suspects that Syria is trying to use the crisis in the Middle East to reassert its influence in Lebanon.
He suggested that Hezbollah activities were being orchestrated by Damascus.
Israel attacked Lebanon after the militant group captured two soldiers in a cross-border raid on 12 July.
Overnight air strikes are reported to have killed dozens of people, with 20 people reported dead in the southern village of Srifa.
Casualties were also reported in raids near Nabatiyeh in the south and Baalbek in the east.
Israel air strikes also targeted Hezbollah positions in the capital Beirut.
Early in the morning, Israeli troops crossed into southern Lebanon to carry out what the army called "restricted pinpoint attacks".
About 230 Lebanese people have died in the week-long conflict, most of them civilians. Twenty-five Israelis have died, including 13 civilians killed by Hezbollah rocket attacks.
Syrian 'interference'
President Bush said Hezbollah was the "root cause" of the current crisis.
"Syria is trying to get back into Lebanon, it looks like to me," Mr Bush said.
"And there is suspicion that the instability created by the Hezbollah attacks will cause some in Lebanon to invite Syria back in."
He reiterated his stance that Israel had a right to defend itself, but said Israel had been asked to be "mindful" of the new Lebanese government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.
"It's very important that this government in Lebanon succeed and survive," he said.
The BBC's Jonathan Beale in Washington says the US strategy is becoming clearer - to turn international attention and anger away from Israel's actions, and to focus on those of Hezbollah and Syria instead.
But he adds that some will question the evidence of blatant Syrian interference in Lebanon.
With no sign of an end to the violence, many thousands of people continue to flee Lebanon.
Several countries have sent ships and helicopters to move their nationals from Lebanon, while tens of thousands of people - including many Lebanese families - have fled across the land border to Syria.
Aid agencies fear 500,000 people have been displaced within Lebanon itself - and have called for a ceasefire to allow humanitarian relief work to start.
Diplomatic efforts continue, with European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana due to hold talks with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, as well as Palestinian officials and Egyptian mediators.
A UN team that has been in the region over the past few days is preparing to fly back to New York to brief Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who is due to address the Security Council on Thursday about the crisis.
On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Israeli diplomats that Hezbollah's capture of their soldiers had been co-ordinated by Iran.
It was, he said, timed to coincide with the G8 summit in Russia and deflect attention away from Iran's nuclear programme.
US President George W Bush has said he suspects that Syria is trying to use the crisis in the Middle East to reassert its influence in Lebanon.
He suggested that Hezbollah activities were being orchestrated by Damascus.
Israel attacked Lebanon after the militant group captured two soldiers in a cross-border raid on 12 July.
Overnight air strikes are reported to have killed dozens of people, with 20 people reported dead in the southern village of Srifa.
Casualties were also reported in raids near Nabatiyeh in the south and Baalbek in the east.
Israel air strikes also targeted Hezbollah positions in the capital Beirut.
Early in the morning, Israeli troops crossed into southern Lebanon to carry out what the army called "restricted pinpoint attacks".
About 230 Lebanese people have died in the week-long conflict, most of them civilians. Twenty-five Israelis have died, including 13 civilians killed by Hezbollah rocket attacks.
Syrian 'interference'
President Bush said Hezbollah was the "root cause" of the current crisis.
"Syria is trying to get back into Lebanon, it looks like to me," Mr Bush said.
"And there is suspicion that the instability created by the Hezbollah attacks will cause some in Lebanon to invite Syria back in."
He reiterated his stance that Israel had a right to defend itself, but said Israel had been asked to be "mindful" of the new Lebanese government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.
"It's very important that this government in Lebanon succeed and survive," he said.
The BBC's Jonathan Beale in Washington says the US strategy is becoming clearer - to turn international attention and anger away from Israel's actions, and to focus on those of Hezbollah and Syria instead.
But he adds that some will question the evidence of blatant Syrian interference in Lebanon.
With no sign of an end to the violence, many thousands of people continue to flee Lebanon.
Several countries have sent ships and helicopters to move their nationals from Lebanon, while tens of thousands of people - including many Lebanese families - have fled across the land border to Syria.
Aid agencies fear 500,000 people have been displaced within Lebanon itself - and have called for a ceasefire to allow humanitarian relief work to start.
Diplomatic efforts continue, with European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana due to hold talks with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, as well as Palestinian officials and Egyptian mediators.
A UN team that has been in the region over the past few days is preparing to fly back to New York to brief Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who is due to address the Security Council on Thursday about the crisis.
On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Israeli diplomats that Hezbollah's capture of their soldiers had been co-ordinated by Iran.
It was, he said, timed to coincide with the G8 summit in Russia and deflect attention away from Iran's nuclear programme.
-
theone666
- Major [O-4]
- Posts: 1434
- Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2005 5:00 am
Palestinians die in Israeli raids
Wednesday, 19 July 2006, 09:25 GMT 10:25 UK
At least nine Palestinians have been killed in fresh Israeli operations in Gaza and the West Bank.
Under heavy gunfire Israeli tanks entered Mughazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip before dawn.
At least six Palestinians, including a number of militants, were killed in the latest incursion in a three-week operation in Gaza by the Israelis.
Later, three Palestinians were shot by Israeli troops in the West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinian sources said.
Civilians are among the dozens of Palestinians who have died in the Israeli assault on Gaza, launched after an Israeli soldier was captured by Palestinian militants.
Many injured
The Israeli army said five of its soldiers were injured in the operation, which saw some 30 Israeli armoured vehicles in the camp by sunrise, residents told the Associated Press news agency.
Israel is also reported to have carried out air strikes on the camp.
An army spokeswoman said the operation aimed "to target terror infrastructure" in the camp, "as part of the ongoing effort in which one of its main targets is getting back [captured Israeli Cpl] Gilad Shalit and stop the launching of Qassam rockets," news agency AFP reported.
At least 45 Palestinians, including children, were wounded, Palestinian hospital officials said.
According to Israel Radio, Israel is also shelling sites in Gaza which were used to launch Qassam rockets over into the western Negev on Tuesday evening.
Israel launched its military offensive in the Gaza Strip three weeks ago after Cpl Shalit was abducted by militants linked to Hamas's military wing.
Its Gaza assault prompted international calls for restraint, but a UN resolution urging Israel to stop the offensive was vetoed by the United States at the Security Council last week.
Nablus 'arrests'
In its raid on Nablus, soldiers surrounded a security building in a bid to capture militants apparently hiding inside.
Three Palestinians died in exchanges of fire with the troops, who reportedly used megaphones to demand those inside the building come out.
Dozens of Palestinians were then arrested, reports said.
At least nine Palestinians have been killed in fresh Israeli operations in Gaza and the West Bank.
Under heavy gunfire Israeli tanks entered Mughazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip before dawn.
At least six Palestinians, including a number of militants, were killed in the latest incursion in a three-week operation in Gaza by the Israelis.
Later, three Palestinians were shot by Israeli troops in the West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinian sources said.
Civilians are among the dozens of Palestinians who have died in the Israeli assault on Gaza, launched after an Israeli soldier was captured by Palestinian militants.
Many injured
The Israeli army said five of its soldiers were injured in the operation, which saw some 30 Israeli armoured vehicles in the camp by sunrise, residents told the Associated Press news agency.
Israel is also reported to have carried out air strikes on the camp.
An army spokeswoman said the operation aimed "to target terror infrastructure" in the camp, "as part of the ongoing effort in which one of its main targets is getting back [captured Israeli Cpl] Gilad Shalit and stop the launching of Qassam rockets," news agency AFP reported.
At least 45 Palestinians, including children, were wounded, Palestinian hospital officials said.
According to Israel Radio, Israel is also shelling sites in Gaza which were used to launch Qassam rockets over into the western Negev on Tuesday evening.
Israel launched its military offensive in the Gaza Strip three weeks ago after Cpl Shalit was abducted by militants linked to Hamas's military wing.
Its Gaza assault prompted international calls for restraint, but a UN resolution urging Israel to stop the offensive was vetoed by the United States at the Security Council last week.
Nablus 'arrests'
In its raid on Nablus, soldiers surrounded a security building in a bid to capture militants apparently hiding inside.
Three Palestinians died in exchanges of fire with the troops, who reportedly used megaphones to demand those inside the building come out.
Dozens of Palestinians were then arrested, reports said.
-
theone666
- Major [O-4]
- Posts: 1434
- Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2005 5:00 am
Dozens die in fresh Lebanon raids
Wednesday, 19 July 2006, 09:07 GMT 10:07 UK
Israeli forces have been bombing targets in Lebanon for an eighth day, with at least 40 civilian deaths reported in the south and east.
Residents said an air strike killed 20 people in the southern village of Srifa, near Tyre. Police said at least 20 people died in other air raids.
Israel attacked Lebanon after Hezbollah fighters captured two soldiers in a cross-border raid last Wednesday.
At least 270 Lebanese - mostly civilians - have died in the conflict.
Twenty-five Israelis have died, including 13 civilians killed by Hezbollah rocket attacks.
Rockets fired from Lebanon struck the northern Israeli city of Haifa on Wednesday, causing several minor injuries, witnesses and medics said.
The latest Israeli air strikes hit Hezbollah positions in the capital Beirut, as well as targets in southern and eastern parts of the country.
Civilian deaths were reported near Nabatiyeh in the south and Baalbek in the east.
Early in the morning, Israeli troops crossed into southern Lebanon to carry out what the army called "restricted pinpoint attacks".
Exodus
With no sign of an end to the violence, many thousands of people continue to flee Lebanon.
Several countries have sent ships and helicopters to move their nationals from Lebanon, while tens of thousands of people - including many Lebanese families - have fled across the border to Syria.
A British warship has arrived in Cyprus, carrying the first 180 UK citizens from Lebanon. Up to 5,000 more Britons are expected to follow over the next few days.
A Norwegian ferry has taken hundreds of Norwegians, Swedes and Americans to Cyprus, while a US-chartered ship has docked in Beirut to evacuate US and Australian citizens.
Aid agencies fear 500,000 people have been displaced within Lebanon - and have called for a ceasefire to allow humanitarian relief work to start.
Blaming Damascus
The fresh operations came after US President George W Bush accused Syria of trying to use the crisis in the Middle East to reassert its influence in Lebanon.
He suggested that Hezbollah activities were being orchestrated by Damascus.
"Syria is trying to get back into Lebanon, it looks like to me," Mr Bush said.
The US president reiterated his stance that Israel had a right to defend itself, but said Israel had been asked to be "mindful" of the new Lebanese government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.
"It's very important that this government in Lebanon succeed and survive," he said.
Diplomatic efforts continue, with European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana due to hold talks with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, as well as Palestinian officials and Egyptian mediators.
A UN team that has been in the region over the past few days is preparing to fly back to New York to brief Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who is due to address the Security Council on Thursday.
Israel also conducted separate operations in Palestinian areas.
At least nine Palestinians have been killed in fresh Israeli operations in Gaza and the West Bank.
Israeli forces have been bombing targets in Lebanon for an eighth day, with at least 40 civilian deaths reported in the south and east.
Residents said an air strike killed 20 people in the southern village of Srifa, near Tyre. Police said at least 20 people died in other air raids.
Israel attacked Lebanon after Hezbollah fighters captured two soldiers in a cross-border raid last Wednesday.
At least 270 Lebanese - mostly civilians - have died in the conflict.
Twenty-five Israelis have died, including 13 civilians killed by Hezbollah rocket attacks.
Rockets fired from Lebanon struck the northern Israeli city of Haifa on Wednesday, causing several minor injuries, witnesses and medics said.
The latest Israeli air strikes hit Hezbollah positions in the capital Beirut, as well as targets in southern and eastern parts of the country.
Civilian deaths were reported near Nabatiyeh in the south and Baalbek in the east.
Early in the morning, Israeli troops crossed into southern Lebanon to carry out what the army called "restricted pinpoint attacks".
Exodus
With no sign of an end to the violence, many thousands of people continue to flee Lebanon.
Several countries have sent ships and helicopters to move their nationals from Lebanon, while tens of thousands of people - including many Lebanese families - have fled across the border to Syria.
A British warship has arrived in Cyprus, carrying the first 180 UK citizens from Lebanon. Up to 5,000 more Britons are expected to follow over the next few days.
A Norwegian ferry has taken hundreds of Norwegians, Swedes and Americans to Cyprus, while a US-chartered ship has docked in Beirut to evacuate US and Australian citizens.
Aid agencies fear 500,000 people have been displaced within Lebanon - and have called for a ceasefire to allow humanitarian relief work to start.
Blaming Damascus
The fresh operations came after US President George W Bush accused Syria of trying to use the crisis in the Middle East to reassert its influence in Lebanon.
He suggested that Hezbollah activities were being orchestrated by Damascus.
"Syria is trying to get back into Lebanon, it looks like to me," Mr Bush said.
The US president reiterated his stance that Israel had a right to defend itself, but said Israel had been asked to be "mindful" of the new Lebanese government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.
"It's very important that this government in Lebanon succeed and survive," he said.
Diplomatic efforts continue, with European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana due to hold talks with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, as well as Palestinian officials and Egyptian mediators.
A UN team that has been in the region over the past few days is preparing to fly back to New York to brief Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who is due to address the Security Council on Thursday.
Israel also conducted separate operations in Palestinian areas.
At least nine Palestinians have been killed in fresh Israeli operations in Gaza and the West Bank.
-
theone666
- Major [O-4]
- Posts: 1434
- Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2005 5:00 am
Israeli Troops Fight With Militants in Lebanon
By HUSSEIN DAKROUB, AP
JERUSALEM (July 19) -- Israeli troops clashed with Hezbollah guerrillas on the Lebanese side of the border Wednesday, while warplanes flattened 20 buildings and killed at least 19 people, officials said, as fighting entered its second week.
Hundreds of Americans boarded a luxury ship at Beirut's port that was to carry them from the country, with many complaining about the slow pace of the U.S. evacuation effort. Europeans and Lebanese with foreign passports already have fled by the thousands.
Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV, meanwhile, reported that the Islamic militant group struck an Israeli air base 30 miles from the Lebanese border, but the Israeli military denied that any of its bases had been hit. That distance would make it the deepest strike by Hezbollah into northern Israel in more than a week of fighting.
Israeli bombers, which had been focusing on Hezbollah strongholds in southern Beirut, also hit a Christian suburb on the eastern side of the capital for the first time. The target was a truck-mounted machine that was used to drill for water but could have been mistaken for a missile launcher. The vehicle was destroyed, but nobody was hurt in that attack.
Military officials said Israeli troops crossed the border in search of tunnels and weapons. Hezbollah claimed to have "repelled" Israeli forces near the coastal border town of Naqoura. Casualties were reported on both sides.
The Israeli army confirmed there were clashes with Hezbollah in the border area and that some Israelis had suffered casualties. The army would not elaborate. Hezbollah's Al-Manar television channel reported that two Israeli soldiers had been killed and three wounded, but that could not be confirmed.
Israel, which has mainly limited itself to attacks from the air and sea, had been reluctant to send in ground troops because Hezbollah is far more familiar with the terrain and because of memories of Israel's ill-fated 18-year occupation of south Lebanon that ended in 2000.
The fighting dealt a blow to diplomatic efforts to broker a cease-fire and to send a new international force to bolster the 2,000-member U.N. force in south Lebanon appeared stalled.
Israel declared Tuesday it was ready to fight Hezbollah guerrillas for several more weeks, raising doubts about international efforts to broker an immediate cease-fire. The fighting has killed nearly 300 people and displaced 500,000.
"It will take us time to destroy what is left," Brig. Gen. Alon Friedman, a senior army commander, told Israeli Army Radio on Wednesday.
Israel stressed it did not plan to target Hezbollah's main sponsors, Iran and Syria, during the current fighting.
"We will leave Iran to the world community, and Syria as well," Vice Premier Shimon Peres told Army Radio. "It's very important to understand that we are not instilling world order."
The Israeli airstrikes late Tuesday and early Wednesday killed at least 19 people, bringing to 245 the number of people killed in Lebanon since the fighting began on July 12, when Hezbollah guerrillas raided an Israeli border outpost and kidnapped two soldiers. The figures were provided by the police control center, which collates casualty figures.
Twenty-five Israelis also have been killed in Israel in the past eight days as Hezbollah fired rockets across the border.
The U.N. children's and health agencies said Wednesday they were concerned about civilian casualties and new health risks because of escalating violence in Lebanon and Israel.
"Civilian deaths include dozens of children, with many more injured," the joint statement said. "The psychological impact is serious as people, including children, have witnessed the death or injury of loved ones and destruction of their homes and communities," UNICEF and the World Health Organization said.
Movement of medical supplies and ambulances to affected areas is seriously limited, the statement added.
Five people were killed when a missile struck a neighborhood in the southern Lebanese town of Nabatiyeh, police and hospital officials said. The target was a commercial office of a firm belonging to Hezbollah, but those killed were residents.
In the village of Srifa, near Tyre in southern Lebanon, the airstrikes flattened 15 houses. The village's headman, Hussein Kamaledine, said 25 to 30 people lived in the houses, but it was not known if they were at home at the time. Many people have fled southern Lebanon.
"This is a real massacre," Kamaledine told Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV as fire engines extinguished the blaze and rescue workers searched for survivors.
In the southern village of Ghaziyeh, one person was killed and two were wounded when a missile struck a nearby building that housed a Hezbollah-affiliated social institution.
In the eastern Bekaa Valley, four people were killed and three were wounded in an air raid on the village of Loussi, police said.
The planes also hit Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, causing one explosion that reverberated across the city much more loudly than any previous impact.
More Israeli missiles landed in two towns outside Beirut -- Chuweifat and Hadath. One person was killed at the Galerie Semaan junction, near Hadath, police said.
Israeli military officials said that for several days small numbers of soldiers have been going in and out of south Lebanon in search of Hezbollah bases and weapons. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, would not give the number of troops involved or their location.
Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman, said the incursion was not large scale.
"This is an operation which is very measured, very local," Gillerman told CNN. "This is no way an invasion of Lebanon. This is no way the beginning of any kind of occupation of Lebanon."
Last week, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah vowed to defeat any Israeli invasion, saying his guerrillas were "longing" to engage their opponents in ground battles.
"Any ground invasion will be good news for the resistance because it will bring us closer to victory and humiliating the Israeli enemy," Nasrallah said.
Western nations have proposed the stronger international force as part of a possible cease-fire agreement, and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Tuesday that a new force must be "considerably" larger and better armed than the current force, which is viewed as weak and ineffectual.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also called for the introduction of a strong peacekeeping operation.
AP correspondents Sam F. Ghattas and Zeina Karam in Beirut, Lebanon, and Ravi Nessman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
07-19-06 08:55 EDT
JERUSALEM (July 19) -- Israeli troops clashed with Hezbollah guerrillas on the Lebanese side of the border Wednesday, while warplanes flattened 20 buildings and killed at least 19 people, officials said, as fighting entered its second week.
Hundreds of Americans boarded a luxury ship at Beirut's port that was to carry them from the country, with many complaining about the slow pace of the U.S. evacuation effort. Europeans and Lebanese with foreign passports already have fled by the thousands.
Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV, meanwhile, reported that the Islamic militant group struck an Israeli air base 30 miles from the Lebanese border, but the Israeli military denied that any of its bases had been hit. That distance would make it the deepest strike by Hezbollah into northern Israel in more than a week of fighting.
Israeli bombers, which had been focusing on Hezbollah strongholds in southern Beirut, also hit a Christian suburb on the eastern side of the capital for the first time. The target was a truck-mounted machine that was used to drill for water but could have been mistaken for a missile launcher. The vehicle was destroyed, but nobody was hurt in that attack.
Military officials said Israeli troops crossed the border in search of tunnels and weapons. Hezbollah claimed to have "repelled" Israeli forces near the coastal border town of Naqoura. Casualties were reported on both sides.
The Israeli army confirmed there were clashes with Hezbollah in the border area and that some Israelis had suffered casualties. The army would not elaborate. Hezbollah's Al-Manar television channel reported that two Israeli soldiers had been killed and three wounded, but that could not be confirmed.
Israel, which has mainly limited itself to attacks from the air and sea, had been reluctant to send in ground troops because Hezbollah is far more familiar with the terrain and because of memories of Israel's ill-fated 18-year occupation of south Lebanon that ended in 2000.
The fighting dealt a blow to diplomatic efforts to broker a cease-fire and to send a new international force to bolster the 2,000-member U.N. force in south Lebanon appeared stalled.
Israel declared Tuesday it was ready to fight Hezbollah guerrillas for several more weeks, raising doubts about international efforts to broker an immediate cease-fire. The fighting has killed nearly 300 people and displaced 500,000.
"It will take us time to destroy what is left," Brig. Gen. Alon Friedman, a senior army commander, told Israeli Army Radio on Wednesday.
Israel stressed it did not plan to target Hezbollah's main sponsors, Iran and Syria, during the current fighting.
"We will leave Iran to the world community, and Syria as well," Vice Premier Shimon Peres told Army Radio. "It's very important to understand that we are not instilling world order."
The Israeli airstrikes late Tuesday and early Wednesday killed at least 19 people, bringing to 245 the number of people killed in Lebanon since the fighting began on July 12, when Hezbollah guerrillas raided an Israeli border outpost and kidnapped two soldiers. The figures were provided by the police control center, which collates casualty figures.
Twenty-five Israelis also have been killed in Israel in the past eight days as Hezbollah fired rockets across the border.
The U.N. children's and health agencies said Wednesday they were concerned about civilian casualties and new health risks because of escalating violence in Lebanon and Israel.
"Civilian deaths include dozens of children, with many more injured," the joint statement said. "The psychological impact is serious as people, including children, have witnessed the death or injury of loved ones and destruction of their homes and communities," UNICEF and the World Health Organization said.
Movement of medical supplies and ambulances to affected areas is seriously limited, the statement added.
Five people were killed when a missile struck a neighborhood in the southern Lebanese town of Nabatiyeh, police and hospital officials said. The target was a commercial office of a firm belonging to Hezbollah, but those killed were residents.
In the village of Srifa, near Tyre in southern Lebanon, the airstrikes flattened 15 houses. The village's headman, Hussein Kamaledine, said 25 to 30 people lived in the houses, but it was not known if they were at home at the time. Many people have fled southern Lebanon.
"This is a real massacre," Kamaledine told Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV as fire engines extinguished the blaze and rescue workers searched for survivors.
In the southern village of Ghaziyeh, one person was killed and two were wounded when a missile struck a nearby building that housed a Hezbollah-affiliated social institution.
In the eastern Bekaa Valley, four people were killed and three were wounded in an air raid on the village of Loussi, police said.
The planes also hit Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, causing one explosion that reverberated across the city much more loudly than any previous impact.
More Israeli missiles landed in two towns outside Beirut -- Chuweifat and Hadath. One person was killed at the Galerie Semaan junction, near Hadath, police said.
Israeli military officials said that for several days small numbers of soldiers have been going in and out of south Lebanon in search of Hezbollah bases and weapons. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, would not give the number of troops involved or their location.
Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman, said the incursion was not large scale.
"This is an operation which is very measured, very local," Gillerman told CNN. "This is no way an invasion of Lebanon. This is no way the beginning of any kind of occupation of Lebanon."
Last week, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah vowed to defeat any Israeli invasion, saying his guerrillas were "longing" to engage their opponents in ground battles.
"Any ground invasion will be good news for the resistance because it will bring us closer to victory and humiliating the Israeli enemy," Nasrallah said.
Western nations have proposed the stronger international force as part of a possible cease-fire agreement, and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Tuesday that a new force must be "considerably" larger and better armed than the current force, which is viewed as weak and ineffectual.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also called for the introduction of a strong peacekeeping operation.
AP correspondents Sam F. Ghattas and Zeina Karam in Beirut, Lebanon, and Ravi Nessman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
07-19-06 08:55 EDT
-
theone666
- Major [O-4]
- Posts: 1434
- Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2005 5:00 am
Lebanon 'has been torn to shreds'
Wednesday, 19 July 2006, 22:09 GMT 23:09 UK
The Lebanese prime minister has called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah militants, saying his country "has been torn to shreds".
Fouad Siniora said more than 300 people had been killed and 500,000 others displaced in a week of Israeli attacks.
More than 60 civilians died in fresh air strikes as two Israeli soldiers and a Hezbollah militant died in clashes.
Barrages of Hezbollah rockets have been fired into northern Israel, where two children were killed in Nazareth.
Twenty-nine Israelis have died - including 15 civilians killed by rocket attacks - since the Israeli offensive against Hezbollah militants began eight days ago.
In further action on Wednesday night, Israel said a wave of planes had bombed a bunker in the south of the capital, Beirut, where it believed Hezbollah leaders had taken refuge.
Israel launched attacks on Lebanon after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid.
Many thousands continue to flee Lebanon, and several countries have sent ships and helicopters to move their nationals.
But thousands of others remain trapped, with major roads cut by Israeli bombing, and no supplies reaching many areas.
In other developments:
Relief agencies say there is a growing need for water, sanitation and medical facilities for those displaced within Lebanon
French President Jacques Chirac called for humanitarian corridors in Lebanon to protect civilians from Israeli air raids as they flee the fighting
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are to discuss the crisis on Thursday.
'Callous retribution'
In an emotional televised appeal, the Lebanese prime minister urged the international community to intervene.
"I call upon you all to respond immediately... and provide urgent international humanitarian assistance to our war-stricken country," Mr Siniora said.
"Can the international community stand by while such callous retribution by the state of Israel is inflicted on us?"
He vowed to make Israel pay compensation to Lebanon for the "barbaric destruction".
The Israelis say they are fighting to end the control of Hezbollah over the lives of ordinary people on both sides of the border.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the campaign against the militants would continue "as long as necessary" to free its captured soldiers and ensure Hezbollah is not a threat.
Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres told the BBC that Israel wanted peace, but could not sit back while Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel.
Wednesday saw further Israeli strikes in the east, south and Beirut, where a Christian district came under fire for the first time.
At least 12 people were killed in a southern village near the city of Tyre and civilian deaths were also reported in other parts of the south and near Baalbek in the east.
The strikes came as Israeli ground troops continued what they call "restricted pinpoint attacks" into southern Lebanon.
Heavy exchanges of fire erupted after Israeli tanks and infantry crossed the border in search of Hezbollah weapons and facilities.
For their part, Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets at Israeli cities including Haifa and Tiberias.
The Lebanese prime minister has called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah militants, saying his country "has been torn to shreds".
Fouad Siniora said more than 300 people had been killed and 500,000 others displaced in a week of Israeli attacks.
More than 60 civilians died in fresh air strikes as two Israeli soldiers and a Hezbollah militant died in clashes.
Barrages of Hezbollah rockets have been fired into northern Israel, where two children were killed in Nazareth.
Twenty-nine Israelis have died - including 15 civilians killed by rocket attacks - since the Israeli offensive against Hezbollah militants began eight days ago.
In further action on Wednesday night, Israel said a wave of planes had bombed a bunker in the south of the capital, Beirut, where it believed Hezbollah leaders had taken refuge.
Israel launched attacks on Lebanon after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid.
Many thousands continue to flee Lebanon, and several countries have sent ships and helicopters to move their nationals.
But thousands of others remain trapped, with major roads cut by Israeli bombing, and no supplies reaching many areas.
In other developments:
Relief agencies say there is a growing need for water, sanitation and medical facilities for those displaced within Lebanon
French President Jacques Chirac called for humanitarian corridors in Lebanon to protect civilians from Israeli air raids as they flee the fighting
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are to discuss the crisis on Thursday.
'Callous retribution'
In an emotional televised appeal, the Lebanese prime minister urged the international community to intervene.
"I call upon you all to respond immediately... and provide urgent international humanitarian assistance to our war-stricken country," Mr Siniora said.
"Can the international community stand by while such callous retribution by the state of Israel is inflicted on us?"
He vowed to make Israel pay compensation to Lebanon for the "barbaric destruction".
The Israelis say they are fighting to end the control of Hezbollah over the lives of ordinary people on both sides of the border.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the campaign against the militants would continue "as long as necessary" to free its captured soldiers and ensure Hezbollah is not a threat.
Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres told the BBC that Israel wanted peace, but could not sit back while Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel.
Wednesday saw further Israeli strikes in the east, south and Beirut, where a Christian district came under fire for the first time.
At least 12 people were killed in a southern village near the city of Tyre and civilian deaths were also reported in other parts of the south and near Baalbek in the east.
The strikes came as Israeli ground troops continued what they call "restricted pinpoint attacks" into southern Lebanon.
Heavy exchanges of fire erupted after Israeli tanks and infantry crossed the border in search of Hezbollah weapons and facilities.
For their part, Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets at Israeli cities including Haifa and Tiberias.