Tuesday, 1 August 2006, 10:31 GMT 11:31 UK
Israeli forces are pushing deeper into southern Lebanon after Israel's cabinet unanimously agreed to widen the ground offensive against Hezbollah.
One minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, says Israel needs 10 days to two weeks to clear Hezbollah from the border.
Fierce ground fighting continued in south Lebanon overnight and, despite a 48-hour air strike suspension, Israeli jets hit targets across the country.
The UN says it had too little notice of the suspension to take real advantage.
As international diplomatic pressure to end the fighting gathers momentum, European Union foreign ministers are holding emergency talks on the crisis in Brussels.
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy has insisted it is vital that Iran - which backs Hezbollah - be included in the process to find a resolution.
He held talks with his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki at Iran's embassy in Beirut on Monday.
Meanwhile, in a message to Syria's army, who are marking their annual army day, President Bashar Assad told his troops to increase their state of readiness to face "regional challenges".
Casualties
In the latest fighting, officials say Israeli war planes have launched several attacks across Lebanon, targeting Hezbollah rocket launchers and hideouts, as well as a road to Syria in the Bekaa Valley, which the army says was hit to prevent weapons smuggling.
An Israeli army spokeswoman said that troops had killed 20 Hezbollah militants in fresh fighting around the Lebanese villages of Taibe, Adayseh and Rob Thalantheen.
Three Israeli soldiers were killed in fighting in the region, Arab TV channel Al-Arabiya reported.
Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer has told Army Radio that Israel's offensive will be completed within a fortnight.
"I reckon the time required for the (army) to complete the job, and by that I mean that the area in which we want the international force to deploy is cleansed of Hezbollah, will take around 10 days to two weeks," he said.
Scope of incursion
The Israeli security cabinet unanimously approved the widening of its ground offensive in Lebanon, although it is not yet clear what the scope of the incursion will be.
Israel radio is reporting that the aim is to push militants back to the Litani River, about 30km (18 miles) north of the border.
Other sources suggest that Israel may be considering a military ground sweep six kilometres into Lebanon by the end of the week.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said the offensive will continue until the threat from Hezbollah has gone.
The 48-hour limited halt to Israeli air strikes was called to allow an investigation into the deaths of at least 54 civilians, many of them children, who died when Israeli war planes hit a house in the town of Qana.
'Word kept'
Speaking on the BBC's Today programme Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev said that the government had kept to its word by restricting operations to targets where there was an immediate threat to Israeli civilians:
"We stopped targeting places where there was a danger of infrastructure, where there was a danger of civilians getting caught up in an unnecessary way," he said.
"We never said that we were stopping our operation against Hezbollah. We were saying that during the period of investigation into exactly what happened at Qana we were limiting the sort of use of air power that we had used up until then."
Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz described the partial ceasefire as a "humanitarian gesture", with officials saying it was also implemented to allow civilians still trapped in the south to escape and much-needed aid to get in.
Aid turned back
However, the United Nations said there had been no improvement in access for aid workers to southern Lebanon since the suspension.
Agencies said they were having to ask Israel for safe passage for each aid convoy three days in advance and had not received enough notice.
Two convoys reached the Lebanese port of Tyre on Monday after a long detour through the mountains because of bomb damage to the main coast road.
But two Belgian military planes carrying aid were not allowed to land in Beirut after Israel said it could not guarantee their safety, Belgium's Defence Ministry said.
Mr Regev told the BBC that Israel did not "want to see innocent civilians caught up in the combat" and was working closely with the UN to ease the situation.
"We're co-ordinating with humanitarian convoys that's allowing medicine and foodstuffs in, allowing innocents who want to leave, out," he said.
"We have no interest in seeing suffering on the Lebanese side. Ultimately we hope for a better relationship with Lebanon."
After nearly three weeks of fighting, about 750 people - mainly civilians - have been killed by Israeli action, according to Lebanon's health minister.
A total of 51 Israelis, including at least 18 civilians, have been killed by Hezbollah - which has been fighting Israeli incursions and sending rockets into northern Israel.
In a separate development, Israeli troops have re-entered southern Gaza as part of an offensive triggered by the capture of an Israeli soldier by militants from the Gaza Strip five weeks ago.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle ... 233842.stm
CRISIS in the MIDDLE EAST
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Israel to Send Troops Deeper into Lebanon
By KARIN LAUB, AP
JERUSALEM (Aug. 1) - In a major expansion of its ground offensive, Israel has decided to send troops deeper into Lebanon to clear out Hezbollah fighters and secure the territory until a multinational force is deployed there, senior officials said Tuesday
Israel hopes to complete the new push to the Litani River nearly 20 miles from the Israeli border in the next two weeks, Cabinet ministers said following a late Monday meeting.
The meeting came amid a 48-hour suspension of most airstrikes by Israel, which was imposed after an airstrike over the weekend in the southern Lebanese town of Qana killed 56 Lebanese, more than half of them children. The attack sparked international outrage.
Hezbollah also drastically cut back rocket attacks Monday, after firing an average of more than 100 rockets a day in three weeks of fighting.
By early Tuesday, however, Israel had resumed air raids. Warplanes targeted a Hezbollah stronghold deep inside Lebanon and Hezbollah fighters battled with soldiers near the border. The Israeli army also reported heavy fighting between its troops and Hezbollah in the south Lebanon village Ayt ash Shab.
Diplomatic efforts to end the crisis faltered Monday, despite increased world pressure for a cease-fire after the devastating strike in Qana. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the offensive would continue until Hezbollah has been neutralized.
"We will not give up on our goal to live a life free of terror," Olmert said.
President Bush also resisted calls for an immediate halt to fighting, saying any peace deal must ensure that Hezbollah is crippled. He said Iran and Syria must stop backing the Shiite militant group with money and weapons.
"As we work with friends and allies, it's important to remember this crisis began with Hezbollah's unprovoked attacks against Israel. Israel is exercising its right to defend itself," Bush said Monday.
Israel's Cabinet decision paved the way for a significantly broader ground offensive.
Up to now, several thousand soldiers had been engaged in the operation, fighting house-to-house battles with hundreds of Hezbollah fighters in Lebanese towns and villages close to the border. Last week, the Cabinet called up some 30,000 reserve soldiers, many of whom reported to their bases earlier this week to begin training.
Defense official said they expected thousands more soldiers to be sent to Lebanon as part of the expanded offensive. "We have reached the stage where we have to expand the operation," said Defense Minister Amir Peretz, without giving the dimensions of the next phase.
Senior Israeli officials and media reports said Tuesday that troops were given permission to move as far north as Lebanon's Litani River, which meanders through the southern part of the country, and at some points is 18 miles from the Israeli-Lebanese border.
In a first stage, tanks and ground forces would move up to four miles into Lebanon, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not allowed to discuss government decisions with reporters.
Political commentator Emmanuel Rosen outlined the Security Cabinet's decision on Army Radio, saying troops would in some cases even go beyond the Litani. Justice Minister Haim Ramon, speaking on the same program, said Rosen apparently "knows what he is talking about," but declined to refer directly to the Cabinet decisions.
Ramon, a member of the Security Cabinet, said he hoped the push would be completed in a week to 10 days, to create the conditions for a multinational force to deploy there. Another Cabinet minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, said he expected the offensive to take up to two weeks.
Peretz said Israel would also target vehicles carrying weapons from Syria to Lebanon, but reiterated that Israel was not trying to draw Syria into the war. Israel has repeatedly accused Syria of allowing Iranian-made weapons to be shipped through its territory to Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.
Syrian President Bashar Assad called on his army Monday to increase readiness to cope with "regional challenges." Travelers from Syria have reported that some reservists have been called up for military duty -- a sign that Syria is concerned the fighting in Lebanon could spill over.
Thousands of Lebanese, meanwhile, took advantage of the lull in airstrikes to make a dash for safety farther north after weeks trapped in homes in the war zone, afraid to move because of intense missile strikes on roads.
Across the south, cars and trucks packed with women and children, mattresses strapped to the roofs and white flags streaming from the windows, made their way to the coast, then turned north. They passed flattened houses, shattered trees and burned-out cars strewn on the roadside.
Some described living on a piece of candy a day and dirty water as the fighting raged.
"All the time I thought of death," said Rimah Bazzi, an American visiting from Dearborn, Mich., who spent weeks hiding with her three children and mother in the house of a local doctor in the town of Bint Jbail, scene of the heaviest fighting.
In the northern Israeli town of Nahariya, residents began emerging from shelters. Supermarkets were fuller than before and more people were in the streets, walking along the beach and shopping.
Israel said it would investigate the Qana attack, but army officials said Tuesday they did not know when findings would be released.
Olmert, meanwhile, apologized for the civilian deaths.
"I am sorry from the bottom of my heart for all deaths of children or women in Qana," he said. "We did not search them out. ... They were not our enemies and we did not look for them."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said she expected a U.N. resolution for a cease-fire within a week, but also cautioned that "there's a lot of work to do." As part of a truce deal, a U.N.-mandated international force would be deployed in southern Lebanon to ensure guerrillas do not attack Israel.
Israel wants a strong, armed force with a mandate to confront militants, and Ramon reiterated Tuesday that Israel seeks NATO involvement. Israel feels U.N. peacekeepers, deployed in south Lebanon since 1978, are at best useless.
Hezbollah's allies Syria and Iran also quietly entered the diplomacy on Monday. Egypt was pressing Syria not to try to stop an international force in the south, diplomats in Cairo said. Iran's foreign minister traveled to Beirut for talks with his French and Lebanese counterparts.
At least 524 people have been killed in Lebanon since the fighting began, according to the Health Ministry. Fifty-one Israelis have died, including 33 soldiers and 18 civilians who died in rocket attacks.
Associated Press writers Hamza Hendawi in Marjayoun, Lebanon; Tom Wagner in Jerusalem; Mark Lavie in Tel Aviv, Israel; Lee Keath in Beirut, Lebanon; Kathy Gannon in Bint Jbail, Lebanon; and Katherine Shrader traveling with Rice contributed to this story.
8/1/2006 06:44:25
http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/is ... 5409990004
JERUSALEM (Aug. 1) - In a major expansion of its ground offensive, Israel has decided to send troops deeper into Lebanon to clear out Hezbollah fighters and secure the territory until a multinational force is deployed there, senior officials said Tuesday
Israel hopes to complete the new push to the Litani River nearly 20 miles from the Israeli border in the next two weeks, Cabinet ministers said following a late Monday meeting.
The meeting came amid a 48-hour suspension of most airstrikes by Israel, which was imposed after an airstrike over the weekend in the southern Lebanese town of Qana killed 56 Lebanese, more than half of them children. The attack sparked international outrage.
Hezbollah also drastically cut back rocket attacks Monday, after firing an average of more than 100 rockets a day in three weeks of fighting.
By early Tuesday, however, Israel had resumed air raids. Warplanes targeted a Hezbollah stronghold deep inside Lebanon and Hezbollah fighters battled with soldiers near the border. The Israeli army also reported heavy fighting between its troops and Hezbollah in the south Lebanon village Ayt ash Shab.
Diplomatic efforts to end the crisis faltered Monday, despite increased world pressure for a cease-fire after the devastating strike in Qana. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the offensive would continue until Hezbollah has been neutralized.
"We will not give up on our goal to live a life free of terror," Olmert said.
President Bush also resisted calls for an immediate halt to fighting, saying any peace deal must ensure that Hezbollah is crippled. He said Iran and Syria must stop backing the Shiite militant group with money and weapons.
"As we work with friends and allies, it's important to remember this crisis began with Hezbollah's unprovoked attacks against Israel. Israel is exercising its right to defend itself," Bush said Monday.
Israel's Cabinet decision paved the way for a significantly broader ground offensive.
Up to now, several thousand soldiers had been engaged in the operation, fighting house-to-house battles with hundreds of Hezbollah fighters in Lebanese towns and villages close to the border. Last week, the Cabinet called up some 30,000 reserve soldiers, many of whom reported to their bases earlier this week to begin training.
Defense official said they expected thousands more soldiers to be sent to Lebanon as part of the expanded offensive. "We have reached the stage where we have to expand the operation," said Defense Minister Amir Peretz, without giving the dimensions of the next phase.
Senior Israeli officials and media reports said Tuesday that troops were given permission to move as far north as Lebanon's Litani River, which meanders through the southern part of the country, and at some points is 18 miles from the Israeli-Lebanese border.
In a first stage, tanks and ground forces would move up to four miles into Lebanon, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not allowed to discuss government decisions with reporters.
Political commentator Emmanuel Rosen outlined the Security Cabinet's decision on Army Radio, saying troops would in some cases even go beyond the Litani. Justice Minister Haim Ramon, speaking on the same program, said Rosen apparently "knows what he is talking about," but declined to refer directly to the Cabinet decisions.
Ramon, a member of the Security Cabinet, said he hoped the push would be completed in a week to 10 days, to create the conditions for a multinational force to deploy there. Another Cabinet minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, said he expected the offensive to take up to two weeks.
Peretz said Israel would also target vehicles carrying weapons from Syria to Lebanon, but reiterated that Israel was not trying to draw Syria into the war. Israel has repeatedly accused Syria of allowing Iranian-made weapons to be shipped through its territory to Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.
Syrian President Bashar Assad called on his army Monday to increase readiness to cope with "regional challenges." Travelers from Syria have reported that some reservists have been called up for military duty -- a sign that Syria is concerned the fighting in Lebanon could spill over.
Thousands of Lebanese, meanwhile, took advantage of the lull in airstrikes to make a dash for safety farther north after weeks trapped in homes in the war zone, afraid to move because of intense missile strikes on roads.
Across the south, cars and trucks packed with women and children, mattresses strapped to the roofs and white flags streaming from the windows, made their way to the coast, then turned north. They passed flattened houses, shattered trees and burned-out cars strewn on the roadside.
Some described living on a piece of candy a day and dirty water as the fighting raged.
"All the time I thought of death," said Rimah Bazzi, an American visiting from Dearborn, Mich., who spent weeks hiding with her three children and mother in the house of a local doctor in the town of Bint Jbail, scene of the heaviest fighting.
In the northern Israeli town of Nahariya, residents began emerging from shelters. Supermarkets were fuller than before and more people were in the streets, walking along the beach and shopping.
Israel said it would investigate the Qana attack, but army officials said Tuesday they did not know when findings would be released.
Olmert, meanwhile, apologized for the civilian deaths.
"I am sorry from the bottom of my heart for all deaths of children or women in Qana," he said. "We did not search them out. ... They were not our enemies and we did not look for them."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said she expected a U.N. resolution for a cease-fire within a week, but also cautioned that "there's a lot of work to do." As part of a truce deal, a U.N.-mandated international force would be deployed in southern Lebanon to ensure guerrillas do not attack Israel.
Israel wants a strong, armed force with a mandate to confront militants, and Ramon reiterated Tuesday that Israel seeks NATO involvement. Israel feels U.N. peacekeepers, deployed in south Lebanon since 1978, are at best useless.
Hezbollah's allies Syria and Iran also quietly entered the diplomacy on Monday. Egypt was pressing Syria not to try to stop an international force in the south, diplomats in Cairo said. Iran's foreign minister traveled to Beirut for talks with his French and Lebanese counterparts.
At least 524 people have been killed in Lebanon since the fighting began, according to the Health Ministry. Fifty-one Israelis have died, including 33 soldiers and 18 civilians who died in rocket attacks.
Associated Press writers Hamza Hendawi in Marjayoun, Lebanon; Tom Wagner in Jerusalem; Mark Lavie in Tel Aviv, Israel; Lee Keath in Beirut, Lebanon; Kathy Gannon in Bint Jbail, Lebanon; and Katherine Shrader traveling with Rice contributed to this story.
8/1/2006 06:44:25
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Fighting Rages in Lebanese Village
By HAMZA HENDAWI , AP
BOURJ AL-MULOUK, Lebanon (Aug. 1) - Heavy fighting raged Tuesday in the Lebanese border village of Aita al-Shaab, and Hezbollah television said 35 Israeli soldiers had been killed or wounded in the fighting. Israeli warplanes pounded Shiite Lebanese villages in many areas along the border and struck Hezbollah strongholds deep inside the country.
Arab satellite channels carried live pictures as Israeli forces poured in a relentless bombardment of artillery shells on Aita al-Shaab, the town from which Hezbollah guerrillas crossed the border on July 12 and captured two Israeli soldiers and killed three others, igniting the conflict.
Al-Manar TV, the Hezbollah-run channel, reported that guerrilla fighters had Israeli forces pinned down and unable to evacuate their wounded. That apparently prompted the heavy renewed fighting. Huge clouds of smoke rose above the village and artillery concussions echoed across the valleys.
The Hezbollah television said fighters had ambushed Israeli soldiers near the town's main school building. Israeli authorities have not publicly commented on the Al-Manar claim of casualties.
Earlier Tuesday Israeli jets struck Hezbollah strongholds deep inside the country and civilian areas along the Mediterranean coast.
Not far to the east of Aita al-Shaab, an Associated Press reporter on a hilltop overlooking the village of Kfar Kila saw columns of black smoke rising from the cluster of homes and surrounding hills about 1.2 miles from the Israeli border.
At least three airstrikes hit the area, and the thud of artillery shells from Israeli ground troops was constant. About 20 shells landed in the hills around Kfar Kila in the course of 45 minutes.
A Hezbollah fighter near the hilltop village, Bourse al-Mulouk, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was involved in the fighting, said the battle for Kfar Kila began Monday, when several Israeli tanks crossed the border into Lebanon. Fighting lasted all day Monday, and Israeli ground troops withdrew into Israel Tuesday morning, he said.
Parts of Kfar Kila are within view of Israel, and Israeli troops were able to continue shelling the town from their own territory. Airstrikes continued on the town as well.
Artillery rained down on the nearby village of Deir Mimas as well, about 1.2 miles from Kfar Kila. The two villages sit next to one another on the side of a rocky hill.
Intense shelling had ended by early afternoon, though sporadic attacks continued.
The guerrilla group said it battled Israeli ground troops Adaisse and Taibeh, near the Christian town of Marjayoun. It released a statement saying four of its fighters died in the battles.
Hezbollah said its militants repulsed an Israeli incursion into Adaisse and Kfar Kila, forcing them behind the border after inflicting casualties. The statement said the troops crossed the border Monday night.
Israeli warplanes launched three air raids on targets along the Litani River, Lebanon's official news agency reported. They were accompanied by artillery shelling against villages in the central region of south Lebanon.
Israel's Cabinet late Monday approved a major expansion of its ground offensive, deciding to send troops up to the Litani, some 18 miles from the Israeli border.
A Lebanese government official on Tuesday denounced that decision, saying Israel was repeating the same mistakes it made in the past 30 years by invading the area.
"This will not help (Israel) achieve the security that it is looking for," the official told The Associated Press. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
"Security and stability can only be achieved by an Israeli withdrawal from occupied Lebanese territories, not by expanding the occupation," he said.
Israeli jet fighters also struck deep inside Lebanese territory, hitting Hermel, some 73 miles north of the Israeli border in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon. Warplanes fired at least five air-to-surface missiles on the edge of the town, targeting a road linking eastern Lebanon to western regions and the coastline.
About six hours later, warplanes returned to attack Hermel again, hitting a pickup truck loaded with cooking gas tanks, security officials said. The canisters exploded, sending flames shooting up from the vehicle for nearly an hour. The driver had pulled over and exited the vehicle before the attack, and was not hurt, they said.
In the west, Israeli warships offshore in the Mediterranean sent artillery into the villages of Mansouri, Shamaa and Teir Harfan around the port city of Tyre. No casualties were reported.
Another strike at an area near the Syrian border, about 6 miles north of Hermel, targeted the Qaa-Homs road, one of four official crossing points between Lebanon and Syria. Lebanon's official news agency reported Israeli jets also hit early Tuesday near the Masnaa crossing into Syria, which was attacked several times in the last three days.
Tuesday's airstrikes mean that two of the four border crossings are now closed because of damage. Repeated airstrikes have made the main Beirut-Damascus highway impassable.
The remaining crossings are Lebanon's main transport links to the outside world. Israel has hit the Beirut international airport, forcing its closure, and has imposed a naval blockade. Late last week the airport began receiving aid relief flights on a repaired runway.
The latest bombings came despite a supposed 48-hour Israeli suspension of air aids in Lebanon, prompted by worldwide outcry over an airstrike Sunday that killed 56 people, more than half of them children, on the southern Lebanese village of Qana. The pause, which ends early Wednesday, was to give time for an investigation into the Qana attack, but Israel said its warplanes would still hit targets that presented an imminent threat, and at least three strikes were launched Monday.
Many of those living in the northeast are Shiite Muslims, the country's largest sect from which Hezbollah draws its support.
8/1/2006 10:46:31
BOURJ AL-MULOUK, Lebanon (Aug. 1) - Heavy fighting raged Tuesday in the Lebanese border village of Aita al-Shaab, and Hezbollah television said 35 Israeli soldiers had been killed or wounded in the fighting. Israeli warplanes pounded Shiite Lebanese villages in many areas along the border and struck Hezbollah strongholds deep inside the country.
Arab satellite channels carried live pictures as Israeli forces poured in a relentless bombardment of artillery shells on Aita al-Shaab, the town from which Hezbollah guerrillas crossed the border on July 12 and captured two Israeli soldiers and killed three others, igniting the conflict.
Al-Manar TV, the Hezbollah-run channel, reported that guerrilla fighters had Israeli forces pinned down and unable to evacuate their wounded. That apparently prompted the heavy renewed fighting. Huge clouds of smoke rose above the village and artillery concussions echoed across the valleys.
The Hezbollah television said fighters had ambushed Israeli soldiers near the town's main school building. Israeli authorities have not publicly commented on the Al-Manar claim of casualties.
Earlier Tuesday Israeli jets struck Hezbollah strongholds deep inside the country and civilian areas along the Mediterranean coast.
Not far to the east of Aita al-Shaab, an Associated Press reporter on a hilltop overlooking the village of Kfar Kila saw columns of black smoke rising from the cluster of homes and surrounding hills about 1.2 miles from the Israeli border.
At least three airstrikes hit the area, and the thud of artillery shells from Israeli ground troops was constant. About 20 shells landed in the hills around Kfar Kila in the course of 45 minutes.
A Hezbollah fighter near the hilltop village, Bourse al-Mulouk, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was involved in the fighting, said the battle for Kfar Kila began Monday, when several Israeli tanks crossed the border into Lebanon. Fighting lasted all day Monday, and Israeli ground troops withdrew into Israel Tuesday morning, he said.
Parts of Kfar Kila are within view of Israel, and Israeli troops were able to continue shelling the town from their own territory. Airstrikes continued on the town as well.
Artillery rained down on the nearby village of Deir Mimas as well, about 1.2 miles from Kfar Kila. The two villages sit next to one another on the side of a rocky hill.
Intense shelling had ended by early afternoon, though sporadic attacks continued.
The guerrilla group said it battled Israeli ground troops Adaisse and Taibeh, near the Christian town of Marjayoun. It released a statement saying four of its fighters died in the battles.
Hezbollah said its militants repulsed an Israeli incursion into Adaisse and Kfar Kila, forcing them behind the border after inflicting casualties. The statement said the troops crossed the border Monday night.
Israeli warplanes launched three air raids on targets along the Litani River, Lebanon's official news agency reported. They were accompanied by artillery shelling against villages in the central region of south Lebanon.
Israel's Cabinet late Monday approved a major expansion of its ground offensive, deciding to send troops up to the Litani, some 18 miles from the Israeli border.
A Lebanese government official on Tuesday denounced that decision, saying Israel was repeating the same mistakes it made in the past 30 years by invading the area.
"This will not help (Israel) achieve the security that it is looking for," the official told The Associated Press. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
"Security and stability can only be achieved by an Israeli withdrawal from occupied Lebanese territories, not by expanding the occupation," he said.
Israeli jet fighters also struck deep inside Lebanese territory, hitting Hermel, some 73 miles north of the Israeli border in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon. Warplanes fired at least five air-to-surface missiles on the edge of the town, targeting a road linking eastern Lebanon to western regions and the coastline.
About six hours later, warplanes returned to attack Hermel again, hitting a pickup truck loaded with cooking gas tanks, security officials said. The canisters exploded, sending flames shooting up from the vehicle for nearly an hour. The driver had pulled over and exited the vehicle before the attack, and was not hurt, they said.
In the west, Israeli warships offshore in the Mediterranean sent artillery into the villages of Mansouri, Shamaa and Teir Harfan around the port city of Tyre. No casualties were reported.
Another strike at an area near the Syrian border, about 6 miles north of Hermel, targeted the Qaa-Homs road, one of four official crossing points between Lebanon and Syria. Lebanon's official news agency reported Israeli jets also hit early Tuesday near the Masnaa crossing into Syria, which was attacked several times in the last three days.
Tuesday's airstrikes mean that two of the four border crossings are now closed because of damage. Repeated airstrikes have made the main Beirut-Damascus highway impassable.
The remaining crossings are Lebanon's main transport links to the outside world. Israel has hit the Beirut international airport, forcing its closure, and has imposed a naval blockade. Late last week the airport began receiving aid relief flights on a repaired runway.
The latest bombings came despite a supposed 48-hour Israeli suspension of air aids in Lebanon, prompted by worldwide outcry over an airstrike Sunday that killed 56 people, more than half of them children, on the southern Lebanese village of Qana. The pause, which ends early Wednesday, was to give time for an investigation into the Qana attack, but Israel said its warplanes would still hit targets that presented an imminent threat, and at least three strikes were launched Monday.
Many of those living in the northeast are Shiite Muslims, the country's largest sect from which Hezbollah draws its support.
8/1/2006 10:46:31
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Delays hit Lebanese relief effort
Tuesday, 1 August 2006, 18:59 GMT 19:59 UK
Convoys carrying humanitarian aid for south Lebanon have been stranded in the capital Beirut and other towns, in the absence of safe passage guarantees.
Two World Food Programme convoys and four carrying International Committee of the Red Cross supplies were unable to proceed on Tuesday.
Aid officials say isolated communities in the south, where Israel is battling Hezbollah, are particularly vulnerable.
Bomb damage to roads and traffic jams hamper those convoys which do move out.
Israeli bombardment has "systematically destroyed almost the entire road network", Mona Hammam, United Nations resident co-ordinator for Lebanon, told BBC News.
She told the World At One programme that the UN was asking for humanitarian corridors to bring in supplies.
"For each cargo there has to be a notification system to ensure that that road can be used and will not be targeted," she said.
Aid agencies' hopes rose on Monday after Israel declared a partial truce for humanitarian reasons but fighting continued in the south on Tuesday.
Some foreign aid has been entering Lebanon through Beirut airport and Tyre's sea port while UN aid has been arriving by land from Syria, through the Arida border crossing.
Family parcels
Annick Bouvier, spokeswoman for the ICRC in Geneva, confirmed that four convoys, each of between three and four lorries, had been unable to leave on Tuesday after failing to receive security assurances from the Israeli military.
Two are stuck in the port of Tyre, where an ICRC cargo ship docked on Sunday, and the other two are in Marjayoun.
An ICRC lorry typically carries 500 "family parcels", each of which is designed to feed a family for a week, Ms Bouvier said.
There is also fuel for village water pumps, and sanitary aid and, once empty, the lorries are meant to evacuate civilians from the relief areas.
In a press release, the WFP said only one of three convoys intended for south Lebanon had been able to leave on Tuesday.
Amer Daoudi, WFP emergency coordinator, said frustration was mounting that people had been stranded without aid in the south for nearly three weeks, many of them poor, sick or elderly.
"We have no time to waste - they are running out of food, water and medicine," he added.
Long trip south
Robin Lodge, a WFP press officer, accompanied an aid convoy from Beirut to Tyre on Monday.
The journey took 10.5 hours instead of the usual 90 minutes because of damage to the main roads and traffic jams caused by the continuing movement of refugees.
On Tuesday morning, Mr Lodge was on the first WFP convoy from Tyre into Qana, where Israeli bombing killed at least 54 people in a house on Sunday.
Qana appeared deserted when the convoy's five lorries arrived but their cargo of flour and vegetable oil as well as medical and water purification supplies was delivered successfully to the municipal authorities, he told the BBC News website on his way back to Beirut.
The WFP, he said, would be happier to have non-governmental organisations helping with distribution but they had been hampered by problems of their own in obtaining clearance to operate.
No WFP convoys had so far come under attack.
Their movements were reported to the Israeli military and to Hezbollah, and the lorries were marked with UN symbols on their tarpaulin which should be visible to Israeli air pilots, Mr Lodge said.
Hezbollah had so far approved all WFP convoy requests, he added, while the Israelis had responded with a simple "Yes" or "No" without giving any reason.
"It is absolutely apparent that the Israelis don't let us into areas where they intend to engage in military activity," he said.
The WFP spokesman added that air drops of aid were a last resort and were not being contemplated in Lebanon at this time - nor was the option of delivering aid from the Israeli side of the border "feasible at this stage".
Convoys carrying humanitarian aid for south Lebanon have been stranded in the capital Beirut and other towns, in the absence of safe passage guarantees.
Two World Food Programme convoys and four carrying International Committee of the Red Cross supplies were unable to proceed on Tuesday.
Aid officials say isolated communities in the south, where Israel is battling Hezbollah, are particularly vulnerable.
Bomb damage to roads and traffic jams hamper those convoys which do move out.
Israeli bombardment has "systematically destroyed almost the entire road network", Mona Hammam, United Nations resident co-ordinator for Lebanon, told BBC News.
She told the World At One programme that the UN was asking for humanitarian corridors to bring in supplies.
"For each cargo there has to be a notification system to ensure that that road can be used and will not be targeted," she said.
Aid agencies' hopes rose on Monday after Israel declared a partial truce for humanitarian reasons but fighting continued in the south on Tuesday.
Some foreign aid has been entering Lebanon through Beirut airport and Tyre's sea port while UN aid has been arriving by land from Syria, through the Arida border crossing.
Family parcels
Annick Bouvier, spokeswoman for the ICRC in Geneva, confirmed that four convoys, each of between three and four lorries, had been unable to leave on Tuesday after failing to receive security assurances from the Israeli military.
Two are stuck in the port of Tyre, where an ICRC cargo ship docked on Sunday, and the other two are in Marjayoun.
An ICRC lorry typically carries 500 "family parcels", each of which is designed to feed a family for a week, Ms Bouvier said.
There is also fuel for village water pumps, and sanitary aid and, once empty, the lorries are meant to evacuate civilians from the relief areas.
In a press release, the WFP said only one of three convoys intended for south Lebanon had been able to leave on Tuesday.
Amer Daoudi, WFP emergency coordinator, said frustration was mounting that people had been stranded without aid in the south for nearly three weeks, many of them poor, sick or elderly.
"We have no time to waste - they are running out of food, water and medicine," he added.
Long trip south
Robin Lodge, a WFP press officer, accompanied an aid convoy from Beirut to Tyre on Monday.
The journey took 10.5 hours instead of the usual 90 minutes because of damage to the main roads and traffic jams caused by the continuing movement of refugees.
On Tuesday morning, Mr Lodge was on the first WFP convoy from Tyre into Qana, where Israeli bombing killed at least 54 people in a house on Sunday.
Qana appeared deserted when the convoy's five lorries arrived but their cargo of flour and vegetable oil as well as medical and water purification supplies was delivered successfully to the municipal authorities, he told the BBC News website on his way back to Beirut.
The WFP, he said, would be happier to have non-governmental organisations helping with distribution but they had been hampered by problems of their own in obtaining clearance to operate.
No WFP convoys had so far come under attack.
Their movements were reported to the Israeli military and to Hezbollah, and the lorries were marked with UN symbols on their tarpaulin which should be visible to Israeli air pilots, Mr Lodge said.
Hezbollah had so far approved all WFP convoy requests, he added, while the Israelis had responded with a simple "Yes" or "No" without giving any reason.
"It is absolutely apparent that the Israelis don't let us into areas where they intend to engage in military activity," he said.
The WFP spokesman added that air drops of aid were a last resort and were not being contemplated in Lebanon at this time - nor was the option of delivering aid from the Israeli side of the border "feasible at this stage".
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theone666
- Major [O-4]
- Posts: 1434
- Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2005 5:00 am
Israel targets Hezbollah bastion
Wednesday, 2 August 2006, 00:32 GMT 01:32 UK
An Israeli ground and air operation is under way near Baalbek in Lebanon - a Hezbollah stronghold more than 100km (60 miles) north of the Israeli border.
An Israeli helicopter landed and fierce clashes with Hezbollah fighters broke out near a hospital, local reports said. Israel has refused to comment.
Israeli forces have also pushed deeper into south Lebanon aiming to set up what Israel dubs a "security zone".
Israel said it would resume air strikes after a 48-hour partial halt.
The Israeli security cabinet on Tuesday unanimously approved widening Israel's ground offensive in Lebanon.
Some reports said troops would push as far as the Litani River - up to 30km (18 miles) from Israel's border.
Israel warned civilians north-east of the river to leave their homes.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel was "winning the battle" against Hezbollah, whom he said would never again be able to threaten the Jewish state.
Mr Olmert said it was not in Israel's interest to declare an immediate ceasefire.
But he added that a diplomatic process was under way which he believed would "lead in the end to a ceasefire under totally different conditions from those which existed previously on our northern border".
'Aircraft over Baalbek'
Tuesday's Israeli operation in eastern Lebanon started with several air strikes in the Baalbek area.
The city is a Hezbollah stronghold and has been pounded by the Israelis over the last three weeks.
Israeli gunships are hovering at low altitude above hilltops overlooking the city, the BBC's Kim Ghattas in Beirut says.
Hezbollah spokesman Hussein Rahal told the Associated Press news agency that Israeli troops had landed at the hospital in Baalbek.
He said there had been fierce fighting as Israeli soldiers had entered the hospital and become trapped inside as Hezbollah fighters had surrounded the building.
Witnesses told Reuters news agency there was fierce fighting with assault rifles, grenade-launchers and machine guns around the hospital.
Two petrol stations in the area were also targeted and set on fire, our correspondent reports.
In other developments
European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels meanwhile called for an "immediate cessation of hostilities", to be followed by a "sustainable ceasefire" - rather than the immediate ceasefire urged by some members.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said an agreement on ending the fighting was possible within "days, not weeks".
A French official told the AFP news agency that France would boycott a meeting on Thursday of potential contributors to an international stabilisation force - the official said France considered the meeting "premature".
Aid agencies said six convoys were unable to deliver humanitarian supplies to conflict hit areas because Israel had not given safe passage guarantees.
Clashes
Tuesday saw fierce fighting across southern Lebanon, with casualties on both sides.
Israel said three of its soldiers died when an anti-tank missile hit the house they were in, in the town of Ait al-Shaab.
The Israelis say that they "hit dozens of Hezbollah gunmen" but could not give more details.
Hezbollah said four of its fighters died in battles in Kfar Kila, Adiasse and Taibe, while a mother and her two daughters were killed in an Israeli air strike on the southern town of Lweizeh, Lebanese officials said.
Fighting is also reported to have flared around the former Hezbollah stronghold of Bint Jbeil, from where Israeli troops withdrew last week.
Israel launched its offensive after Hezbollah militants seized two of its soldiers in a cross-border raid.
After nearly three weeks of fighting, about 750 people - mainly civilians - have been killed by Israeli action in Lebanon, according to Lebanon's health minister.
A total of 54 Israelis, including at least 18 civilians, are known to have been killed by Hezbollah.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle ... 236834.stm
An Israeli ground and air operation is under way near Baalbek in Lebanon - a Hezbollah stronghold more than 100km (60 miles) north of the Israeli border.
An Israeli helicopter landed and fierce clashes with Hezbollah fighters broke out near a hospital, local reports said. Israel has refused to comment.
Israeli forces have also pushed deeper into south Lebanon aiming to set up what Israel dubs a "security zone".
Israel said it would resume air strikes after a 48-hour partial halt.
The Israeli security cabinet on Tuesday unanimously approved widening Israel's ground offensive in Lebanon.
Some reports said troops would push as far as the Litani River - up to 30km (18 miles) from Israel's border.
Israel warned civilians north-east of the river to leave their homes.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel was "winning the battle" against Hezbollah, whom he said would never again be able to threaten the Jewish state.
Mr Olmert said it was not in Israel's interest to declare an immediate ceasefire.
But he added that a diplomatic process was under way which he believed would "lead in the end to a ceasefire under totally different conditions from those which existed previously on our northern border".
'Aircraft over Baalbek'
Tuesday's Israeli operation in eastern Lebanon started with several air strikes in the Baalbek area.
The city is a Hezbollah stronghold and has been pounded by the Israelis over the last three weeks.
Israeli gunships are hovering at low altitude above hilltops overlooking the city, the BBC's Kim Ghattas in Beirut says.
Hezbollah spokesman Hussein Rahal told the Associated Press news agency that Israeli troops had landed at the hospital in Baalbek.
He said there had been fierce fighting as Israeli soldiers had entered the hospital and become trapped inside as Hezbollah fighters had surrounded the building.
Witnesses told Reuters news agency there was fierce fighting with assault rifles, grenade-launchers and machine guns around the hospital.
Two petrol stations in the area were also targeted and set on fire, our correspondent reports.
In other developments
European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels meanwhile called for an "immediate cessation of hostilities", to be followed by a "sustainable ceasefire" - rather than the immediate ceasefire urged by some members.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said an agreement on ending the fighting was possible within "days, not weeks".
A French official told the AFP news agency that France would boycott a meeting on Thursday of potential contributors to an international stabilisation force - the official said France considered the meeting "premature".
Aid agencies said six convoys were unable to deliver humanitarian supplies to conflict hit areas because Israel had not given safe passage guarantees.
Clashes
Tuesday saw fierce fighting across southern Lebanon, with casualties on both sides.
Israel said three of its soldiers died when an anti-tank missile hit the house they were in, in the town of Ait al-Shaab.
The Israelis say that they "hit dozens of Hezbollah gunmen" but could not give more details.
Hezbollah said four of its fighters died in battles in Kfar Kila, Adiasse and Taibe, while a mother and her two daughters were killed in an Israeli air strike on the southern town of Lweizeh, Lebanese officials said.
Fighting is also reported to have flared around the former Hezbollah stronghold of Bint Jbeil, from where Israeli troops withdrew last week.
Israel launched its offensive after Hezbollah militants seized two of its soldiers in a cross-border raid.
After nearly three weeks of fighting, about 750 people - mainly civilians - have been killed by Israeli action in Lebanon, according to Lebanon's health minister.
A total of 54 Israelis, including at least 18 civilians, are known to have been killed by Hezbollah.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle ... 236834.stm
-
theone666
- Major [O-4]
- Posts: 1434
- Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2005 5:00 am
Israel Launches Strikes Deep Inside Lebanon
By HAMZA HENDAWI and KARIN LAUB, AP
BOURJ AL-MULOUK, Lebanon (Aug. 1) - Israel launched a major attack deep into Lebanon, and Hezbollah said its guerrillas were fighting Israeli commandos trapped inside a hospital in the eastern city of Baalbek early Wednesday.
The Israeli army would not comment on the operation in the ancient city, which was once a Syrian army headquarters some 80 miles north of Israel. The Web site of the Israeli daily Haaretz reported that "helicopters put down IDF (military) commandos near Baalbek," without adding details.
The ferocity of the battles in Baalbek and across southern Lebanon on Tuesday, the determination of the Israelis to keep fighting and the minimal diplomatic progress toward a cease-fire all indicate the 3-week-old war is more likely to escalate than end soon.
Hezbollah's chief spokesman, Hussein Rahal, told The Associated Press Israeli troops landed near Dar al-Hikma Hospital.
Four hours into the operation, fighting continued, witnesses said. By early Wednesday morning, Israeli warplanes had staged more than 10 bombing runs around the hospital as well as on hills in east and north Baalbek. The planes dropped flares over the city while heavy fighting raged around the hospital, they said.
"A group of Israeli commandos was brought to the hospital by a helicopter. They entered the hospital and are trapped inside as our fighters opened fire on them, and fierce fighting is still raging," Rahal said.
He dismissed as "untrue" reports that the Israeli commandos managed to snatch some patients from the hospital and spirit them away in helicopters. Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers in a July 12 cross-border raid triggered the Israeli offensive.
Witnesses said the hospital was hit in an Israeli airstrike and was burning. Repeated telephone calls to the hospital went unanswered.
Baalbek, about 10 miles from the Syrian border, is a city with spectacular Roman ruins as well as the barracks of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards when they trained Hezbollah guerrillas there in the 1980s.
The last time Israel forces were known to have gone that far on the ground into Lebanon was in 1994, when they abducted Lebanese guerrilla leader Mustafa Dirani, hoping to use him to get information about missing Israeli airman Ron Arad. Dirani was released in a prisoner exchange 10 years later.
In southern Lebanon on Tuesday, troops battled guerrillas after Israel ordered its army to punch all the way to the Litani River. Thousands of troops were operating along the Israel-Lebanon border. Additional soldiers crossed into Lebanon on Tuesday, Israeli defense officials said, joining forces already fighting there.
They entered through four different points along the border and moved at least four miles inside Lebanon. Thousands of reservists, called up over the weekend, also were gathering at staging areas on the Israeli side of the border, ready to join the battles and extend the invasion.
Israeli officials said their soldiers were to go as far as the Litani, about 18 miles from the border, and hold the ground until an international peacekeeping force comes ashore.
But the army later said it had distributed leaflets northeast of the river at villages where Hezbollah was active. The leaflets told people to leave, suggesting that the new offensive could take Israeli soldiers even deeper into Lebanon.
Despite mounting civilian deaths, President Bush held fast to support for Israel and was pressing for a U.N. resolution linking a cease-fire with a broader plan for peace in the Middle East. Staking out a different approach, European Union foreign ministers called for an "immediate cessation of hostilities" followed by efforts to agree on a sustainable cease-fire.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said it was not in Israel's interest to agree to an immediate cease-fire because every day of fighting weakens the guerrillas.
"Every additional day is a day that drains the strength of this cruel enemy," he said. "Every extra day is a day in which the (army) reduces their capability, contains their firing ability and their ability to hit in the future."
The Israelis want to keep Hezbollah off the border so their patrols and civilians along the fence are not in danger of attack. The army also hopes to push Hezbollah far enough north so that most of the guerrillas' rockets cannot reach the Jewish state.
Israel resumed sporadic airstrikes - hitting Hezbollah strongholds and supply lines from one end of Lebanon to the other - despite a pledge to suspend such attacks for another day in response to world outrage over the killing of 56 Lebanese in a weekend bombing.
Aid groups had hoped to take advantage of the supposed 48-hour lull in airstrikes to get food and medicine to civilians trapped in the south. But Israel denied access to two U.N. convoys. Others who made the journey described airstrikes close to their convoys, and bodies along the road.
Hezbollah fired just 10 rockets across the border Tuesday, well below an average of about 100 a day since the fighting began 21 days ago, Israel said.
But the ground battles were intense.
At nightfall Tuesday, Israeli troops were fighting Hezbollah at several points along the border. Reporters and Arab television reported especially heavy fighting and Israeli artillery bombardment at the village of Aita al-Shaab.
The Israeli army said late Tuesday that three Israeli soldiers died and 25 were slightly wounded by small arms fire and anti-tank rockets in Aita al-Shaab.
Israeli Cabinet Minister Haim Ramon said the fighting to date had killed about 300 of Hezbollah's main force of 2,000 fighters, which does not include its less-well trained reserves. "That's a very hard blow," he said.
Hezbollah has said only 46 of its fighters were killed. Four were lost in battles with Israeli ground troops in Adaisse and Taibeh, near the Christian town of Marjayoun, about five miles from the border with Israel, Hezbollah said.
To the east at Kfar Kila, reporters saw at least three airstrikes, and the thud of artillery shells from Israeli ground troops was constant. About 20 shells landed in the hills around Kfar Kila during a 45-minute period.
Israeli jet fighters also struck deep inside Lebanese territory, hitting Hermel, 75 miles north of the Israeli border in the Bekaa Valley. Warplanes fired at least five air-to-surface missiles on the edge of the town, targeting a road linking eastern Lebanon to western regions and the coastline.
Six hours later, warplanes returned to Hermel, hitting a pickup truck loaded with cooking gas tanks, security officials said. The canisters exploded, sending flames shooting up from the vehicle for nearly an hour. The driver was out of the truck and not hurt.
In the west, Israeli warships fired artillery into the villages of Mansouri, Shamaa and Teir Harfan around the port city of Tyre. No casualties were reported.
Another strike at an area near the Syrian border, about six miles north of Hermel, targeted the Qaa-Homs road, one of four official crossing points between Lebanon and Syria. Two of the four border crossings are now closed because of damage, and repeated airstrikes have made the main Beirut-Damascus highway impassable.
Polls in Israel show wall-to-wall support for Israel's fight against Hezbollah, even with Israeli civilians enduring a barrage of rocket fire and the army poised for a sweeping ground offensive that is sure to lead to more casualties.
But the deaths of 56 Lebanese in the devastating weekend strike in Qana focused attention on civilian casualties.
Three more civilians were killed and three seriously wounded when Israeli warplanes hit a house in the southern Lebanese town of Lweizeh, Lebanese security officials said Tuesday.
Also, the Lebanese Red Cross said the bodies of 12 civilians were retrieved from the rubble of buildings destroyed in airstrikes on four villages in southern Lebanon and many more were believed still buried. It was not clear when the victims were killed.
At least 532 Lebanese have been killed, including 461 civilians and 25 Lebanese soldiers and at least 46 Hezbollah guerrillas. The health minister says the toll could be as high as 750, including those still buried in rubble or missing. Fifty-four Israelis have died - 36 soldiers as well as 18 civilians killed in Hezbollah rocket attacks.
Hamza Hendawi reported from Lebanon and Karin Laub from Israel.
8/1/2006 21:07:26 EDT
http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/is ... 5409990004
BOURJ AL-MULOUK, Lebanon (Aug. 1) - Israel launched a major attack deep into Lebanon, and Hezbollah said its guerrillas were fighting Israeli commandos trapped inside a hospital in the eastern city of Baalbek early Wednesday.
The Israeli army would not comment on the operation in the ancient city, which was once a Syrian army headquarters some 80 miles north of Israel. The Web site of the Israeli daily Haaretz reported that "helicopters put down IDF (military) commandos near Baalbek," without adding details.
The ferocity of the battles in Baalbek and across southern Lebanon on Tuesday, the determination of the Israelis to keep fighting and the minimal diplomatic progress toward a cease-fire all indicate the 3-week-old war is more likely to escalate than end soon.
Hezbollah's chief spokesman, Hussein Rahal, told The Associated Press Israeli troops landed near Dar al-Hikma Hospital.
Four hours into the operation, fighting continued, witnesses said. By early Wednesday morning, Israeli warplanes had staged more than 10 bombing runs around the hospital as well as on hills in east and north Baalbek. The planes dropped flares over the city while heavy fighting raged around the hospital, they said.
"A group of Israeli commandos was brought to the hospital by a helicopter. They entered the hospital and are trapped inside as our fighters opened fire on them, and fierce fighting is still raging," Rahal said.
He dismissed as "untrue" reports that the Israeli commandos managed to snatch some patients from the hospital and spirit them away in helicopters. Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers in a July 12 cross-border raid triggered the Israeli offensive.
Witnesses said the hospital was hit in an Israeli airstrike and was burning. Repeated telephone calls to the hospital went unanswered.
Baalbek, about 10 miles from the Syrian border, is a city with spectacular Roman ruins as well as the barracks of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards when they trained Hezbollah guerrillas there in the 1980s.
The last time Israel forces were known to have gone that far on the ground into Lebanon was in 1994, when they abducted Lebanese guerrilla leader Mustafa Dirani, hoping to use him to get information about missing Israeli airman Ron Arad. Dirani was released in a prisoner exchange 10 years later.
In southern Lebanon on Tuesday, troops battled guerrillas after Israel ordered its army to punch all the way to the Litani River. Thousands of troops were operating along the Israel-Lebanon border. Additional soldiers crossed into Lebanon on Tuesday, Israeli defense officials said, joining forces already fighting there.
They entered through four different points along the border and moved at least four miles inside Lebanon. Thousands of reservists, called up over the weekend, also were gathering at staging areas on the Israeli side of the border, ready to join the battles and extend the invasion.
Israeli officials said their soldiers were to go as far as the Litani, about 18 miles from the border, and hold the ground until an international peacekeeping force comes ashore.
But the army later said it had distributed leaflets northeast of the river at villages where Hezbollah was active. The leaflets told people to leave, suggesting that the new offensive could take Israeli soldiers even deeper into Lebanon.
Despite mounting civilian deaths, President Bush held fast to support for Israel and was pressing for a U.N. resolution linking a cease-fire with a broader plan for peace in the Middle East. Staking out a different approach, European Union foreign ministers called for an "immediate cessation of hostilities" followed by efforts to agree on a sustainable cease-fire.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said it was not in Israel's interest to agree to an immediate cease-fire because every day of fighting weakens the guerrillas.
"Every additional day is a day that drains the strength of this cruel enemy," he said. "Every extra day is a day in which the (army) reduces their capability, contains their firing ability and their ability to hit in the future."
The Israelis want to keep Hezbollah off the border so their patrols and civilians along the fence are not in danger of attack. The army also hopes to push Hezbollah far enough north so that most of the guerrillas' rockets cannot reach the Jewish state.
Israel resumed sporadic airstrikes - hitting Hezbollah strongholds and supply lines from one end of Lebanon to the other - despite a pledge to suspend such attacks for another day in response to world outrage over the killing of 56 Lebanese in a weekend bombing.
Aid groups had hoped to take advantage of the supposed 48-hour lull in airstrikes to get food and medicine to civilians trapped in the south. But Israel denied access to two U.N. convoys. Others who made the journey described airstrikes close to their convoys, and bodies along the road.
Hezbollah fired just 10 rockets across the border Tuesday, well below an average of about 100 a day since the fighting began 21 days ago, Israel said.
But the ground battles were intense.
At nightfall Tuesday, Israeli troops were fighting Hezbollah at several points along the border. Reporters and Arab television reported especially heavy fighting and Israeli artillery bombardment at the village of Aita al-Shaab.
The Israeli army said late Tuesday that three Israeli soldiers died and 25 were slightly wounded by small arms fire and anti-tank rockets in Aita al-Shaab.
Israeli Cabinet Minister Haim Ramon said the fighting to date had killed about 300 of Hezbollah's main force of 2,000 fighters, which does not include its less-well trained reserves. "That's a very hard blow," he said.
Hezbollah has said only 46 of its fighters were killed. Four were lost in battles with Israeli ground troops in Adaisse and Taibeh, near the Christian town of Marjayoun, about five miles from the border with Israel, Hezbollah said.
To the east at Kfar Kila, reporters saw at least three airstrikes, and the thud of artillery shells from Israeli ground troops was constant. About 20 shells landed in the hills around Kfar Kila during a 45-minute period.
Israeli jet fighters also struck deep inside Lebanese territory, hitting Hermel, 75 miles north of the Israeli border in the Bekaa Valley. Warplanes fired at least five air-to-surface missiles on the edge of the town, targeting a road linking eastern Lebanon to western regions and the coastline.
Six hours later, warplanes returned to Hermel, hitting a pickup truck loaded with cooking gas tanks, security officials said. The canisters exploded, sending flames shooting up from the vehicle for nearly an hour. The driver was out of the truck and not hurt.
In the west, Israeli warships fired artillery into the villages of Mansouri, Shamaa and Teir Harfan around the port city of Tyre. No casualties were reported.
Another strike at an area near the Syrian border, about six miles north of Hermel, targeted the Qaa-Homs road, one of four official crossing points between Lebanon and Syria. Two of the four border crossings are now closed because of damage, and repeated airstrikes have made the main Beirut-Damascus highway impassable.
Polls in Israel show wall-to-wall support for Israel's fight against Hezbollah, even with Israeli civilians enduring a barrage of rocket fire and the army poised for a sweeping ground offensive that is sure to lead to more casualties.
But the deaths of 56 Lebanese in the devastating weekend strike in Qana focused attention on civilian casualties.
Three more civilians were killed and three seriously wounded when Israeli warplanes hit a house in the southern Lebanese town of Lweizeh, Lebanese security officials said Tuesday.
Also, the Lebanese Red Cross said the bodies of 12 civilians were retrieved from the rubble of buildings destroyed in airstrikes on four villages in southern Lebanon and many more were believed still buried. It was not clear when the victims were killed.
At least 532 Lebanese have been killed, including 461 civilians and 25 Lebanese soldiers and at least 46 Hezbollah guerrillas. The health minister says the toll could be as high as 750, including those still buried in rubble or missing. Fifty-four Israelis have died - 36 soldiers as well as 18 civilians killed in Hezbollah rocket attacks.
Hamza Hendawi reported from Lebanon and Karin Laub from Israel.
8/1/2006 21:07:26 EDT
http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/is ... 5409990004
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theone666
- Major [O-4]
- Posts: 1434
- Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2005 5:00 am
Israel takes 'Hezbollah fighters'
Wednesday, 2 August 2006, 06:54 GMT 07:54 UK
The Israeli army says it has seized a number of Hezbollah fighters in a raid on Baalbek, a town deep inside Lebanon.
After air strikes on the town, 100km into Lebanon, in which 11 people died, Israeli commandos landed by helicopter and fought a lengthy gun battle.
In a statement on al-Manar television, Hezbollah said those captured in Baalbek, one of its strongholds, were "ordinary citizens", not militants.
Israeli troops have also pushed further into south Lebanon overnight.
The incursion into Baalbek began before midnight with several air strikes.
At least 11 civilians, including five members of the same family, were killed in the bombing.
After the bombardment, military helicopters then landed an Israeli commando unit near a hospital on the outskirts of the town, which led to fierce clashes with Hezbollah guerrillas lasting several hours.
Local residents told AP the hospital was run by people close to Hezbollah and funded by an Iranian charity.
The Israeli military says that it seized at least three Hezbollah members in the raid and a spokeswoman told Reuters news agency that the captured militants had been taken to Israel.
Hezbollah say they inflicted casualties on the commando unit but a spokeswoman for the Israeli military says all their troops returned safely to base.
'Fading optimism'
Baalbek, which is a Hezbollah stronghold and home to several senior members of the group, has been repeatedly bombed by Israel since the conflict began.
The BBC's Martin Asser - who visited Baalbek a day before the raids - said the mainly Shia Muslim town was very tense, with many families having fled.
This is the first time Israel has sent ground troops so far into Lebanon since its offensive began over three weeks ago.
The BBC's Michael Buchanan in Beirut says that there had been a slight mood of optimism in Lebanon that diplomatic efforts to bring about a ceasefire following the deadly air strike on the Lebanese village of Qana, in which 54 civilians died, were gathering momentum.
Following this raid, that mood has disappeared, our correspondent says.
Meanwhile, Israeli planes attacked a Lebanese army base south-east of Sidon early on Wednesday, killing three Lebanese soldiers.
A 48-hour partial suspension of Israeli air strikes, triggered by the raid on Qana, ended overnight.
In other developments
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel was "winning the battle" against Hezbollah, but also said a political process that will lead to a ceasefire is now under way
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said an agreement on ending the fighting was possible within "days, not weeks" - in apparent contrast to Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who said he thought the fighting would end within "weeks, not months"
French officials said that France would boycott a meeting on Thursday of potential contributors to an international stabilisation force - the official said France considered the meeting "premature".
'Fighting to intensify'
Tuesday saw fierce fighting across southern Lebanon, with casualties on both sides.
Israel said an anti-tank missile killed three of its soldiers in the border town of Ait al-Shaab, while Hezbollah said four of its fighters died in clashes further north.
More Israeli troops crossed into Lebanon, entering at four different points the border, Israeli officials told the Associated Press.
The BBC's Bethany Bell in Jerusalem says many in Israel expect the fighting to intensify over the next few days.
The Israeli security cabinet on Tuesday unanimously approved widening Israel's ground offensive.
Some reports said troops would move into Lebanon as far as the Litani River - up to 30km (18 miles) from the border.
Israel warned civilians north-east of the river to leave their homes.
Israel launched the current offensive after Hezbollah militants seized two of its soldiers in a cross-border raid.
After nearly three weeks of fighting, about 750 people - mainly civilians - have been killed by Israeli action in Lebanon, according to Lebanon's health minister.
A total of 54 Israelis, including at least 18 civilians, are known to have been killed by Hezbollah.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle ... 237098.stm
The Israeli army says it has seized a number of Hezbollah fighters in a raid on Baalbek, a town deep inside Lebanon.
After air strikes on the town, 100km into Lebanon, in which 11 people died, Israeli commandos landed by helicopter and fought a lengthy gun battle.
In a statement on al-Manar television, Hezbollah said those captured in Baalbek, one of its strongholds, were "ordinary citizens", not militants.
Israeli troops have also pushed further into south Lebanon overnight.
The incursion into Baalbek began before midnight with several air strikes.
At least 11 civilians, including five members of the same family, were killed in the bombing.
After the bombardment, military helicopters then landed an Israeli commando unit near a hospital on the outskirts of the town, which led to fierce clashes with Hezbollah guerrillas lasting several hours.
Local residents told AP the hospital was run by people close to Hezbollah and funded by an Iranian charity.
The Israeli military says that it seized at least three Hezbollah members in the raid and a spokeswoman told Reuters news agency that the captured militants had been taken to Israel.
Hezbollah say they inflicted casualties on the commando unit but a spokeswoman for the Israeli military says all their troops returned safely to base.
'Fading optimism'
Baalbek, which is a Hezbollah stronghold and home to several senior members of the group, has been repeatedly bombed by Israel since the conflict began.
The BBC's Martin Asser - who visited Baalbek a day before the raids - said the mainly Shia Muslim town was very tense, with many families having fled.
This is the first time Israel has sent ground troops so far into Lebanon since its offensive began over three weeks ago.
The BBC's Michael Buchanan in Beirut says that there had been a slight mood of optimism in Lebanon that diplomatic efforts to bring about a ceasefire following the deadly air strike on the Lebanese village of Qana, in which 54 civilians died, were gathering momentum.
Following this raid, that mood has disappeared, our correspondent says.
Meanwhile, Israeli planes attacked a Lebanese army base south-east of Sidon early on Wednesday, killing three Lebanese soldiers.
A 48-hour partial suspension of Israeli air strikes, triggered by the raid on Qana, ended overnight.
In other developments
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel was "winning the battle" against Hezbollah, but also said a political process that will lead to a ceasefire is now under way
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said an agreement on ending the fighting was possible within "days, not weeks" - in apparent contrast to Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who said he thought the fighting would end within "weeks, not months"
French officials said that France would boycott a meeting on Thursday of potential contributors to an international stabilisation force - the official said France considered the meeting "premature".
'Fighting to intensify'
Tuesday saw fierce fighting across southern Lebanon, with casualties on both sides.
Israel said an anti-tank missile killed three of its soldiers in the border town of Ait al-Shaab, while Hezbollah said four of its fighters died in clashes further north.
More Israeli troops crossed into Lebanon, entering at four different points the border, Israeli officials told the Associated Press.
The BBC's Bethany Bell in Jerusalem says many in Israel expect the fighting to intensify over the next few days.
The Israeli security cabinet on Tuesday unanimously approved widening Israel's ground offensive.
Some reports said troops would move into Lebanon as far as the Litani River - up to 30km (18 miles) from the border.
Israel warned civilians north-east of the river to leave their homes.
Israel launched the current offensive after Hezbollah militants seized two of its soldiers in a cross-border raid.
After nearly three weeks of fighting, about 750 people - mainly civilians - have been killed by Israeli action in Lebanon, according to Lebanon's health minister.
A total of 54 Israelis, including at least 18 civilians, are known to have been killed by Hezbollah.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle ... 237098.stm
-
theone666
- Major [O-4]
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Israeli Commandos Raid Deep Inside Lebanon
By HUSSEIN DAKROUB, AP
BEIRUT, Lebanon (Aug. 2) - Israel poured up to 10,000 armored troops into south Lebanon Tuesday, and commandos raided a Hezbollah-run hospital and captured guerrillas during pitched battles deep in the eastern Bekaa Valley, a major escalation of the three-week-old war.
In the attack on the ancient city of Baalbek, about 80 miles north of Israel, commandos ferried in by helicopters fought Hezbollah guerrillas inside and around the hospital under cover of heavy airstrikes, witnesses said. At least seven people were killed in the city, they said. Israel said an unspecified number of guerrillas were captured and no soldiers were hurt.
The raid was the deepest ground attack on Lebanon since fighting started three weeks ago.
Hezbollah's rocket attacks into Israel, meanwhile, diminished. Hezbollah fired just 10 rockets across the border Tuesday and two early Wednesday, well below an average of about 100 a day since fighting began.
The ferocity of the battles in the Bekaa Valley and across southern Lebanon and the determination of the Israelis to keep fighting quelled expectations for an early cease-fire, although Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said an agreement on how to end the conflict was possible within days, not weeks.
Hezbollah's chief spokesman Hussein Rahal told The Associated Press early Wednesday that Israeli troops had landed near the Hezbollah-run Dar al-Hikma Hospital in Baalbek, about 10 miles from Lebanon's border with Syria.
Hezbollah guerrillas in the area shot automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades while Israeli jets fired missiles at the fighters, Rahal said.
One airstrike hit the village of Al Jamaliyeh, about a half mile from the hospital. A missile hit the house of the village mayor, Hussein Jamaleddin, instantly killing his son, Ali, the mayor's brother, Awad, and five other relatives, witnesses said.
They said Jamaleddin - who survived the raid - and his relatives were political opponents of Hezbollah.
"Where is the press? Where is the media to see this massacre? Count our dead. Count our body parts," Jamaleddin told The Associated Press by telephone minutes after the missile strike.
Hezbollah said some people had been seized at the hospital, but denied they were fighters.
"Those who were taken prisoner are citizens. It will not be long before the (Israeli) enemy will discover that they are ordinary citizens," Hezbollah said in a statement broadcast on its Al-Manar television.
The fighting ended at about 4 a.m. after Israel jets pounded parts of the city in at least two air raids. Israeli warplanes later hit several infrastructure targets in the northern province of Akkar and in Nabatieyah, Lebanese security officials said.
Warplanes later fired on a Lebanese army base - in Sarba, in south Lebanon - killing three soldiers, a security official said on condition of anonymity.
Residents said the Dar al-Hikma hospital is financed by an Iranian charity, the Imam Khomeini Charitable Society, which is close to Hezbollah. The hospital is run by people close to the Shiite militant group, they said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.
Witnesses said the hospital was partially destroyed in the attack.
Baalbek is a city with spectacular Roman ruins as well as the barracks of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards when they trained Hezbollah guerrillas there in the 1980s.
The last time Israel forces were known to have gone that far on the ground into Lebanon was in 1994, when they abducted Lebanese guerrilla leader Mustafa Dirani, hoping to use him to get information about missing Israeli airman Ron Arad. Dirani was released in a prisoner exchange 10 years later.
Meanwhile, in southern Lebanon, up to 10,000 Israeli troops in armored personnel carriers and backed by tanks were operating along the border zone, Israeli defense officials. Thousands more were gathering at staging areas on the Israeli side of the border, ready to join the battles. Israel called up 30,000 reservists over the weekend.
Israel had 100,000 troops in Lebanon at the height of its 1982 invasion of Lebanon that began an 18-year occupation of the south.
On Tuesday, the troops entered through four different points along the border and moved at least four miles inside Lebanon. Israeli officials said their soldiers were to go as far as the Litani River, as far as 18 miles into Lebanon, and hold the ground until an international peacekeeping force comes ashore.
But the army later said it had distributed leaflets northeast of the river at villages where Hezbollah was active. The leaflets told people to leave, suggesting that the new offensive could take Israeli soldiers even deeper into Lebanon.
At nightfall Tuesday, Israeli troops were fighting Hezbollah at several points along the border in intense ground battles. Reporters and Arab television reported especially heavy fighting and Israeli artillery bombardment at the village of Aita al-Shaab.
The Israeli army said late Tuesday that three Israeli soldiers died and 25 were slightly wounded by small arms fire and anti-tank rockets in Aita al-Shaab.
Hezbollah said in a statement that it had also attacked an Israeli army armored unit near the border Wednesday morning, destroying two tanks and leaving their crews dead or wounded.
The statement said the fight began when an armored unit attempted to advance on the Rub Thalatheen hill at Adaisseh, a border village on the central sector of the frontier.
Despite mounting civilian deaths, President Bush held fast to support for Israel and was pressing for a U.N. resolution linking a cease-fire with a broader plan for peace in the Middle East. Staking out a different approach, European Union foreign ministers called for an "immediate cessation of hostilities" followed by efforts to agree on a sustainable cease-fire.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said he expects some action in the Security Council in the coming days, hopefully this week.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said it was not in Israel's interest to agree to an immediate cease-fire because every day of fighting weakens the guerrillas.
"Every additional day is a day that drains the strength of this cruel enemy," he said.
The army also hopes to push Hezbollah far enough north so that most of the guerrillas' rockets cannot reach the Jewish state.
Israeli Cabinet Minister Haim Ramon said the fighting to date had killed about 300 of Hezbollah's main force of 2,000 fighters, which does not include its less-well trained reserves. "That's a very hard blow," he said.
Hezbollah has said only 46 of its fighters were killed. Four were lost in battles with Israeli ground troops in Adaisse and Taibeh, near the Christian town of Marjayoun, about five miles from the border with Israel, Hezbollah said.
Polls in Israel show wall-to-wall support for Israel's fight against Hezbollah, even with Israeli civilians enduring a barrage of rocket fire and the army poised for a sweeping ground offensive that is sure to lead to more casualties. Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers in a July 12 cross-border raid triggered the offensive.
But the deaths of 56 Lebanese in the devastating weekend strike in Qana focused attention on civilian casualties.
Three more civilians were killed and three seriously wounded when Israeli warplanes hit a house in the southern Lebanese town of Lweizeh, Lebanese security officials said Tuesday.
Also, the Lebanese Red Cross said the bodies of 12 civilians were retrieved from the rubble of buildings destroyed in airstrikes on four villages in southern Lebanon and many more were believed still buried. It was not clear when the victims were killed.
At least 539 Lebanese have been killed, including 468 civilians and 25 Lebanese soldiers and at least 46 Hezbollah guerrillas. The health minister says the toll could be as high as 750, including those still buried in rubble or missing. Fifty-four Israelis have died - 36 soldiers as well as 18 civilians killed in Hezbollah rocket attacks.
AP correspondent Hamza Hendawi in Bourj al-Mulouk, Lebanon, contributed to this report.
08-02-06 03:24 EDT
http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/is ... 5409990004
BEIRUT, Lebanon (Aug. 2) - Israel poured up to 10,000 armored troops into south Lebanon Tuesday, and commandos raided a Hezbollah-run hospital and captured guerrillas during pitched battles deep in the eastern Bekaa Valley, a major escalation of the three-week-old war.
In the attack on the ancient city of Baalbek, about 80 miles north of Israel, commandos ferried in by helicopters fought Hezbollah guerrillas inside and around the hospital under cover of heavy airstrikes, witnesses said. At least seven people were killed in the city, they said. Israel said an unspecified number of guerrillas were captured and no soldiers were hurt.
The raid was the deepest ground attack on Lebanon since fighting started three weeks ago.
Hezbollah's rocket attacks into Israel, meanwhile, diminished. Hezbollah fired just 10 rockets across the border Tuesday and two early Wednesday, well below an average of about 100 a day since fighting began.
The ferocity of the battles in the Bekaa Valley and across southern Lebanon and the determination of the Israelis to keep fighting quelled expectations for an early cease-fire, although Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said an agreement on how to end the conflict was possible within days, not weeks.
Hezbollah's chief spokesman Hussein Rahal told The Associated Press early Wednesday that Israeli troops had landed near the Hezbollah-run Dar al-Hikma Hospital in Baalbek, about 10 miles from Lebanon's border with Syria.
Hezbollah guerrillas in the area shot automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades while Israeli jets fired missiles at the fighters, Rahal said.
One airstrike hit the village of Al Jamaliyeh, about a half mile from the hospital. A missile hit the house of the village mayor, Hussein Jamaleddin, instantly killing his son, Ali, the mayor's brother, Awad, and five other relatives, witnesses said.
They said Jamaleddin - who survived the raid - and his relatives were political opponents of Hezbollah.
"Where is the press? Where is the media to see this massacre? Count our dead. Count our body parts," Jamaleddin told The Associated Press by telephone minutes after the missile strike.
Hezbollah said some people had been seized at the hospital, but denied they were fighters.
"Those who were taken prisoner are citizens. It will not be long before the (Israeli) enemy will discover that they are ordinary citizens," Hezbollah said in a statement broadcast on its Al-Manar television.
The fighting ended at about 4 a.m. after Israel jets pounded parts of the city in at least two air raids. Israeli warplanes later hit several infrastructure targets in the northern province of Akkar and in Nabatieyah, Lebanese security officials said.
Warplanes later fired on a Lebanese army base - in Sarba, in south Lebanon - killing three soldiers, a security official said on condition of anonymity.
Residents said the Dar al-Hikma hospital is financed by an Iranian charity, the Imam Khomeini Charitable Society, which is close to Hezbollah. The hospital is run by people close to the Shiite militant group, they said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.
Witnesses said the hospital was partially destroyed in the attack.
Baalbek is a city with spectacular Roman ruins as well as the barracks of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards when they trained Hezbollah guerrillas there in the 1980s.
The last time Israel forces were known to have gone that far on the ground into Lebanon was in 1994, when they abducted Lebanese guerrilla leader Mustafa Dirani, hoping to use him to get information about missing Israeli airman Ron Arad. Dirani was released in a prisoner exchange 10 years later.
Meanwhile, in southern Lebanon, up to 10,000 Israeli troops in armored personnel carriers and backed by tanks were operating along the border zone, Israeli defense officials. Thousands more were gathering at staging areas on the Israeli side of the border, ready to join the battles. Israel called up 30,000 reservists over the weekend.
Israel had 100,000 troops in Lebanon at the height of its 1982 invasion of Lebanon that began an 18-year occupation of the south.
On Tuesday, the troops entered through four different points along the border and moved at least four miles inside Lebanon. Israeli officials said their soldiers were to go as far as the Litani River, as far as 18 miles into Lebanon, and hold the ground until an international peacekeeping force comes ashore.
But the army later said it had distributed leaflets northeast of the river at villages where Hezbollah was active. The leaflets told people to leave, suggesting that the new offensive could take Israeli soldiers even deeper into Lebanon.
At nightfall Tuesday, Israeli troops were fighting Hezbollah at several points along the border in intense ground battles. Reporters and Arab television reported especially heavy fighting and Israeli artillery bombardment at the village of Aita al-Shaab.
The Israeli army said late Tuesday that three Israeli soldiers died and 25 were slightly wounded by small arms fire and anti-tank rockets in Aita al-Shaab.
Hezbollah said in a statement that it had also attacked an Israeli army armored unit near the border Wednesday morning, destroying two tanks and leaving their crews dead or wounded.
The statement said the fight began when an armored unit attempted to advance on the Rub Thalatheen hill at Adaisseh, a border village on the central sector of the frontier.
Despite mounting civilian deaths, President Bush held fast to support for Israel and was pressing for a U.N. resolution linking a cease-fire with a broader plan for peace in the Middle East. Staking out a different approach, European Union foreign ministers called for an "immediate cessation of hostilities" followed by efforts to agree on a sustainable cease-fire.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said he expects some action in the Security Council in the coming days, hopefully this week.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said it was not in Israel's interest to agree to an immediate cease-fire because every day of fighting weakens the guerrillas.
"Every additional day is a day that drains the strength of this cruel enemy," he said.
The army also hopes to push Hezbollah far enough north so that most of the guerrillas' rockets cannot reach the Jewish state.
Israeli Cabinet Minister Haim Ramon said the fighting to date had killed about 300 of Hezbollah's main force of 2,000 fighters, which does not include its less-well trained reserves. "That's a very hard blow," he said.
Hezbollah has said only 46 of its fighters were killed. Four were lost in battles with Israeli ground troops in Adaisse and Taibeh, near the Christian town of Marjayoun, about five miles from the border with Israel, Hezbollah said.
Polls in Israel show wall-to-wall support for Israel's fight against Hezbollah, even with Israeli civilians enduring a barrage of rocket fire and the army poised for a sweeping ground offensive that is sure to lead to more casualties. Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers in a July 12 cross-border raid triggered the offensive.
But the deaths of 56 Lebanese in the devastating weekend strike in Qana focused attention on civilian casualties.
Three more civilians were killed and three seriously wounded when Israeli warplanes hit a house in the southern Lebanese town of Lweizeh, Lebanese security officials said Tuesday.
Also, the Lebanese Red Cross said the bodies of 12 civilians were retrieved from the rubble of buildings destroyed in airstrikes on four villages in southern Lebanon and many more were believed still buried. It was not clear when the victims were killed.
At least 539 Lebanese have been killed, including 468 civilians and 25 Lebanese soldiers and at least 46 Hezbollah guerrillas. The health minister says the toll could be as high as 750, including those still buried in rubble or missing. Fifty-four Israelis have died - 36 soldiers as well as 18 civilians killed in Hezbollah rocket attacks.
AP correspondent Hamza Hendawi in Bourj al-Mulouk, Lebanon, contributed to this report.
08-02-06 03:24 EDT
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theone666
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Olmert says fighting will go on
Wednesday, 2 August 2006, 10:25 GMT 11:25 UK
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said that there will be no ceasefire in Lebanon until an international force is deployed in the south of the country.
Mr Olmert said that if Israel stopped now and waited while peacekeepers were sent in, Hezbollah would seize the opportunity to stage yet more attacks.
Earlier, Israeli troops raided Baalbek, deep inside Lebanon, seizing several people they say are Hezbollah fighters.
Hezbollah has reportedly fired a rocket 70km into Israel - the deepest hit yet.
Israel Radio said that the rocket had hit the town of Beit Shean, in the east of the country.
The report said the rocket had landed in an open area close to the town. There were no reports of casualties.
Previously Hezbollah's longest rocket strike on Israel was on Afula, 20km to the north, last week.
That attack was described by both sides as a new type of rocket - Hezbollah called it a Khaibar-1, thought by the Israelis to be a modified Iranian Fajr-5, with a longer range than the hundreds of Katyusha rockets fired into Israel so far.
'Weeks of fighting'
Meanwhile, Israeli troops have pushed further into south Lebanon overnight as the military steps up its campaign, which began just over three weeks ago after Hezbollah militants captured two Israeli soldiers.
"I said I'd be ready to enter a ceasefire when the international forces, not will be ready, but will be deployed," Mr Olmert said of the timetable for a halt to the violence.
"We're not going to stop the fire and wait for weeks until the international force comes in because in these weeks the reality on the ground will again be reversed to what it was and this is not what we want to do."
The BBC's Security correspondent Frank Gardner says that with no international force, nor its mandate, yet agreed this could mean weeks of more fighting.
Despite the latest rocket attacks on Israel, Mr Olmert also said that "the infrastructure of Hezbollah has been entirely destroyed," with more than 700 command positions "wiped out".
Commandos attack
Mr Olmert's comments came hours after Israeli commandos staged an attack on the town of Baalbek, 100km (60 miles) inside Lebanon.
The raid began before midnight with several air strikes. At least 11 civilians, including five members of the same family, were killed in the bombing.
After the bombardment, military helicopters then landed an Israeli commando unit near a hospital on the outskirts of the town, which led to fierce clashes with Hezbollah guerrillas lasting several hours.
Local residents told AP the hospital was run by people close to Hezbollah and funded by an Iranian charity.
There have been reports that Israeli military officials believed that their two captured soldiers were being held at the hospital.
The Israeli military says that it seized at least three Hezbollah members in the raid and a spokeswoman told Reuters news agency that the captured militants had been taken to Israel.
In a statement on al-Manar television, Hezbollah said those captured in Baalbek, one of its strongholds, were "ordinary citizens", not militants.
This view was echoed by the Hezbollah member of parliament for the Baalbek region, Hussein Haj Hassan, who denied that those captured were soldiers and challenged Israel to prove otherwise:
"The Israeli army lies again because the Lebanese captured last night were civilian people and they are more than 50 years old and we defy the Israeli army to show them to the media immediately."
'Fading optimism'
Hezbollah say they inflicted casualties on the commando unit but a spokeswoman for the Israeli military says all their troops returned safely to base.
Baalbek, which is a Hezbollah stronghold and home to several senior members of the group, has been repeatedly bombed by Israel since the conflict began.
The BBC's Martin Asser - who visited Baalbek a day before the raids - said the mainly Shia Muslim town was very tense, with many families having fled.
This is the first time Israel has sent ground troops so far into Lebanon since its offensive began over three weeks ago.
The BBC's Michael Buchanan in Beirut says that there had been a slight mood of optimism in Lebanon that diplomatic efforts to bring about a ceasefire following the deadly air strike on the Lebanese village of Qana, in which 54 civilians died, were gathering momentum.
Following the Baalbek raid, that mood has disappeared, our correspondent says.
Meanwhile, Israeli planes attacked a Lebanese army base south-east of Sidon early on Wednesday, killing three Lebanese soldiers.
A 48-hour partial suspension of Israeli air strikes, triggered by the raid on Qana, ended overnight.
After nearly three weeks of fighting, about 750 people - mainly civilians - have been killed by Israeli action in Lebanon, according to Lebanon's health minister.
A total of 54 Israelis, including at least 18 civilians, are known to have been killed by Hezbollah.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle ... 237620.stm
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said that there will be no ceasefire in Lebanon until an international force is deployed in the south of the country.
Mr Olmert said that if Israel stopped now and waited while peacekeepers were sent in, Hezbollah would seize the opportunity to stage yet more attacks.
Earlier, Israeli troops raided Baalbek, deep inside Lebanon, seizing several people they say are Hezbollah fighters.
Hezbollah has reportedly fired a rocket 70km into Israel - the deepest hit yet.
Israel Radio said that the rocket had hit the town of Beit Shean, in the east of the country.
The report said the rocket had landed in an open area close to the town. There were no reports of casualties.
Previously Hezbollah's longest rocket strike on Israel was on Afula, 20km to the north, last week.
That attack was described by both sides as a new type of rocket - Hezbollah called it a Khaibar-1, thought by the Israelis to be a modified Iranian Fajr-5, with a longer range than the hundreds of Katyusha rockets fired into Israel so far.
'Weeks of fighting'
Meanwhile, Israeli troops have pushed further into south Lebanon overnight as the military steps up its campaign, which began just over three weeks ago after Hezbollah militants captured two Israeli soldiers.
"I said I'd be ready to enter a ceasefire when the international forces, not will be ready, but will be deployed," Mr Olmert said of the timetable for a halt to the violence.
"We're not going to stop the fire and wait for weeks until the international force comes in because in these weeks the reality on the ground will again be reversed to what it was and this is not what we want to do."
The BBC's Security correspondent Frank Gardner says that with no international force, nor its mandate, yet agreed this could mean weeks of more fighting.
Despite the latest rocket attacks on Israel, Mr Olmert also said that "the infrastructure of Hezbollah has been entirely destroyed," with more than 700 command positions "wiped out".
Commandos attack
Mr Olmert's comments came hours after Israeli commandos staged an attack on the town of Baalbek, 100km (60 miles) inside Lebanon.
The raid began before midnight with several air strikes. At least 11 civilians, including five members of the same family, were killed in the bombing.
After the bombardment, military helicopters then landed an Israeli commando unit near a hospital on the outskirts of the town, which led to fierce clashes with Hezbollah guerrillas lasting several hours.
Local residents told AP the hospital was run by people close to Hezbollah and funded by an Iranian charity.
There have been reports that Israeli military officials believed that their two captured soldiers were being held at the hospital.
The Israeli military says that it seized at least three Hezbollah members in the raid and a spokeswoman told Reuters news agency that the captured militants had been taken to Israel.
In a statement on al-Manar television, Hezbollah said those captured in Baalbek, one of its strongholds, were "ordinary citizens", not militants.
This view was echoed by the Hezbollah member of parliament for the Baalbek region, Hussein Haj Hassan, who denied that those captured were soldiers and challenged Israel to prove otherwise:
"The Israeli army lies again because the Lebanese captured last night were civilian people and they are more than 50 years old and we defy the Israeli army to show them to the media immediately."
'Fading optimism'
Hezbollah say they inflicted casualties on the commando unit but a spokeswoman for the Israeli military says all their troops returned safely to base.
Baalbek, which is a Hezbollah stronghold and home to several senior members of the group, has been repeatedly bombed by Israel since the conflict began.
The BBC's Martin Asser - who visited Baalbek a day before the raids - said the mainly Shia Muslim town was very tense, with many families having fled.
This is the first time Israel has sent ground troops so far into Lebanon since its offensive began over three weeks ago.
The BBC's Michael Buchanan in Beirut says that there had been a slight mood of optimism in Lebanon that diplomatic efforts to bring about a ceasefire following the deadly air strike on the Lebanese village of Qana, in which 54 civilians died, were gathering momentum.
Following the Baalbek raid, that mood has disappeared, our correspondent says.
Meanwhile, Israeli planes attacked a Lebanese army base south-east of Sidon early on Wednesday, killing three Lebanese soldiers.
A 48-hour partial suspension of Israeli air strikes, triggered by the raid on Qana, ended overnight.
After nearly three weeks of fighting, about 750 people - mainly civilians - have been killed by Israeli action in Lebanon, according to Lebanon's health minister.
A total of 54 Israelis, including at least 18 civilians, are known to have been killed by Hezbollah.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle ... 237620.stm
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theone666
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Man injured by Gaza rocket fire
Wednesday, 2 August 2006, 11:27 GMT 12:27 UK
An Israeli man has been injured by a Qassam rocket fired by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.
The man was reportedly hit by shrapnel in the coastal city of Ashkelon, to the north of Gaza.
The rocket attack came amid continuing Israeli strikes into Gaza, where planes and naval vessels hit suspected militant targets overnight.
Israel began a military campaign in Gaza after a soldier was seized near the Palestinian territory on 25 June.
More than 100 Palestinians have been killed since Israel's operations began, many of them civilians.
Overnight, Israel's military said planes struck a building thought to be a Hamas weapons depot in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.
A building and a boat in Gaza's harbour were also hit by fire from Israeli naval vessels, the military said.
It said it believed the targets were used by militants to smuggle weapons into Gaza.
Israel's Haaretz newspaper said a second Qassam rocket was also fired, but landed in a desert area.
An Israeli man has been injured by a Qassam rocket fired by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.
The man was reportedly hit by shrapnel in the coastal city of Ashkelon, to the north of Gaza.
The rocket attack came amid continuing Israeli strikes into Gaza, where planes and naval vessels hit suspected militant targets overnight.
Israel began a military campaign in Gaza after a soldier was seized near the Palestinian territory on 25 June.
More than 100 Palestinians have been killed since Israel's operations began, many of them civilians.
Overnight, Israel's military said planes struck a building thought to be a Hamas weapons depot in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.
A building and a boat in Gaza's harbour were also hit by fire from Israeli naval vessels, the military said.
It said it believed the targets were used by militants to smuggle weapons into Gaza.
Israel's Haaretz newspaper said a second Qassam rocket was also fired, but landed in a desert area.
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theone666
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Ayatollah attacks US over Israel
Wednesday, 2 August 2006, 11:57 GMT 12:57 UK
Iran's supreme leader has urged the Muslim world to stand up to Israel and the US, criticising them for their role in the conflict in Lebanon.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the US must expect a "destructive punch by Islamic nations" for its role in the crisis.
He also re-iterated Iran's support for militant group Hezbollah, but appeared to stress that the organisation operated independently from Tehran.
The remarks, carried on state TV, were his first since early in the crisis.
The ayatollah - who holds ultimate power in Iran - last month stated Iran's sympathy and support for Hezbollah, but had since remained quiet.
Iran is widely viewed by Israel and the US as a key backer of Hezbollah, and along with Syria has so far been excluded from diplomatic efforts to end the crisis.
The BBC's Frances Harrison in Tehran says the rhetoric and shows of political support for Hezbollah in Iran have intensified in recent days.
'Devoted resistance'
Ayatollah Khamenei said the US was an accomplice in what he termed as Israel's "crimes" in Lebanon.
"Muslims everywhere must know that the only way to fight the savage wolf of Zionism and [the] great Satan's aggression is devoted resistance," the supreme leader said.
"The American regime must expect a hard slap and a destructive punch by the Islamic nations for its support of Zionist criminals," the AFP news agency reported him as saying.
He stressed Tehran's continued support for Hezbollah, and for the Lebanese and Palestinian people.
But a description of Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah as a brave Arab leader was intended to refute allegations that Sheikh Nasrallah is a pawn of Iran, our correspondent says.
The assumption is that even if it wants to, Iran cannot do much militarily for Hezbollah, because Israel has bombed all possible Iranian supply routes into Lebanon, she adds.
Iran's supreme leader has urged the Muslim world to stand up to Israel and the US, criticising them for their role in the conflict in Lebanon.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the US must expect a "destructive punch by Islamic nations" for its role in the crisis.
He also re-iterated Iran's support for militant group Hezbollah, but appeared to stress that the organisation operated independently from Tehran.
The remarks, carried on state TV, were his first since early in the crisis.
The ayatollah - who holds ultimate power in Iran - last month stated Iran's sympathy and support for Hezbollah, but had since remained quiet.
Iran is widely viewed by Israel and the US as a key backer of Hezbollah, and along with Syria has so far been excluded from diplomatic efforts to end the crisis.
The BBC's Frances Harrison in Tehran says the rhetoric and shows of political support for Hezbollah in Iran have intensified in recent days.
'Devoted resistance'
Ayatollah Khamenei said the US was an accomplice in what he termed as Israel's "crimes" in Lebanon.
"Muslims everywhere must know that the only way to fight the savage wolf of Zionism and [the] great Satan's aggression is devoted resistance," the supreme leader said.
"The American regime must expect a hard slap and a destructive punch by the Islamic nations for its support of Zionist criminals," the AFP news agency reported him as saying.
He stressed Tehran's continued support for Hezbollah, and for the Lebanese and Palestinian people.
But a description of Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah as a brave Arab leader was intended to refute allegations that Sheikh Nasrallah is a pawn of Iran, our correspondent says.
The assumption is that even if it wants to, Iran cannot do much militarily for Hezbollah, because Israel has bombed all possible Iranian supply routes into Lebanon, she adds.
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theone666
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Safe passage for Lebanon fuel aid
Wednesday, 2 August 2006, 13:54 GMT 14:54 UK
Israel has told the UN World Food Programme (WFP) that emergency fuel supplies will be given safe passage into Lebanon, agency officials say.
Two tankers, carrying a total of 87,000 metric tons of fuel, are to be allowed to dock in the ports of Beirut and Tripoli, according to the WFP.
The WFP says Israeli military strikes in Lebanon have closed petrol stations and affected commerce and farming.
A Lebanese official said there was no crisis, but fuel was being rationed.
Ali Berro, an adviser to Lebanon's energy minister, told the AFP news agency that he did not believe UN suggestions that the country had just two or three days of fuel supplies remaining.
Reports from functioning petrol stations in Lebanon indicate that customers are being limited to between 10 and 20 litres of fuel per visit.
Power boost
According to WFP spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume, fuel stocks across Lebanon are running dangerously low.
"Almost all the petrol stations are shut. Fuel supplies for power stations and water pumping stations are all but exhausted," she told the Associated Press news agency.
The organisation said it had used its channels of communication with the Israeli military to secure safe passage for the two tankers, which it said were chartered by the Lebanese government.
The ships are due to dock within the next 24 hours.
The petrol and diesel fuel carried by the two tankers is thought to be destined for Lebanese power stations.
Some may be diverted to keep agricultural production running and ensure food can be distributed through the country.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle ... 238622.stm
Israel has told the UN World Food Programme (WFP) that emergency fuel supplies will be given safe passage into Lebanon, agency officials say.
Two tankers, carrying a total of 87,000 metric tons of fuel, are to be allowed to dock in the ports of Beirut and Tripoli, according to the WFP.
The WFP says Israeli military strikes in Lebanon have closed petrol stations and affected commerce and farming.
A Lebanese official said there was no crisis, but fuel was being rationed.
Ali Berro, an adviser to Lebanon's energy minister, told the AFP news agency that he did not believe UN suggestions that the country had just two or three days of fuel supplies remaining.
Reports from functioning petrol stations in Lebanon indicate that customers are being limited to between 10 and 20 litres of fuel per visit.
Power boost
According to WFP spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume, fuel stocks across Lebanon are running dangerously low.
"Almost all the petrol stations are shut. Fuel supplies for power stations and water pumping stations are all but exhausted," she told the Associated Press news agency.
The organisation said it had used its channels of communication with the Israeli military to secure safe passage for the two tankers, which it said were chartered by the Lebanese government.
The ships are due to dock within the next 24 hours.
The petrol and diesel fuel carried by the two tankers is thought to be destined for Lebanese power stations.
Some may be diverted to keep agricultural production running and ensure food can be distributed through the country.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle ... 238622.stm
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theone666
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Israel Sends 8,000 Troops Into Lebanon
By HAMZA HENDAWI, AP
BOURJ AL-MULOUK, Lebanon (Aug. 2) - Israel pressed the first full day of a massive new ground attack, sending 8,000 troops into southern Lebanon on Wednesday and seizing five people it said were Hezbollah fighters in a dramatic airborne raid on a northeastern town. Hezbollah retaliated with its deepest strikes yet into Israel, firing a record number of more than 160 rockets.
Diplomatic efforts faltered, with France saying it will not participate in a Thursday U.N. meeting that could send troops to help monitor a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah. France, which may join or even lead such a force, said it does not want to talk about sending peacekeepers until fighting halts and the U.N. Security Council agrees to a wider framework for lasting peace.
Pope Benedict XVI issued a new appeal for peace in the Middle East. He urged "the international community and those who are more directly involved in this tragedy to lay down conditions as soon as possible for a definitive political solution to the crisis."
Israeli military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, said their troops were going from village to village in south Lebanon to clear them of Hezbollah guerrillas.
Hezbollah was putting up resistance, but the officials said they were confident that would not change their objective of reaching four miles into Lebanon by Thursday. They said they could easily dash inland to the Litani River -- their final objective about 18 miles from the border -- but that they were moving methodically so as not to leave behind pockets of resistance.
Israeli commandos flew in by helicopter before dawn into the northern town of Baalbek, on the border with Syria, capturing five Hezbollah guerrillas and killing at least 10, said Israel's army chief, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz.
Witnesses said Israeli forces partially destroyed the Dar al-Hikma hospital in Baalbek, where chief Hezbollah spokesman Hussein Rahal said fierce fighting raged for more than one hour.
Israel has not yet released the identity of those captured. When asked by The Associated Press whether any were "big fish," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said: "They are tasty fishes."
A Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give official statements to the media, said that Israeli troops captured "four or five" people, but not at the hospital.
He denied they were Hezbollah fighters, saying one was a 60-year-old grocery store owner and two relatives who work in construction.
The hospital, which residents said is financed by an Iranian charity that is close to Hezbollah, was empty of patients at the time of the raid, the guerrilla group said.
Olmert said that, although the scene of the fighting is called a hospital, "there are no patients there and there is no hospital, this is a base of the Hezbollah in disguise."
Hezbollah fought the commandos with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, while Israeli jets fired missiles at the surrounding guerrilla force, Rahal said.
One of a series of air raids struck the village of Al Jamaliyeh near the hospital. A missile hit the house of the village's mayor, Hussein Jamaleddin, instantly killing his son, brother, and five other relatives.
"Where is the press? Where is the media to see this massacre? Count our dead. Count our body parts," Jamaleddin told The Associated Press on the telephone, minutes after the missile strike.
A family of seven -- a mother, father and their five children -- were killed in another air raid on an area near Al Jamaliyeh, witnesses said. A van driver was killed when another missile struck nearby.
Fighting ended at about 4 a.m., residents said.
Hezbollah guerrillas hit back, firing at least 160 rockets at towns across northern Israel, wounding at least 17 people and killing a 52-year-old Israeli-American at the entrance to his home in Kibbutz Sa'ar near the town of Naharia, Israeli police said.
The man, who was not immediately identified, had been riding his bike home after a warning siren went off, said Yehuda Shavit, a local government official. Neighbors said he was originally from the Boston area and had been living in Israel for the last 20 years. The man's wife and two daughters had fled to southern Israel when the rocket attacks started, Shavit said, adding that more than half of the kibbutz residents also had left.
At the scene, police removed the remains of the rocket from the crater it blasted, as an orange bulldozer was clearing away the rubble.
An Associated Press reporter standing on a hilltop overlooking the Lebanese border town of Kfar Kila, about a mile from Israel, saw dozens of outgoing rockets fly overhead and across the Israeli border. Israeli artillery was returning fire, with a shell falling about every two minutes.
Israel medics said one of the rockets hit near the town of Beit Shean, about 42 miles inside Israel, the deepest rocket strike into Israel so far. Witnesses reported that a stray Hezbollah rocket hit the West Bank for the first time, striking between the villages of Fakua and Jalboun, near Beit Shean.
Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have staged daily support marches for Hezbollah, cheering the group's fight against the Israelis.
"We know that they did not intend to strike Palestinian territory. They intended to strike Israel," said Fahmi Zarer, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party.
Israeli jets fired at least one missile at a Lebanese army base in the village of Sarba, in the Iqlim al Tuffah province, a highland region where Hezbollah is believed to have offices and bases. One soldier was killed, bringing to 26 the number of Lebanese soldiers killed since the start of the Israeli offensive against Lebanon on July 12, when Hezbollah guerrillas seized two soldiers and killed three.
The Lebanese military has largely stayed out of the three-week-old conflict, though has said it will fight if Israel launches a wide-scale invasion, and Israeli warplanes have repeatedly attacked soldiers. It was not clear what prompted the airstrike on the army base.
In an incident denied by the Israeli military, Hezbollah said in a statement that it had attacked an Israeli army armored unit that crossed into Lebanon on Wednesday morning, destroying two tanks and killing or wounding their crews.
Israel wants to push Hezbollah away from the border, so Israeli patrols and civilians there are not in danger of attack. The army hopes to drive Hezbollah far enough north so that most of the guerrillas' rockets cannot reach the Jewish state.
Israeli officials have said their soldiers were to go as far as the Litani, about 18 miles from the border, and hold the ground until an international peacekeeping force comes ashore.
In Geneva, the U.N.'s World Food Program said Israel had agreed to permit two oil tankers to sail into Lebanon to ease a growing fuel crisis in the country.
At least 540 Lebanese have been killed, including 468 civilians and 26 Lebanese soldiers and at least 46 Hezbollah guerrillas. The health minister says the toll could be as high as 750, including those still buried in rubble or missing. Fifty-five Israelis have died -- 36 soldiers and 19 civilians killed in Hezbollah rocket attacks.
The United Nations warned that the longer a spill of 110,000 barrels of oil is not cleaned up from Lebanon's coast, the more severe the environmental impact will be. The oil spilled two weeks ago after Israeli warplanes hit a coastal power plant.
Associated Press writers Hussein Dakroub in Beirut and Steven Gutkin in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
8/2/2006 10:45:33
http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/is ... 5409990004
BOURJ AL-MULOUK, Lebanon (Aug. 2) - Israel pressed the first full day of a massive new ground attack, sending 8,000 troops into southern Lebanon on Wednesday and seizing five people it said were Hezbollah fighters in a dramatic airborne raid on a northeastern town. Hezbollah retaliated with its deepest strikes yet into Israel, firing a record number of more than 160 rockets.
Diplomatic efforts faltered, with France saying it will not participate in a Thursday U.N. meeting that could send troops to help monitor a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah. France, which may join or even lead such a force, said it does not want to talk about sending peacekeepers until fighting halts and the U.N. Security Council agrees to a wider framework for lasting peace.
Pope Benedict XVI issued a new appeal for peace in the Middle East. He urged "the international community and those who are more directly involved in this tragedy to lay down conditions as soon as possible for a definitive political solution to the crisis."
Israeli military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, said their troops were going from village to village in south Lebanon to clear them of Hezbollah guerrillas.
Hezbollah was putting up resistance, but the officials said they were confident that would not change their objective of reaching four miles into Lebanon by Thursday. They said they could easily dash inland to the Litani River -- their final objective about 18 miles from the border -- but that they were moving methodically so as not to leave behind pockets of resistance.
Israeli commandos flew in by helicopter before dawn into the northern town of Baalbek, on the border with Syria, capturing five Hezbollah guerrillas and killing at least 10, said Israel's army chief, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz.
Witnesses said Israeli forces partially destroyed the Dar al-Hikma hospital in Baalbek, where chief Hezbollah spokesman Hussein Rahal said fierce fighting raged for more than one hour.
Israel has not yet released the identity of those captured. When asked by The Associated Press whether any were "big fish," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said: "They are tasty fishes."
A Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give official statements to the media, said that Israeli troops captured "four or five" people, but not at the hospital.
He denied they were Hezbollah fighters, saying one was a 60-year-old grocery store owner and two relatives who work in construction.
The hospital, which residents said is financed by an Iranian charity that is close to Hezbollah, was empty of patients at the time of the raid, the guerrilla group said.
Olmert said that, although the scene of the fighting is called a hospital, "there are no patients there and there is no hospital, this is a base of the Hezbollah in disguise."
Hezbollah fought the commandos with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, while Israeli jets fired missiles at the surrounding guerrilla force, Rahal said.
One of a series of air raids struck the village of Al Jamaliyeh near the hospital. A missile hit the house of the village's mayor, Hussein Jamaleddin, instantly killing his son, brother, and five other relatives.
"Where is the press? Where is the media to see this massacre? Count our dead. Count our body parts," Jamaleddin told The Associated Press on the telephone, minutes after the missile strike.
A family of seven -- a mother, father and their five children -- were killed in another air raid on an area near Al Jamaliyeh, witnesses said. A van driver was killed when another missile struck nearby.
Fighting ended at about 4 a.m., residents said.
Hezbollah guerrillas hit back, firing at least 160 rockets at towns across northern Israel, wounding at least 17 people and killing a 52-year-old Israeli-American at the entrance to his home in Kibbutz Sa'ar near the town of Naharia, Israeli police said.
The man, who was not immediately identified, had been riding his bike home after a warning siren went off, said Yehuda Shavit, a local government official. Neighbors said he was originally from the Boston area and had been living in Israel for the last 20 years. The man's wife and two daughters had fled to southern Israel when the rocket attacks started, Shavit said, adding that more than half of the kibbutz residents also had left.
At the scene, police removed the remains of the rocket from the crater it blasted, as an orange bulldozer was clearing away the rubble.
An Associated Press reporter standing on a hilltop overlooking the Lebanese border town of Kfar Kila, about a mile from Israel, saw dozens of outgoing rockets fly overhead and across the Israeli border. Israeli artillery was returning fire, with a shell falling about every two minutes.
Israel medics said one of the rockets hit near the town of Beit Shean, about 42 miles inside Israel, the deepest rocket strike into Israel so far. Witnesses reported that a stray Hezbollah rocket hit the West Bank for the first time, striking between the villages of Fakua and Jalboun, near Beit Shean.
Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have staged daily support marches for Hezbollah, cheering the group's fight against the Israelis.
"We know that they did not intend to strike Palestinian territory. They intended to strike Israel," said Fahmi Zarer, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party.
Israeli jets fired at least one missile at a Lebanese army base in the village of Sarba, in the Iqlim al Tuffah province, a highland region where Hezbollah is believed to have offices and bases. One soldier was killed, bringing to 26 the number of Lebanese soldiers killed since the start of the Israeli offensive against Lebanon on July 12, when Hezbollah guerrillas seized two soldiers and killed three.
The Lebanese military has largely stayed out of the three-week-old conflict, though has said it will fight if Israel launches a wide-scale invasion, and Israeli warplanes have repeatedly attacked soldiers. It was not clear what prompted the airstrike on the army base.
In an incident denied by the Israeli military, Hezbollah said in a statement that it had attacked an Israeli army armored unit that crossed into Lebanon on Wednesday morning, destroying two tanks and killing or wounding their crews.
Israel wants to push Hezbollah away from the border, so Israeli patrols and civilians there are not in danger of attack. The army hopes to drive Hezbollah far enough north so that most of the guerrillas' rockets cannot reach the Jewish state.
Israeli officials have said their soldiers were to go as far as the Litani, about 18 miles from the border, and hold the ground until an international peacekeeping force comes ashore.
In Geneva, the U.N.'s World Food Program said Israel had agreed to permit two oil tankers to sail into Lebanon to ease a growing fuel crisis in the country.
At least 540 Lebanese have been killed, including 468 civilians and 26 Lebanese soldiers and at least 46 Hezbollah guerrillas. The health minister says the toll could be as high as 750, including those still buried in rubble or missing. Fifty-five Israelis have died -- 36 soldiers and 19 civilians killed in Hezbollah rocket attacks.
The United Nations warned that the longer a spill of 110,000 barrels of oil is not cleaned up from Lebanon's coast, the more severe the environmental impact will be. The oil spilled two weeks ago after Israeli warplanes hit a coastal power plant.
Associated Press writers Hussein Dakroub in Beirut and Steven Gutkin in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
8/2/2006 10:45:33
http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/is ... 5409990004
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UN states 'near deal' on Lebanon
Wednesday, 2 August 2006, 22:39 GMT 23:39 UK
Britain's ambassador to the UN has said that agreement is now close on an initial resolution calling for an end to the violence in Lebanon.
Correspondents say Britain, France and the US are nearing consensus on a two- resolution process to halt the violence and then work for a longer-term deal.
US presidential spokesman Tony Snow said the text of the first resolution could be finalised within days.
But the news comes amid a row between a senior UN official and the US.
"I'm confident that I think by tomorrow we'll be in a position to have discussion... on a text which actually takes us forward," said Sir Emyr Jones-Parry, Britain's ambassador to the UN.
He said the prospects of adoption of a resolution soon had "improved considerably".
The BBC's James Robbins says the agreement is a diplomatic breakthrough after weeks of transatlantic division, although there are no guarantees it can deliver an end to the fighting on the ground.
He says a first resolution could be passed on Friday or over the weekend.
Two-stage process
An initial resolution is expected to call for an interim cessation of hostilities - although the details of this are not known.
The second would authorise a substantial multinational force as a buffer between the two sides, and set out details of a permanent settlement.
Our correspondent says the US has retreated from weeks of insistence that an interim ceasefire was unacceptable.
The UN spokesman on the Middle East, Ahmad Fawzi, said there was "very, very cautious optimism" that member states were moving closer.
US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, said there were differences in approach to the nature of the cessation of hostilities and ways of making it permanent.
But he said there was "near complete agreement on the fundamental political framework".
A meeting scheduled for Thursday to bring together nations likely to contribute to a multinational stabilisation force has been postponed for a second time.
Initially this was blamed on differences between France and the US, but correspondents say that it is now unnecessary until after an initial resolution is passed.
The other two permanent members of the UN Security Council, Russia and China, have not yet been involved in negotiations.
It also remains unclear whether Israel, Lebanon, Hezbollah, Iran and Syria would accept the solutions under discussion.
Misguided
The diplomatic progress comes amid a war of words between the US and the UN's second highest official, a Briton who has previously been outspoken about the Bush administration's foreign policy.
In an interview published in the Financial Times newspaper on Tuesday, the Deputy Secretary-General of the UN, Mark Malloch-Brown, criticised the US and UK for seeking to take the lead in resolving the Israel-Lebanon crisis.
"It's not helpful for it again to appear to be the team that led on Iraq," he said.
"This cannot be perceived as a US-UK deal with Israel. One of my first bosses taught me it's really important to know not just when to lead, but when to follow."
US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack responded in comments on Wednesday:
"We are seeing a troubling pattern of a high official of the UN who seems to be making it his business to criticise member states and, frankly, with misplaced and misguided criticisms."
Britain's ambassador to the UN has said that agreement is now close on an initial resolution calling for an end to the violence in Lebanon.
Correspondents say Britain, France and the US are nearing consensus on a two- resolution process to halt the violence and then work for a longer-term deal.
US presidential spokesman Tony Snow said the text of the first resolution could be finalised within days.
But the news comes amid a row between a senior UN official and the US.
"I'm confident that I think by tomorrow we'll be in a position to have discussion... on a text which actually takes us forward," said Sir Emyr Jones-Parry, Britain's ambassador to the UN.
He said the prospects of adoption of a resolution soon had "improved considerably".
The BBC's James Robbins says the agreement is a diplomatic breakthrough after weeks of transatlantic division, although there are no guarantees it can deliver an end to the fighting on the ground.
He says a first resolution could be passed on Friday or over the weekend.
Two-stage process
An initial resolution is expected to call for an interim cessation of hostilities - although the details of this are not known.
The second would authorise a substantial multinational force as a buffer between the two sides, and set out details of a permanent settlement.
Our correspondent says the US has retreated from weeks of insistence that an interim ceasefire was unacceptable.
The UN spokesman on the Middle East, Ahmad Fawzi, said there was "very, very cautious optimism" that member states were moving closer.
US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, said there were differences in approach to the nature of the cessation of hostilities and ways of making it permanent.
But he said there was "near complete agreement on the fundamental political framework".
A meeting scheduled for Thursday to bring together nations likely to contribute to a multinational stabilisation force has been postponed for a second time.
Initially this was blamed on differences between France and the US, but correspondents say that it is now unnecessary until after an initial resolution is passed.
The other two permanent members of the UN Security Council, Russia and China, have not yet been involved in negotiations.
It also remains unclear whether Israel, Lebanon, Hezbollah, Iran and Syria would accept the solutions under discussion.
Misguided
The diplomatic progress comes amid a war of words between the US and the UN's second highest official, a Briton who has previously been outspoken about the Bush administration's foreign policy.
In an interview published in the Financial Times newspaper on Tuesday, the Deputy Secretary-General of the UN, Mark Malloch-Brown, criticised the US and UK for seeking to take the lead in resolving the Israel-Lebanon crisis.
"It's not helpful for it again to appear to be the team that led on Iraq," he said.
"This cannot be perceived as a US-UK deal with Israel. One of my first bosses taught me it's really important to know not just when to lead, but when to follow."
US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack responded in comments on Wednesday:
"We are seeing a troubling pattern of a high official of the UN who seems to be making it his business to criticise member states and, frankly, with misplaced and misguided criticisms."