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Israeli air strikes on Lebanon kill 42 people

Posted on: Monday, 17 July 2006, 17:13 CDT

By Lin Noueihed

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Israeli warplanes pounded Lebanon for a sixth successive day on Monday, killing 42 people and wreaking more damage in the heaviest destruction on Lebanese territory for two decades in retaliation for Hizbollah attacks.

Ten of the dead were civilians hit on a bridge in southern Lebanon as the death toll since the start of Israel's offensive rose to 204, all but 14 of them civilians.

The fighting was triggered when Hizbollah, the guerrilla group which is backed by Syria and Iran and is part of Lebanon's government, seized two Israeli soldiers and killed eight in a cross-border raid on northern Israel on July 12.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the Jewish state would pursue its offensive until the two soldiers were returned and the Lebanese army controlled all of south Lebanon. "Israel will not agree to live in the shadow of missiles or rockets against its residents," Olmert said in an address.

An Israeli government source said Israel may step up attacks in coming days, mindful its chief ally, the United States, might not resist indefinitely international pressure for a ceasefire. Washington has backed Israel's right to self-defense.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Security Council members would start work on a detailed agreement on deploying a multinational security force to south Lebanon, but the United States gave only a guarded welcome.

Twenty-four Israelis have been killed in the fighting, including 12 civilians hit in rocket attacks. Israel is also waging a military offensive in the Gaza Strip after Palestinian militants captured another soldier on June 25.

Israeli planes hit coastal targets in the north and south, struck Beirut and damaged homes in the east belonging to members of Hizbollah, which fired more rockets deep into Israel and wounded eight people.

Blasts rocked Beirut through the day and civilian installations, petrol stations and factories were also hit.

"I can't believe they are doing all this for two captives. This is just an excuse," said Ali Sharara, 21, who fled his home in south Beirut to sleep in a city park for the last two nights.

FOREIGNERS FLEE

France, the United States, Britain and other nations scrambled to evacuate their citizens from Lebanon, chartering ships to sail them to safety. Many foreigners have already left by road to Syria after Beirut airport was bombed and closed.

Hizbollah fired dozens of rockets at the Israeli city of Haifa on Monday and medics said a three-story building collapsed, wounding two people. Israel closed Haifa's port.

Another wave of rockets struck deep inside Israel, including the town of Afula 50 km (30 miles) south of the border. One rocket landed next to a hospital in Safed, wounding six people.

Israel is demanding the disarming of Hizbollah in line with U.N. resolutions, a task beyond the fragile Beirut government. Hizbollah wants to exchange the two Israeli soldiers for Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners in Israel.

French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, speaking in Beirut after talks with the Lebanese government, called for an immediate truce on humanitarian grounds.

A U.N. team sent to Lebanon to seek a solution to the fighting said it had made a promising start but that more diplomacy was needed before there could be any optimism.

Three Israeli tanks briefly crossed a few hundred meters (yards) into Lebanese territory on Monday afternoon, a U.N. source said, following a similar incursion overnight in which Israel said Hizbollah positions were destroyed.

Israeli Army Radio, quoting a top officer, said the country would enforce a one-km (half-mile) "free-fire" zone to bar Hizbollah from the border, without keeping troops on the ground.

Lebanon's Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said Israeli attacks had inflicted billions of dollars of damage. "What Israel has been doing is cutting the country to pieces," he told Reuters.

Israeli radio said Hizbollah tried to fire an Iranian-made rocket with a range of 100 km (60 miles) but it malfunctioned. It said the rocket was probably the object shown falling from the sky over Beirut by Lebanese television.

Israel's campaign in Lebanon followed the launch of its offensive in Gaza to try to retrieve another captured soldier and halt Palestinian rocket fire.

Air strikes on Monday flattened the eight-story Palestinian Foreign Ministry building in Gaza City.

In the occupied West Bank, Palestinian gunmen ambushed a group of Israeli troops, killing one and wounding six others in the city of Nablus, witnesses and military sources said.

(Additional reporting by Jerusalem bureau, Nadim Ladki, Alaa Shahine and Laila Bassam)

Source: REUTERS

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