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Israeli planes pound Lebanon, 6 killed

Posted on: Monday, 17 July 2006, 19:55 CDT

By Alaa Shahine

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Israeli warplanes pounded south Lebanon on Tuesday, killing at least six people, as world efforts to defuse the crisis brought no signs of an early end to the week-old assault in retaliation against Hizbollah attacks.

The six civilians, all from one family, were killed during an air strike that hit a house shortly after midnight in a Lebanese border village. Israeli aircraft also hit Beirut's southern suburb and an army position overlooking the capital.

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.

"We are working with our bare hands and so far we have recovered six bodies. More are still under the rubble," Salim Mourad, head of Aytaroun's village municipality, told Hizbollah's al-Manar television.

The Israeli retaliation has killed 210 people, all but 14 of them civilians, and inflicted the heaviest destruction in Lebanon for two decades, with attacks targeting ports, roads, bridges, factories and petrol stations.

Hizbollah responded by attacking a naval vessel off Beirut and firing hundreds of rockets at northern Israel, killing 24 people, 12 of them civilians.

The Jewish state is also engaged in a military offensive in the Gaza Strip after Palestinian militants captured another soldier on June 25.

MORE TO COME?

Lebanon has repeatedly called for an immediate ceasefire, but world powers said any solution to the crisis must include the release of the two soldiers. Israel also wants Hizbollah to disarm in line with United Nations Security Council resolutions.

The Beirut government is too fragile to pressure Hizbollah to yield to such demands.

Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, a staunch ally of Hizbollah and Syria, said on Monday his state "would never abandon (Hizbollah's leader) Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah."

The Shi'ite Muslim guerrilla group wants to swap the two soldiers with Lebanese and Arab prisoners in Israeli jails.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Monday his country 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-defence.

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.

A Hizbollah spokesman told Reuters the group had "not received any suggestions for a ceasefire."

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged the U.N. Security Council to deploy a security force in Lebanon but the United States frowned on the idea.

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

BALLS OF FIRE

Television footage showed balls of fire and clouds of smoke billowing from a Lebanese army position east of Beirut after repeated Israeli air strikes in the early hours of Tuesday and several soldiers were wounded, a security source said.

Loud explosions caused by raids on Beirut's southern suburb were also heard across the capital. Previous strikes on the area had already destroyed Hizbollah's headquarters.

Hizbollah fired dozens of rockets at the Israeli city of Haifa on Monday and medics said a three-storey 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.

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.

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

Air strikes on Monday flattened the eight-storey 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 Nadim Ladki, Leila Bassam, Lin Noueihed in Beirut and the Jerusalem bureau)

Source: REUTERS

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