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Israeli planes pound Lebanon

Posted on: Monday, 17 July 2006, 23:42 CDT

By Alaa Shahine

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Israeli warplanes pounded Lebanon on Tuesday, killing at least 11 people, as diplomatic efforts brought no signs of an early end to the week-old assault launched in retaliation against Hezbollah attacks.

Seven civilians, all from one family and including children, were killed and four wounded during an air strike that hit a house shortly after midnight in a south Lebanese border village. Four others died in strikes elsewhere in the south.

Israeli aircraft also struck Beirut's southern suburbs and an army position overlooking the capital as well as two other Lebanese towns.

As Israel vowed to press on with its campaign, thousands of foreigners fled Lebanon -- some by road to Syria, others seeking places on U.S. and European ships after Beirut's international airport was closed by Israeli fire.

The fighting was triggered when Hezbollah, 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.

The Israeli retaliation has killed 215 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.

Hezbollah 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 Hezbollah to disarm in line with United Nations Security Council resolutions.

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

Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, a staunch ally of Hezbollah and Syria, said on Monday his state "would never abandon (Hezbollah'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-defense.

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 Hezbollah 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 and clouds of smoke billowed 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 suburbs were also heard across the capital. Previous strikes on the area had already demolished Hezbollah's headquarters.

Raids targeted the Christian coastal town of Byblos north of Beirut, damaging two trucks without inflicting casualties, police said. Warplanes also hit the eastern town of Baalbek.

Hezbollah 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. (Additional reporting by Jerusalem bureau)

Source: REUTERS

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