Israel maintains Lebanon offensive
Israeli forces kept up their offensive in Lebanon today, with troops battling Hezbollah for control of a southern town as their jets flattened a house in an unrelated strike and killed seven civilians.
For the first time since their offensive began on July 12, the Israelis put a limit on how far their troops and tanks would advance in Lebanon. Israeli commander Col. Hemi Livni said today he knew of no plan “to go 70 kilometres into Lebanon.”
In Jerusalem, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who said his government was determined to carry on fighting Hezbollah.
“We will ... stop them. We will not hesitate to take severe measures against those who are aiming thousands of rockets and missiles against innocent civilians,” Olmert told reporters before the start of his talks with Rice.
Olmert blamed Hezbollah for the suffering of the Lebanese civilians.
“We are aware of the state of humanitarian affairs of the population of Lebanon as a result of the brutality of Hezbollah,” he said.
“I think I can say in complete sincerity that Lebanon and Israel are both victims of this brutal terrorist, murderous organisation.”
Olmert said that “15%” of the Israeli population has been forced to live in bomb shelters since Hezbollah began raining rockets on northern Israel. Rice said the United States recognises that both Israeli and Lebanese civilians are suffering as a result of the fighting.
There has been no let-up from Hezbollah.
The group’s television channel Al-Manar today broadcast that its guerrillas were mounting a strong defence in the vicinity of Bint Jbail, a Hezbollah stronghold that the Israeli have been trying to capture since early yesterday.
“The resistance fighters are engaged in heroic confrontations with elite troops of the (Israeli) Golani Brigade, who are attempting to advance under heavy bombardment from the air and land,” Al-Manar said.
Rice, who is on the second leg of a Middle East tour, is pushing a plan that would produce both a ceasefire and the deployment of international and Lebanese troops in southern Lebanon to stop Hezbollah attacks on Israel.
In Beirut yesterday, Rice met disapproval. Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a Shiite Muslim politician close to Hezbollah, rejected Rice’s plan, arguing that the ceasefire should be imposed immediately and other issues could follow.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, who government is backed by the US, took a similar stance and complained bitterly to Rice that Israeli airstrikes were destroying the country.
“Israel is taking Lebanon backward 50 years and the result will be Lebanon’s destruction,” Saniora told Rice, according to the prime minister’s office.
When she arrived in Israel, Rice defended the need to ensure that Hezbollah is dislodged from the south Lebanon border region before any ceasefire is declared.
“Every peace has to be based on enduring principles,” Rice said Monday.
The UN humanitarian chief an Egeland has issued an urgent appeal for 150 million dollars in aid to Lebanon. He also called on Israel to open the southern port of Tyre to allow ships to deliver aid to the south of the country.
“We are particularly worried about the population in south Lebanon and the (eastern) Bekaa Valley. It’s there that they’re in the crossfire and from where they’re being displaced,” Egeland said in Beirut before leaving the country yesterday.
US President George Bush ordered US Navy ships that have evacuated nearly 12,000 Americans from Lebanon to start delivering humanitarian aid to the country today.
“We are working with Israel and Lebanon to open up humanitarian corridors,” White House spokesman Tony Snow said.
Two ships docked at Beirut and convoys entered from Syria, bearing blankets, food, medicine – and two convoys of trucks took material to the worst hit areas in the south along dangerous and broken roads.
So far Israel has loosened its blockade of Lebanese ports to let aid ships into Beirut, but has not defined any safe land routes for convoys to the south.
Tens of thousands of refugees are in temporary shelters, supplies of medicine are tight at many hospitals and fuel is slowly running out under Israel’s blockade of Lebanon’s ports.
Israel appeared to be easing bombardment in populated areas and roads in Lebanon that has killed hundreds, displaced as many as 750,000 and dismembered the transportation network. Instead, it appeared to be focusing its firepower on Hezbollah at the front. Beirut saw no strikes yesterday in apparent deference to Rice’s visit.
Lebanese security officials reported three civilian deaths, without specifying where they occurred. Thirty strikes in and around towns and on roads were reported yesterday by security officials and Lebanese media – down from 37 the day before.
The numbers do not include strikes on Hezbollah positions that are not in populated areas. Israel reported 270 strikes on Sunday, suggesting that a large number were in more isolated regions.
Still, Hezbollah was able to launch 80 rockets into northern Israel yesterday, wounding 13 people lightly, a rate only slightly lower than in past days.
At the front today, an Israeli military official said his side had surrounded Bint Jbail, a town that has symbolic importance to Hezbollah as one of the centres of resistance to the Israeli occupation 1982-2000.
Israeli forces have seized some houses on the outskirts of the hilltop town, but do not yet control Bint Jbail, the official said.
Up to 200 Hezbollah guerrillas are believed to be defending the town, which lies about two-and-a-half mils north of the Israeli border.
Israeli jets demolished a house in Nabatiyeh, which lies 16 miles north of Bint Jbail. It was not immediately clear what the Israeli jet was targeting.
Hospital and security officials said the attack killed seven civilians – the house’s owner, Saad Hamza, his wife and two sons, and three other males.
Hamza’s daughter was seriously injured in the raid and the wife of one of the male fatalities remained under the rubble, security officials said. It was not known if the woman under the debris was alive.
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