Beirut bombarded as para landing repelled
Israel continued its bombardment of Beirut early today, while Hezbollah fighters repelled Israeli paratroopers trying to land in the southern city of Tyre, according to Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television.
Loud explosions resounded in Beirut as Israeli warplanes renewed their onslaught, carrying out several strikes on southern suburbs, local media reported. Israeli helicopters, meanwhile, attacked suspected Hezbollah positions in the southern city of Tyre, according to residents.
At Tyre, Al-Manar television said Israeli troops were prevented by the guerrillas from landing. One Israeli soldier was reportedly killed and three wounded. Hezbollah’s claim came after Israeli warplanes and helicopters flew over the coastal city and were subjected to Hezbollah’s anti-aircraft fire, residents said.
After days of desultory diplomacy, Washington said it was near agreement with France on a UN cease-fire resolution, possibly by early next week.
But no cessation of fighting has been in sight.
Israeli aircraft on a mission yesterday to destroy weapons caches hit a refrigerated warehouse where farm workers were loading fruit, killing at least 28 near the Lebanon-Syria border.
And three Hezbollah rockets landed near Hadera, 50 miles (80 kilometres) south of the Israel-Lebanon border; 188 rockets rained on other towns, killing three Israeli Arabs.
Given the determination of both Hezbollah and Israel to look victorious when the conflict finally ends, the worst of the fighting may still lay ahead with the militant Shiite guerrilla fighters perhaps making good on its threat to rocket Tel Aviv and Israel launching an all-out ground offensive, pushing northward to the Litani River.
In a sign of billowing support for Hezbollah’s Shiite fighters across the Arab world, tens of thousands of Shiite Muslims protested in Baghdad’s Sadr City slum, chanting ”Death to Israel, Death to America,” the biggest rally in support of the militant Shiite organisation since the fighting began.
In fighting yesterday:
:: Israel said Hezbollah poured 191 rockets into the north of the country, killing three Israeli Arabs and penetrating the deepest yet, hitting the town of Hadera, 75 kilometres (50 miles) south of the Lebanese border.
:: Israeli warplanes blasted a refrigerated Bekaa Valley fruit warehouse, killing at least 28 farm labourers as they loaded peaches and apples onto trucks bound for the Syrian market, Lebanese security officials said. Syria’s official news agency, SANA, reported that 33 people were killed in the raid, including 23 Syrian workers.
Israeli army spokesman Capt. Jacob Dallal said the army suspected the warehouse was used for arms because it tracked a truck it believe was carrying weapons that went into the warehouse from the Syrian side, stayed inside for about 90 minutes before returning to Syria
:: The Israeli army confirmed a Hezbollah anti-tank missile killed three soldiers and wounded two others in south-eastern Lebanon.
But perhaps the most significant, if not the most deadly, attack killed four civilians and a Lebanese soldier when Israeli jets bombed four bridges in the Christian heartland just north of Beirut, slicing a highway that Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Program called Lebanon’s ”umbilical cord.”
“This (road) has been the only way for us to bring in aid. We really need to find other ways to bring relief in,” she said in Geneva, Switzerland.
Dallal, said Israel targeted the bridges to stop the flow of weapons from Syria.
Hospitals were in danger of closing soon because medicines, hospital supplies and fuel for generators was fast running out. Staples like milk, rice and sugar were growing short across the country. Lines at Beirut filling stations stretch longer by the day.
Dr. George Tomey, acting president of the American University of Beirut, said its Medical Centre, one of the prime and best known medical facilities in the Middle East, will stop receiving new patients as of Monday, except for emergency cases.
Dr. Ghassan Hammoud, who runs a 320-bed hospital packed with war wounded in the southern port city of Sidon, says he may have to shut down within 10 days.
After days of desultory diplomacy, the State Department said yesterday that the US and France were nearing completion of a UN resolution designed to halt the fighting in Lebanon and to set out principles for a lasting cease-fire.
“We are very close to a final draft with the French on a text,” the department’s spokesman Sean McCormack said yesterday.
The work will continue in Washington and in Texas over the weekend, when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will be a guest of President George W. Bush at his ranch.
While meeting fierce resistance on the ground in south Lebanon, the Israeli army said it had taken up positions in or near 11 towns and villages as part its effort to carve out a nine-kilometre (five-mile) Hezbollah-free zone.
“We plan to carry out the whole mission,” Defence Minister Amir Peretz said. “Hezbollah must not have illusions that we plan to give in. (Hezbollah leader Hassan) Nasrallah shouldn’t doubt that he faces a force that insists on completing its mission.”
As of yesterday, the Associated Press count showed at least 559 Lebanese have been killed, including 482 civilians confirmed dead by the Health Ministry, 27 Lebanese soldiers and at least 50 Hezbollah guerrillas.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said that one million people – or about a quarter of Lebanon’s population – have fled the fighting. Others estimate some 800,000 Lebanese have been made refugee.
The Lebanese government’s Higher Relief Council said 907 Lebanese had been killed in the conflict.
Since the fighting started, 74 Israelis have been killed, 44 soldiers and 30 civilians. More than 300,000 Israelis have fled their homes in the north, Israeli officials said.
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