Israeli troops clash with Hezbollah guerrillas

The target was a truck-mounted machine used to drill for water but could have been mistaken for a missile launcher. The vehicle was destroyed, but nobody was hurt in that attack.

A Hezbollah rocket attack on the mainly Arab town of Nazareth also killed two people, Israeli authorities said. Military officials said Israeli troops crossed the border in search of tunnels and weapons. Hezbollah claimed to have “repelled” Israeli forces near the coastal border town of Naqoura. Casualties were reported on both sides.

The Israeli army confirmed there were clashes with Hezbollah in the border area and that some Israelis were among the casualties, but it would not elaborate.

Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television channel reported that two Israeli soldiers had been killed and three wounded, but that could not be confirmed. Hezbollah officials in south Lebanon added that one guerrilla had been killed.

Israel, which has mainly limited itself to attacks from the air and sea, had been reluctant to send in ground troops because Hezbollah is far more familiar with the terrain and because of memories of Israel’s ill-fated 18-year occupation of south Lebanon that ended in 2000.

Israel yesterday declared it was ready to fight Hezbollah guerrillas for several more weeks, raising doubts about international efforts to broker an immediate cease-fire.

The fighting has killed nearly 300 people and displaced 500,000.

The international Red Cross along with the UN children’s and health agencies said they were seriously concerned about civilian casualties and new health risks because of the escalating violence.

Israel said its airstrikes had destroyed “about 50%” of Hezbollah’s arsenal. “It will take us time to destroy what is left,” Brig Gen Alon Friedman, a senior army commander, told Israeli Army Radio.

Separately, Israeli forces killed six Palestinians after tanks moved into the Mughazi refugee camp in central Gaza under cover of machine gun fire, the latest incursion in its three-week military push in the seaside territory.

In an army operation in the West Bank city of Nablus, at least three Palestinians were killed when the army surrounded a prison where wanted militants were apparently hiding, Palestinian officials said.

Israel began a large-scale operation in Gaza on June 28, three days after Hamas-lined militants tunnelled under the border and attacked an Israeli army base at a Gaza crossing, killing two soldiers and capturing a third.

The fighting dealt a blow to diplomatic efforts to broker a cease-fire and to send a new international force to bolster the 2,000-member UN force in south Lebanon.

The Bush administration also has refused to yield to international calls to press Israel for a prompt end to it campaign against the Hezbollah militia.

Instead, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is trying to drum up support for what she called a cease-fire of “lasting value.” That is, one that would have the Lebanese army take over the south of the country where Hezbollah guerrillas have conducted a cross-border war against Israel for years.

Rice is likely to make a trip to the area this weekend, but no announcement has been made. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack would only say today that her trip would come “in the near future” and told CNN the timing would depend upon “when she thinks it’s most useful and most effective.”

US President George Bush turned his attention to Syria, one of Hezbollah’s backers, saying he suspects it was trying to reassert influence in Lebanon more than a year after withdrawing its troops under UN pressure.

“It’s in our interest for Syria to stay out of Lebanon and for this government to survive,” Bush said, referring to Prime Minister Fuad Saniora’s fledgling government.

“Syria’s trying to get back into Lebanon, it looks like, seems to me,” he said. “The world must deal with Hezbollah, with Syria and to continue to isolate Iran.”

Israel stressed it did not plan to target Hezbollah’s main sponsors, Iran and Syria, during the current fighting.

“We will leave Iran to the world community, and Syria as well,” Vice Premier Shimon Peres told Army Radio. “It’s very important to understand that we are not instilling world order.”

The Israeli airstrikes last night and this morning killed at least 20 people, bringing to 246 the number of people killed in Lebanon since the fighting began on July 12, when Hezbollah guerrillas raided an Israeli border outpost and kidnapped two soldiers.

The overall figures were provided by the police control centre, but they did not give a breakdown of the attacks.

Twenty-seven Israelis also have been killed in the past eight days as Hezbollah fired rockets across the border.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was “extremely concerned about the grave consequences that military action is still having on the civilian population,” and it reminded both parties to the conflict of their obligation to distinguish between civilians and military personnel and targets.

Unicef and the World Health Organisation also warned of a serious psychological effect from the fighting and said movement of medical supplies and ambulances to affected areas was seriously limited.

Five people were killed when a missile struck a neighbourhood in the southern Lebanese town of Nabatiyeh, police and hospital officials said. The target was a commercial office of a firm belonging to Hezbollah, but those killed were residents.

In the village of Srifa, near Tyre in southern Lebanon, the airstrikes flattened 15 houses. The village’s headman, Hussein Kamaledine, said 25 to 30 people lived in the houses, but it was not known if they were at home at the time. Many people have fled southern Lebanon.

“This is a real massacre,” Kamaledine told Al-Manar TV as fire engines extinguished the blaze and rescue workers searched for survivors.

In the southern village of Ghaziyeh, one person was killed and two were wounded when a missile struck a nearby building that housed a Hezbollah-affiliated social institution.

In the eastern Bekaa Valley, four people were killed and three were wounded in an air raid on the village of Loussi, police said.

The planes also hit Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, causing one explosion that reverberated across the city much more loudly than any previous impact.

More Israeli missiles landed in two towns outside Beirut – Chuweifat and Hadath. One person was killed at the Galerie Semaan junction, near Hadath, police said.

Israeli military officials said that for several days, small numbers of soldiers have been going in and out of south Lebanon in search of Hezbollah bases and weapons. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, would not give the number of troops involved or their location.

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman, said the incursion was not large scale.

“This is an operation which is very measured, very local,” Gillerman told CNN. “This is no way an invasion of Lebanon. This is no way the beginning of any kind of occupation of Lebanon.”

Last week, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah vowed to defeat any Israeli invasion, saying his guerrillas were “longing” to engage their opponents in ground battles.

“Any ground invasion will be good news for the resistance because it will bring us closer to victory and humiliating the Israeli enemy,” Nasrallah said.