Ground battles and airstrikes continue in Lebanon
Israeli artillery pounded villages and hills throughout south Lebanon while a complete curfew was imposed on any civilians still trapped in the heart of the war zone.
Humanitarian convoys would be allowed in, but any other vehicle on any road south of the Litani River could be a target, the Israeli army said late yesterday.
The curfew went into effect at 10pm (8pm Irish Time) last night.
Residents learned of the travel ban in leaflets dropped from warplanes yesterday and today.
A scrap of paper found in Tyre warned that anyone on the road would be considered a terrorist, and was signed “State of Israel.”
Israel said it sought to stop the transfer of weapons in the region.
A reporter in southeastern Lebanon was stopped by Lebanese soldiers at a checkpoint and told it was too dangerous to travel farther south.
The apparent no-go zone began about two-and-a-half miles northeast of Hasbaya, on an axis some nine miles north of the Litani River farther west.
Israeli artillery pounded villages north of the river as well, in Yohmour, Zoutar, Aadsheet and Qosaibah, witnesses and Lebanon’s National News Agency said.
It was unclear whether Israeli troops had crossed the river, or whether they were lobbing artillery over the water.
An airstrike also hit Yohmour, destroying three houses where people were believed to have been inside, though there were no immediate reports of casualties.
Farther south, Hezbollah said it destroyed an Israeli tank and bulldozer trying to advance toward Ainata, just north of Bint Jbail.
Their crews were killed or wounded, the group said in a statement.
Hours later, Hezbollah issued a second statement that two more Israeli tanks were destroyed, their occupants also killed or wounded.
Israel said one of its soldiers died and five were wounded in Bint Jbail, and that 15 Hezbollah fighters were killed.
Hezbollah mentioned no guerrilla deaths yesterday, and has announced only 55 dead in nearly a month of battles. Israel estimates several hundred are dead.
The guerrillas’ Al-Manar TV said clashes began around 3am (1am Irish Time) near the Mediterranean city Naqoura, some two-and-a-half miles north of the Israeli border.
The Israeli army said two reserve soldiers were killed and another two were wounded in the western sector of south Lebanon.
Funerals were under way in Ghaziyeh south of Sidon, where at least seven people died yesterday in a house collapsed by an airstrike.
Two Israeli artillery shells landed near a funeral procession, witnesses said, but there was no word on whether anyone was hurt.
Intense shelling was also reported in Khiam, about four miles from the Israeli border in the east.
Israeli airstrikes backed up fierce fighting on the ground.
A warplane fired two missiles into mountains at Birket Jabbour, in the western Bekaa Valley, witnesses and Lebanon’s National News Agency reported.
Five more raids hit west of Baalbek, witnesses and local media said.
There was no word on casualties or damage.
At dawn, Israeli jets struck the villages of Biyad and Kfar Jouz the outskirts of Nabatiyeh, NNA said.
Airstrikes hammered the town of Bourj al-Shamali just east of Tyre on the coast, and artillery fell constantly between Qana and Saddiqine, about six miles east of there, Voice of Lebanon radio reported.
Rescuers said they retrieved one body after an airstrike in Rzoum, northeast of Tyre.
“This morning we got one body from a house. It was in the kitchen – an 85 year-old man dead,” said civil defence official Naeem Ratka.
Another person was pulled out alive after an Israeli bomb hit a school in Maaroub, about seven miles east of Tyre, he said.
The survivor told rescuers five more people were buried under the rubble, but officials were deciding whether it was safe to remain in the area to try to rescue them, Ratka said.
In Beirut, bodies were still being pulled from the wreckage of a building collapsed in an Israeli attack late yesterday.
The raid, on a Muslim southern suburb next to a Christian neighbourhood, killed at least 15 people, police said. Many more were believed trapped under shards of concrete.
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