by Mentalgongfu » Sat Jul 15, 2006 12:33 am
<!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-07-14T113018Z_01_L11538533_RTRUKOC_0_US-MIDEAST.xml&src=071406_0752_TOPSTORY_israel_widens_strikes">Israel hits Beirut airport again</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br>Israel hits Beirut airport again<br>By: Alistair Lyon, Middle East Correspondent<br>Fri Jul 14, 2006 7:59 AM ET<br><br>(Pic)- Fire rises from Beirut international airport after being attacked by Israeli aircraft July 14, 2006. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir<br><br>BEIRUT (Reuters) - Israel struck Beirut airport again on Friday and bombed Lebanese roads, power supplies and communication networks in a widening campaign after Hizbollah guerrillas seized two Israeli soldiers and killed eight.<br><br>Hizbollah, which wants to trade its captives for prisoners held in Israel, has showered rockets across the frontier in its fiercest bombardment since 1996 when Israel launched a 17-day blitz against southern Lebanon and Hizbollah.<br><br>President Bush telephoned Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and assured him he was pressing Israel to "contain the damage" to Lebanon and avoid civilian casualties, Siniora's office said in a statement. Siniora urged Bush to get Israel to halt its attack, agree to a ceasefire and lift its blockade.<br><br>Bush has previously upheld Israel's right to self-defence, but said it should not weaken the Lebanese government.<br><br>Israeli aircraft rocketed runways at Beirut's international airport and bombed a flyover just to the south, witnesses said.<br><br>The airport has been shut since runways and fuel tanks were hit on Thursday. Four planes of Lebanon's Middle East Airlines had taken off empty for Amman shortly before the latest raids.<br><br>Israeli warplanes blasted the main Beirut-Damascus highway overnight, tightening an air, sea and land blockade of Lebanon, and bombed targets in Beirut's teeming Shi'ite Muslim suburbs, killing three people and wounding 40, security sources said.<br><br>CIVILIAN CASUALTIES<br><br>Their deaths brought to 63 the number of people, almost all civilians, killed in Lebanon since Israel's campaign began, police said. At least 165 people have been wounded.<br><br>The Israeli military said Hizbollah's main security compound in southern Beirut had been among targets hit on Friday. Reuters reporters saw no sign of damage.<br><br>More Hizbollah rockets fell in northern Israel but there were no reports of casualties. Israel said the group had launched 130 missiles in the previous 48 hours, killing two civilians and wounding over 100.<br><br>The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour urged both sides to refrain from attacking civilian targets.<br><br>Black smoke billowed from a burning fuel depot at the Jiyyeh power plant south of Beirut as Israeli ships shelled the nearby coastal road, witnesses said. Air raids targeted several mobile telephone relay stations in eastern Lebanon.<br><br>Israeli jets also struck a pro-Syrian Palestinian guerrilla base in eastern Lebanon. No casualties were reported.<br><br>Israel holds Lebanon responsible for the actions of Hizbollah, a Syrian- and Iranian-backed Islamist group which has members in parliament and in the mainly anti-Syrian cabinet.<br><br>The fragile Beirut government, too divided to disarm the Shi'ite faction that effectively controls south Lebanon, has urged the U.N. Security Council to call on Israel to halt its onslaught when the top world body meets later on Friday.<br><br>Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his security chiefs opted on Thursday evening to ramp up operations in Lebanon after two missiles hit Israel's northern port of Haifa. Hizbollah denied it had fired them. No one was hurt in the attack.<br><br>The violence in Lebanon coincided with an Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip launched last month to try to retrieve another captured soldier and halt Palestinian rocket fire.<br><br>GAZA PULLBACK<br><br>The army said on Friday it had pulled out of the central Gaza Strip, which it entered as part of the offensive. It said its forces had targeted an office of the ruling Hamas militant group in the northern Gaza Strip and a bridge overnight.<br><br>Troops fired a tank shell at a vehicle, killing a Palestinian and wounding another, medics said. Israel has killed more than 80 Palestinians during the offensive.<br><br>Fearing a prolonged Israeli-Hizbollah confrontation, Lebanese queued for petrol and hoarded food and drink. Power rationing began and many shops and offices stayed shut.<br><br>The crisis has helped drive world oil prices to record highs and has shaken financial markets in Israel and Lebanon.<br><br>Beirut's bourse temporarily cut the limits within which share and bond prices can fluctuate to five percent from 10. Israeli stocks have dropped more than eight percent in the past three days and the Israeli shekel has lost over three percent.<br><br>Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said any Israeli attack on Syria would draw a fierce response from the Islamic world.<br><br>(Additional reporting by Nadim Ladki, Lin Noueihed, Alaa Shahine and Jerusalem bureau) <p></p><i></i>
