Israel attacks Beirut airport, forcing it to close, civilians killed in south Lebanon

AP Worldstream; Jul 13, 2006 SAM F. GHATTAS

Israeli forces intensified their attacks in Lebanon on Thursday,
imposing a naval blockade on the country and pounding its only
international airport and the Hezbollah TV station in Israel’s heaviest
air campaign against Lebanon for 24 years.

After warplanes punched holes in the airport’s runways just south
of Beirut, Israel’s army chief Brig. Gen. Dan Halutz warned that
"nothing is safe" in Lebanon. He said the Lebanese capital itself _
particularly offices and residences of Hezbollah officials in the
southern suburbs _ would be a target.

Hezbollah countered that it would rocket the key Israeli port city of
Haifa if Israel hit Beirut. A strike on Haifa, Israel’s third largest
city, would be the deepest ever into Israel by the guerrillas _ some
30 kilometers (18 miles) _ and would sharply escalate the violence.

The shockwaves from the fighting began to be felt as tensions
sharpened, with both sides playing a high stakes game after Hezbollah
snatched two Israeli soldiers: Israel seeking to end once and for all
Hezbollah’s presence on the border while the guerrillas insisting to
trade the captured soldiers with Arab prisoners.

Trapped between them was Lebanon, which Israel said it held responsible
for Hezbollah’s snatching of the soldiers. The Lebanese government
insisted it had no prior knowledge of the move and did not condone it.

Hezbollah fighters operate with almost total autonomy in southern
Lebanon, and the government has no control over their actions. But
the government has long resisted international pressure to disarm
the group _ and two Hezbollah ministers are members of the Lebanese
Cabinet, even though the majority are anti-Syrian politicians, some
of whom are critics of the group. Any attempt to disarm the group by
force could lead to sectarian conflict.

Two days of Israeli bombing have killed 47 Lebanese and wounded 103,
Health Minister Mohammed Jawad Khalife said.

The Israeli warnings of more to come caused panic in Beirut, with
traffic in the streets thin as people stuck their homes and stayed
away from their jobs. Others packed supermarkets to stock up on goods
and long lines formed on gas stations, with many quickly running out
of gas.

U.S. President George W. Bush pledged Thursday to work with Israel,
criticizing Hezbollah for thwarting efforts for peace in the Middle
East.

"My attitude is this: there are a group of terrorists who want to
stop the advance of peace," he said at a press conference in Germany.
"Those of us who are peace living must work together to help the
agents of peace."

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned that Israel’s Lebanon
offensive "is raising our fears of a new regional war" and urged
world powers to intervene "to stop this serious deterioration." The
Arab League called an emergency meeting of foreign ministers in Cairo
on Saturday.

The escalation of violence in the Middle East pushed crude oil prices
to a new intraday record of US$75.88 a barrel. Western countries,
Russia and the United Nations called for restraint and demanded
the soldiers. Arab and Lebanese satellite TV stations ran urgents
and beamed pictures across the Arab world. One station showed a man
holding the head and torso of a baby killed in the Israeli bombing.

Eight Israeli soldiers have been killed in the violence so far,
including three who died in Hezbollah’s initial raid Wedneday to
snatch the two soldiers.

In northern Israel, thousands of civilians spent Wednesday night
in underground shelters as Hezbollah fired rockets at two cities
in northern Israel. A 40-year-old Israeli woman was killed and five
people were wounded in the rocket attacks, the Israeli army reported.

After hitting roads and bridges in the south all day Wednesday,
Israel was dramatically expanding its campaign Thursday with their
biggest offensive in Lebanon since Israel’s 1982 invasion.

Israeli warships imposed a naval blockade of Lebanese ports _ which
Lebanese officials confirmed. Besides threatening to hit Beirut,
the Israeli military said it could also target the Beirut to Damascus
highway, the main land link between Lebanon and the outside world..

Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said his forces would not allow
Hezbollah guerrillas to occupy positions along the southern Lebanese
border.

"If the government of Lebanon fails to deploy its forces, as is
expected of a sovereign government, we shall not allow Hezbollah
forces to remain any further on the borders of the state of Israel,"
Peretz said.

Air force Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel said the campaign was likely Israel’s
largest ever in Lebanon "if you measure it in number of targets hit
in one night, the complexity of the strikes." The last major air,
ground and sea offensive against Lebanon was in 1996 when about 150
Lebanese civilians were killed.

Travelers to and from Beirut were stranded all over the region and
beyond after Israel hit Beirut airport after dawn Thursday. Among
them was Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh, who was returning from a
visit to Armenia and _ like many _ was forced to make his way home
through Syria.

Israeli warplanes blasted craters into all three runways at the
Beirut airport, located by the seaside in the Lebanese capital’s
Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs, forcing its closure and the
diversion of incoming flights to Cyprus. The main terminal building
of the US$500 million airport, which was built in the late 1990s,
remained intact.

The Israeli military said it struck the airport because it is "a
central hub for the transfer of weapons and supplies to the Hezbollah
terrorist organization."

It was the first time since Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon
and occupation of Beirut that the airport in south Beirut was hit
by Israel. The Israelis in 1968 sent commandos to Beirut airport,
blowing up 13 passenger planes on the runway in retaliation for Arab
militants firing on an Israeli airliner in Athens.

Later Thursday, an Israeli missile hit the building housing the
main studios of Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV in the south Beirut suburb
of Haret Hreik, the channel’s press officer Ibrahim Farhat told The
Associated Press.

The station continued to broadcast, reporting that an Israeli rocket
had hit a "minor transmission unit." One person was hurt in the strike,
station manager Abdullah Kassir told Voice of Lebanon radio.

Other strikes hit bridges and roads in the south and deep into
eastern Lebanon, striking a civic center attached to a Shiite Muslim
mosque near the town of Baalbek, as well as a transmission antenna
for Al-Manar, witnesses reported. The group’s broadcasts stopped in
the area.

Among the Lebanese dead in the strikes were a family of 10 and another
family of seven, killed in their homes in the village of Dweir near
Nabatiyeh, Lebanese officials said. A Lebanese soldier and a Hezbollah
fighter have also been killed.

Meanwhile, helicopter gunships and jet fighters scoured southern
Lebanon for guerrillas launching rockets into northern Israel.

Hezbollah fired volleys of rockets at the Israelis town of Nahariya
and Kiryat Shmona,saying it was using a rocket called "Thunder 1"
for the first time. The missile appeared to be more advanced than
the inaccurate Katyusha which has been the standard Hezbollah rocket
for years.

The Israeli army said several rockets had landed more than 20
kilometers (12 miles) south of the border, showing that Hezbollah
has managed to extend its missiles’ range.

Hezbollah has declared it has over 10,000 rockets and has in the
past struck northern Israeli communities in retaliation for attacks
against Lebanese civilians.