Israeli air strikes killed at least 27 civilians yesterday as Israel battered Lebanon for a fourth straight day to punish it for letting Syrian and Iranian-backed Hezbollah fighters menace its northern border.
US President George W. Bush, who has declined to urge Israel to curb its attacks, said Syria should tell Hezbollah to stop cross-border attacks from Lebanon's mainly Shiite Muslim south, as Hezbollah's leader called for open war.
Eighteen civilians, including nine children, were burnt alive in an Israeli helicopter gunship attack yesterday on residents fleeing border villages in south Lebanon, UN peacekeepers and hospital sources said. The van was carrying families fleeing the village of Marwaheen after Israeli loudspeaker warnings to leave their homes. Seven of the dead were from a single family.
PHOTO: NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
Israeli aircraft also destroyed the main Hezbollah office in Beirut, a nine-story building, and attacked roads, bridges and petrol stations in north, east and south Lebanon, killing at least 12 people and wounding 32, security sources said.
Israel's campaign, launched after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight on Wednesday, has killed 93 people, all but two of whom were civilians, and paralyzed the Lebanese economy.
It aims not just to force Hezbollah to free the soldiers, but to destroy its ability to launch rocket attacks on northern Israel, where four civilians have been killed this week.
PHOTO: EPA
French President Jacques Chirac and some other world leaders have sharply criticized Israel's assault on Lebanon as disproportionate. They have also condemned Hezbollah's tactics.
TARGETS
The Israeli army said yesterday it had struck about 150 targets in Lebanon so far, fewer than a dozen of them linked directly to Hezbollah. Most have hit civilian installations.
Israeli army chief Dan Halutz said on Friday that more targets would be bombed in a bid to remove Hezbollah from the border and replace it with a force answering to the Lebanese government.
He said Israel was also telling the Lebanese that "they swallowed a cancer that has to be regurgitated, and if not this country will pay a price as in the past" -- an allusion to Israel's 1982 invasion to drive out Palestinian guerrillas.
Israel was bombarding roads in the north and east to try to seal Lebanon's land border with Syria. It has already bombed Beirut's international airport and blockaded Lebanese ports.
Well over 100,000 people, many of them tourists, have fled to Syria since Israel's attack on Lebanon began, border officials said.
WAR CRY
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, speaking shortly after Israeli jets destroyed his Beirut home, declared open war on Israel following its bombardment of his Beirut home and stronghold.
"You wanted open war. We are going to open war," Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said.
Nasrallah also said his fighters had hit an Israeli warship off Beirut.
The Israeli military recovered the body of one of four sailors reported missing after the warship was hit.
Israeli military commander Brigadier General Ido Nehushtan said the body was found at sea. A military source said Hezbollah had launched an Iranian-made missile at the vessel.
A senior Israeli intelligence official said yesterday that Iranian troops helped Hezbollah fire the missile that damaged the warship.
The official said about 100 Iranian soldiers are in Lebanon and helped fire the Iranian-made, radar-guided C-102 missile.
Initially, it was thought that Hezbollah used a drone to attack the ship. The Israeli intelligence official did say that Hezbollah does have drones and warned that they are more accurate than missiles.
Several Hezbollah rockets hit the Israeli town of Tiberias yesterday, the furthest they have landed so far. No casualties were reported in the town, 35km from the border, but several people were slightly wounded in other rocket attacks.
MISSILE RISK
Israeli officials warned yesterday that Hezbollah has missiles that could reach as far as 100km to 200km into the country, putting cities such as Jerusalem and Tel Aviv at risk if they are used.
A senior Israeli intelligence official said that Hezbollah has 150 missiles that could reach a distance of 45km, and another 20 with a range of 100km to 200km.
"They may hit Tel Aviv," the official said, adding that Israeli intelligence officials were not sure why Hezbollah has not used the missiles since it started firing rockets at Israel.
An army spokesman said that since Wednesday, more than 350 Katyusha rockets have been fired into Israel, including 40 on Saturday, and have killed four people and injured about 60.
Arab foreign ministers discussed the crisis in Cairo, but it was not clear what they could do. Syria has pledged to back Hezbollah and Lebanon against Israel's "barbaric aggression." Saudi Arabia has blamed Hezbollah for "uncalculated adventures."
PM RESPONDS
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora on Friday accused Israel of cutting his country into pieces and demanded an immediate ceasefire.
In an interview with CNN, Siniora said Lebanon was being punished for something in which it had no hand -- the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers and the killing of eight more.
"Israel is continuing its aggression against Lebanon and the Lebanese," Siniora said. "It's sparing nobody, in no area of Lebanon. Actually it is cutting the country into pieces, whereby more than 20 bridges in the country have been destroyed."
Siniora also accused Israel of being careless about civilian lives and of trying to cripple his recovering country's economy.
Foreign governments were drawing up contingency plans yesterday to evacuate their nationals from Lebanon.
France, Italy and Sweden followed Britain's lead on Friday in preparing a voluntary evacuation of their citizens, mainly by land to Syria or by ferry to Cyprus.
The US State Department also said it was working on a plan with the Pentagon to transport Americans to Cyprus, where they can board commercial aircraft for onward travel.
also see stories:
Israeli PM taking an enormous gamble
Gunmen seize Iraqi Olympic chief
CLASH OF WORDS: While China’s foreign minister insisted the US play a constructive role with China, Rubio stressed Washington’s commitment to its allies in the region The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday affirmed and welcomed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio statements expressing the US’ “serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan” and aggressive behavior in the South China Sea, in a telephone call with his Chinese counterpart. The ministry in a news release yesterday also said that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had stated many fallacies about Taiwan in the call. “We solemnly emphasize again that our country and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other, and it has been an objective fact for a long time, as well as
‘CHARM OFFENSIVE’: Beijing has been sending senior Chinese officials to Okinawa as part of efforts to influence public opinion against the US, the ‘Telegraph’ reported Beijing is believed to be sowing divisions in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture to better facilitate an invasion of Taiwan, British newspaper the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Less than 750km from Taiwan, Okinawa hosts nearly 30,000 US troops who would likely “play a pivotal role should Beijing order the invasion of Taiwan,” it wrote. To prevent US intervention in an invasion, China is carrying out a “silent invasion” of Okinawa by stoking the flames of discontent among locals toward the US presence in the prefecture, it said. Beijing is also allegedly funding separatists in the region, including Chosuke Yara, the head of the Ryukyu Independence
‘VERY SHALLOW’: The center of Saturday’s quake in Tainan’s Dongshan District hit at a depth of 7.7km, while yesterday’s in Nansai was at a depth of 8.1km, the CWA said Two magnitude 5.7 earthquakes that struck on Saturday night and yesterday morning were aftershocks triggered by a magnitude 6.4 quake on Tuesday last week, a seismologist said, adding that the epicenters of the aftershocks are moving westward. Saturday and yesterday’s earthquakes occurred as people were preparing for the Lunar New Year holiday this week. As of 10am yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) recorded 110 aftershocks from last week’s main earthquake, including six magnitude 5 to 6 quakes and 32 magnitude 4 to 5 tremors. Seventy-one of the earthquakes were smaller than magnitude 4. Thirty-one of the aftershocks were felt nationwide, while 79
MARITIME SECURITY: Of the 52 vessels, 15 were rated a ‘threat’ for various reasons, including the amount of time they spent loitering near subsea cables, the CGA said Taiwan has identified 52 “suspicious” Chinese-owned ships flying flags of convenience that require close monitoring if detected near the nation, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday, as the nation seeks to protect its subsea telecoms cables. The stricter regime comes after a Cameroon-flagged vessel was briefly detained by the CGA earlier this month on suspicion of damaging an international cable northeast of Taiwan. The vessel is owned by a Hong Kong-registered company with a Chinese address given for its only listed director, the CGA said previously. Taiwan fears China could sever its communication links as part of an attempt
RSS