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Israel warplanes attack Beirut airport
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Israel warplanes attack Beirut airport
Israel intensified its attacks against Lebanon yesterday, blasting Beirut’s international airport and the southern part of the country in its heaviest air campaign against its neighbor in 24 years. Nearly three dozen civilians were killed, officials said.
The strikes on the airport, which damaged three runways, came hours before Israel also imposed a naval blockade on Lebanon to cut off supply routes to Lebanese militants.
The shockwaves from the fighting began to be felt a day after Hezbollah snatched two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid. The escalation of violence in the Middle East pushed crude oil prices to a new intraday record of $75.88 a barrel. Western countries, Russia and the
United Nations called for restraint and demanded the soldiers be released.
Israel said it was seeking to end once and for all Hezbollah’s presence on Lebanon’s southern border, while the guerrillas insisted they would only release the soldiers in exchange for Israel freeing Arab prisoners.
The airport, located in the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut, was closed after the attacks and flights were diverted to nearby Cyprus. It was the first time since Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon and occupation of Beirut that the airport was hit by Israel.
Israel also fired a missile at the building housing the studios of Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV in the southern suburbs of Beirut yesterday morning, the channel’s press officer Ibrahim Farhat told The Associated Press. One person was hurt, but the station continued to broadcast.
Overnight Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon, meanwhile, killed 35 civilians and wounded dozens more, Lebanese security officials said. A family of 10 and another family of seven were killed in their homes in the village of Dweir near Nabatiyeh, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the press.
Later yesterday, Lebanese guerrillas fired volleys of rockets at northern Israel, killing an Israeli woman in her home in the border town of Nahariya, officials said. Five people were wounded. Thousands of civilians spent Wednesday night in underground shelters.
Eight Israeli soldiers and three Lebanese were killed in fighting Wednesday.
UN Security Council to intervene</B>
Air force Major General Amir Eshel said the campaign was likely Israel’s largest ever in Lebanon, measured in number of targets hit in one night and the complexity of the strikes. The last major military offensive against Lebanon was in 1996 when about 150 Lebanese civilians were killed.
On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called the Hezbollah raid an “act of war” by Lebanon and threatened “very, very, very painful” retaliation. The Cabinet, meeting in the wake of the military’s highest daily death toll in four years, decided to continue the army operation and call on the international community to disarm Hezbollah, according to participants.
Yesterday, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said the offensive in Lebanon has far-reaching objectives, including pushing Hezbollah militants away from the Israeli border and eventually sidelining the group altogether.“We must neutralize the hostile terrorist infrastructure that exists in Lebanon,” he said.
Senior Israeli military officials said Israel warned the Lebanese government that it plans to strike offices and homes of Hezbollah leaders in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz also demanded that Lebanese army forces be deployed along the border, saying Israel would not allow Hezbollah guerrillas to reoccupy its positions there. Lebanon has long refused to do this, saying that it is not in business of protecting Israel’s northern border.
The Lebanese government said that it had not known of the Hezbollah operation, did not condone it and bore no responsibility for it. The Lebanese Cabinet, which includes two Hezbollah ministers, urged the Hezbollah’s brazen cross-border raid Wednesday opened a second front for the Israeli army. The army launched an incursion into the Gaza Strip more than two weeks ago to search for another Israeli soldier who was captured by Hamas-linked militants. At least 23 Palestinians were killed in Gaza on Wednesday.`
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