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"Israel pounds Lebanon as world scrambles to avoid war"
Posted by Dalale (Guest) - Friday, July 14 2006, 21:06:05 (CEST)
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by Nayla Razzouk
1 hour, 50 minutes ago

BEIRUT (AFP) - Israel has pounded Lebanon for the third straight day, targeting Hezbollah's power base in relentless attacks that have killed about 60 people and left world powers scrambling to avert all-out war in the region.

The UN Security Council began an emergency meeting on the conflict that has left Lebanon virtually cut off from the outside world after Israel imposed an air and sea blockade, attacked the only international airport and bombed the main highway to neighbouring Syria.

"War Comes Back to Lebanon," was the stark headline in the English-language Daily Star newspaper.

The international community issued urgent appeals for calm and is sending envoys to the region in a bid to avoid another full-scale Middle East war, with Israel under fire in some quarters for using "disproportionate force".

Israel, apparently taken aback by the extent of the criticism, said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has set three conditions for a ceasefire: the release of soldiers whose capture by Hezbollah guerrillas triggered the crisis, a halt to rocket fire and the disarmament of Hezbollah.

"If these conditions are met, we are ready to cooperate with a delegation from the United Nations," a spokeswoman said.

Olmert gave the green light to new raids in Lebanon after a barrage of rockets hit towns in northern Israel, including the Mediterranean port city of Haifa, killing two people.

Israel has pointed the finger of blame at Hezbollah's main backers -- Syria and Iran -- and on Friday an Israeli minister threatened to eliminate the Shiite fundamentalist movement's chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah.

In a wave of strikes Friday, Israeli jets hit the main highway linking Beirut and Damascus and an airport hangar and fuel tanks, pounded Hezbollah's command headquarters in the Shiite-dominated southern suburbs of Beirut and a Palestinian guerrilla base in eastern Lebanon, as well as bridges and other roads.

Police said five people were killed on Friday, bringing to 62 the death toll in Lebanon since Israel unleashed what the military has called "Operation Just Reward."

In one of the strongest statements from a world leader on the conflict, President Jacques Chirac of France, the former colonial power in Lebanon, said Israel appeared to "wish to destroy" Lebanon.

Lebanon said US President George W. Bush had called Prime Minister Fuad Siniora to voice support for his government and pledged to "exert pressure on Israel to limit damage inflicted on Lebanon."

In northern Israel, where army ordered about half a million Israelis in northern towns into bomb shelters, a volley of about 80 rockets was fired on more than a dozen towns, sending scores of people to hospital, most for treatment of shock.

World powers are due to discuss the crisis at the Group of Eight meeting starting Saturday in Moscow after the deadliest violence between Israel and Lebanon in a decade opened up a dangerous new front in the Middle East conflict following the massive Israeli onslaught against Gaza.

The latest crisis was triggered when Hezbollah guerrillas seized two Israeli servicemen in a deadly attack on the volatile Lebanon-Israel Wednesday, leading to Israel's first ground incursion since it withdrew in 2000.

The abduction came less than three weeks after a similar raid by Palestinian militants, including members of the ruling Islamist movement Hamas, on the Gaza border that resulted in the capture of an Israeli corporal.

Washington -- which regards Hezbollah as a terror group -- said Israel, its closest Middle East ally, had the right to defend itself but urged restraint while several European powers openly criticised the scale of the Israeli offensive as disproportionate.

Envoys from the United Nations and the European Union are being urgently dispatched to the region to try to defuse the escalating crisis.

Lebanese President Emile Lahoud called on Arab League ministers, due to meet on Saturday, to help avoid Israel's "systematic destruction" of the country.

UN chief Kofi Annan has said he was "profoundly worried" by the conflict while the Vatican said it "deplores the attack on Lebanon, a free and sovereign nation."

Israel has pointed the finger of blame at Syria and Iran, saying its two arch-foes formed an "axis of terror" along with Hezbollah and Palestinian militant group Hamas, the target of its offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Israel issued a direct threat against Nasrallah, Hezbollah's military mastermind who has said the two captured soldiers would only be released in a prisoner exchange.

"Nasrallah decided his own fate," Interior Minister Roni Bar-On said. "We will settle our accounts with him when the time comes."

After a barrage of rocket attacks against towns in northern Israel that left two dead and 50 injured Thursday, two rockets fired from south Lebanon also penetrated deeper than ever inside Israel, hitting its third largest city of Haifa.

Hezbollah, which has threatened to avenge the "massacres" of Lebanese by Israel, denied however that it was involved the Haifa attack.

Bush also said Thursday that Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, who was forced to end 29 years of military domination in Lebanon last year, should be held to account over the escalation of violence.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, already locked in an international standoff over its suspect nuclear programme, warned that Israel would receive a "stinging response" from the Islamic world if it committed any aggression against Syria.

Regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia however indirectly accused Hezbollah of "adventurism" over its capture of the Israeli soldiers.

With Lebanon's airport shut and Israeli blockading its ports, thousands of tourists, mostly Gulf Arab nationals, fled across the border to Syria and a number of foreign governments issued travel warnings.

Lebanon has been mired in its own political crisis since the murder of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri in 2005 and is still rebuilding after the devastating 1975-1990 civil war.

The Lebanese government -- which includes two Hezbollah ministers but is led by anti-Syrian politicians -- denied any involvement in the Hezbollah action and demanded a "complete and immediate ceasefire"."

Israel also pressed on with its air assault on Gaza but withdrew ground troops from the centre of the territory after the United States vetoed a UN resolution calling on Israel to halt its military operations there.

The air force carried out at least two overnight raids, hitting the house of a Hamas MP, while ground artillery and naval gunboats pounded the territory.

At least 76 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier have been killed since Israel launched its assault on Gaza, which the United Nations has warned is causing a humanitarian crisis in one of the most densely populated areas on earth.

Following a renewed UN appeal, the US promised to send 50 million dollars and the EU pledged 63 million dollars in aid to the Palestinians.



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