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Battery of Patriot anti-missile batteries is set up near Haifa (AP)
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| By Associated Press July 15, 2006 |
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| Israeli jets hit central Beirut. (AP) |
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Israel accelerated its air attack on Lebanon on Saturday, blasting Hezbollah hideouts and hitting central Beirut for the first time. It accused Iran of helping fire a missile that damaged an Israeli warship in an ominous sign that the showdown could spread.
Despite worldwide alarm, there was little indication either Western or Arab nations could muster a quick diplomatic solution. Instead, France and the United States prepared to evacuate their citizens as the death toll in Lebanon rose.
In Israel, officials warned that Tel Aviv could be attacked as Hezbollah guerrillas lobbed more missiles deep into another of the country's main cities, Tiberias. Residents fled into bomb shelters as tourists scattered, but there were only light injuries.
Choking back tears, Lebanon's Western-backed prime minister went on television to plead with the United Nations to broker a cease fire for his "disaster-stricken nation."
Hezbollah denied it received Iranian help and Tehran said it had no role in the fighting, disputing Israeli claims that 100 Iranian soldiers had helped Hezbollah attack an Israeli warship late Friday. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad condemned the Israeli offensive, accusing Israel of "behaving like Hitler."
There has been no sign in Lebanon of Iranian Revolutionary Guards for 15 years. But Iran is one of Hezbollah's principal backers along with Syria, providing weapons, money and political support. And many believe Iran and Syria are fueling the battle to show their strength in the region.
Despite such worries, there were few signs of international accord on a way to halt the fighting, which erupted Wednesday when Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid.
President Bush, on a trip to Russia, said it was up to Hezbollah "to lay down its arms and to stop attacking." But Russian President Vladimir Putin urged a balanced approach by Israel and said it appeared the nation was pursuing wider goals than the return of abducted soldiers.
Arab foreign ministers fell into squabbling after moderate states, led by Saudi Arabia, denounced Hezbollah for starting the fight.
In one sign the West expects a drawn-out battle, the U.S. Embassy said it was looking into ways to get Americans in Lebanon to Cyprus. France said it had already decided to send a ferry from Cyprus to evacuate thousands of its nationals, and the British government said it was making contingency plans to protect its citizens.
In all, 34 people were killed in Lebanon on Saturday, police said. That raised the Lebanese death toll in the four-day Israeli offensive to 107, mostly civilians. On the Israeli side, at least 15 have been killed, four civilians and 11 soldiers.
Israeli warplanes demolished the last bridge on the main Beirut-Damascus highway -- over the Litani River, six miles from the Syrian border -- trying to complete their seal on Lebanon.
In his televised adddress, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora criticized both Israel and Hezbollah.
He also pledged to reassert government authority over all Lebanese territory, suggesting his government might deploy the Lebanese army in the south, which Hezbollah effectively controls.
That would meet a repeated U.N. and U.S. demand. But any effort by Sanoria's government to use force against Hezbollah could trigger another bloody civil war in Lebanon.
The Lebanese army is about 70,000 strong, equipped with American, French and Russian weapons but virtually no air force. More importantly, many fear it would quickly break up along sectarian lines as it did during the 1975-90 civil war, because a large contingent is Shiite Muslim like Hezbollah.
Israel said Lebanon must prove it was serious by deploying troops on the border. "We have to see what they do and not what they say," Vice Premier Shimon Peres told Israel's Channel 2 TV.
Four days into the Israeli offensive, Lebanese themselves remained divided over Hezbollah's operation: Some angry and terrified, others proud.
"No one has stood up to Israel the way the resistance (Hezbollah) has," said a 33-year-old housewife, Laila Remeiti, one of about 130 people who have taken refuge at a Beirut government school.
But the toll across the country was clear, with bridges, seaports, military coastal radars and Hezbollah offices all attacked in intensive air raids and sea bombardments Saturday:
- At least three civilians were killed when another Israeli airstrike hit a bridge near the Syrian border, cutting the last land link on the main road to Syria and its capital, Damascus.
- In the afternoon, Israeli forces hit central Beirut, striking the port and a lighthouse on a posh seafront boulevard, where people stroll in the evening or jog in the early mornings. It is a few hundred yards from the campus of the American University of Beirut. The seaport is adjacent to downtown Beirut, a disctrict rebuilt at a cost of billions of dollars after the 1975-1990 civil war.
- The Lebanese army said one soldier was killed and 11 wounded in Israeli attacks on coastal military installations.
- The brunt of the strikes focused on Hezbollah's top leadership in south Beirut and the eastern city of Baalbek. Ambulances raced to a Baalbek residential neighborhood where black smoke rose from airstrikes. Israel also targeted the headquarters compound of Hezbollah's leadership in a crowded Shiite neighborhood of south Beirut for the second straight day.
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