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An IDF soldier covers his ears as artillery rounds are fired. (AP)
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| By Associated Press July 22, 2006 |
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| IDF reserve soldiers check their rifles. (AP) |
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With small units already operating in south Lebanon, Israel massed tanks and troops on the border Friday hours after calling up reserves, as the army announced plans for a "limited" ground operation to destroy Hezbollah's tunnels, hideouts and weapons stashes in the south.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced plans to visit the Middle East on Sunday, her first trip to the region since the crisis erupted 10 days ago -- even as she ruled out a quick cease-fire as a "false promise."
An official from the U.N. monitoring force in south Lebanon said that between 300 and 500 troops are believed to be in the western sector of the border, backed by as many as 30 tanks -- a likely precursor to a larger ground force that Israel could use to sweep Hezbollah out of the area.
Israel's goal is not to create a buffer zone as it did during its occupation of southern Lebanon from 1982 to 2000, said a senior military official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the topic's military sensitivity.
Rather, Israel wants to weaken Hezbollah to make it easier for the Lebanese army to move into areas previously controlled by the guerrillas, possibly with the aid of a beefed up international peacekeeping force, the official said.
On Friday, Israel knocked out a key bridge on the road to Syria and pummeled Hezbollah positions in the south as long lines of tanks and armored personnel carriers lined up at the border ? in some places close enough to see Lebanese homes on the other side.
Rice was headed to Rome for meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the Palestinian president and U.S. allies, before heading to the Middle East.
"We do seek an end to the current violence, we seek it urgently. We also seek to address the root causes of that violence," she said -- a reference to the U.S. position that Hezbollah must not be allowed to rule southern Lebanon with impunity. The group's capture of two Israeli soldiers in a bloody cross-border raid on July 12 touched off Israel's heaviest bombardment of Lebanon in 24 years.
In south Lebanon, soldiers buried 72 people killed in recent bombings in a mass grave just outside a barracks in the southern city of Tyre. Volunteers put the bodies, many of them children, in wooden coffins and spray-painted the names of the dead on the lids.
Ships lined up at Beirut's port as a massive evacuation effort to pull out Americans and other foreigners picked up speed. U.S. officials said more than 8,000 of the roughly 25,000 Americans in Lebanon will be evacuated by the weekend.
France, the United Nations and Red Cross painted a dire portrait of life for civilians trapped in the south or forced to flee their homes there. They demanded Israel open humanitarian corridors to allow life's necessities -- shelter, food, water and medicine -- to reach the swelling numbers of displaced people -- an estimated half-million.
Responding to a U.S. request, Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said French aid would be allowed into Lebanon's port of Sidon.
A barrage of 11 Hezbollah rockets rained down again on Israel's third-largest city, the northern port of Haifa, wounding at least five people, two seriously. The army said rockets also hit Rosh Pina, Safed and communities near the Sea of Galilee.
Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets at northern Israeli towns from north of the Lebanese border, killing 16 civilians and forcing hundreds of thousands of Israelis to repeatedly flee into bunkers.
The Lebanese health ministry reported 362 deaths in Lebanon so far in the onslaught, an increase of 55 since it release figures on Thursday. Thirty-four Israelis also have been killed, including 18 soldiers and an air force officer killed Friday in the collision of two helicopters.
The count of 362 includes six Hezbollah fighters that the group has confirmed were killed, including three who died Friday. Israel's army chief of staff said Friday that nearly 100 Hezbollah guerrillas have been killed in the offensive in Lebanon.
The Lebanese toll Friday was expected to rise with heavy Israeli strikes in the Shiite regions of the south and east. In the southern towns of Nabatiyeh and Aytaroun, buildings were leveled -- including one on a commercial street -- killing at least one person -- but rescue crews were too afraid of the continuing waves of strikes to search for more dead or wounded trapped in the rubble.
Israel warplanes also continued their bombing to cut off roads, collapsing part of a suspension bridge linking two mountain peaks on the Beirut-Damascus highway in central Lebanon, which has already been heavily hit.
Three U.N.-run positions near the border were struck during fighting Friday. One post on the Israeli side was hit and severely damaged, though the Ghanian troops inside were safely in shelters. A U.N. officer said it was hit by an Israeli artillery shell, but Israel said Hezbollah rockets struck it.
Two more U.N. positions on the Lebanese side took direct hits from Israeli artillery, also causing damage but no casualties, the U.N. observer force said.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said the conflict had made at 700,000 refugees so far, most of them remaining in Lebanon, where the destruction of bridges and roads has made access and treatment difficult. "I'm afraid of a major humanitarian disaster," he told CNN.
Beirut was swelling with refugees from the south -- and from its own Shiite southern neighborhoods, heavily hit by Israeli strikes. They piled up by the hundreds in parks and schools -- those with money enough staying in hotels.
But after 10 days, Beirutis -- enured by past wars -- were emerging more and more from their homes, fed up with staying indoors even as the conflict looked ready to escalate. More shops on downtown Hamra Street were open, and in the evening families, including many southern refugees, were strolling along the seafront, kids roller-blading, young men smoking waterpipes.
An Israeli ground incursion, however, could dramatically increase the pain in Lebanon. More than 400,000 people live south of the Litani River, north of which Israel wants to push Hezbollah. Though tens of thousands have left, many are believed still there, trapped because roads were damaged by Israeli bombs or afraid of being caught in the airstrikes on thoroughfares.
Now they were likely to be in the crossfire as Israeli troops cross the border.
An Israeli military radio station warned residents of 12 Lebanese villages near the border to leave before 2 p.m. Friday -- though the deadline passed without a significant change in the Israeli strikes in the south. A day before, messages urged an evacuation of everybody south of the Litani, which is 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border.
Israel's army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, said the military would conduct "limited ground operations as much as needed in order to harm the terror that harms us" ? leaving it unclear how deep and how powerful the Israeli punch into Lebanon would be. Israel on Friday called up several thousand reservists to free up regular troops for duty in the north.
"We will fight terror wherever it is because if we do not fight it, it will fight us. If we don't reach it, it will reach us," he told a nationally televised news conference.
But the time Israel has to achieve its goals could be limited by mounting civilian casualties, as international tolerance for the bloodshed and destruction runs out.
Daniel Ayalon, Israel's ambassador to Washington, told The Associated Press that Israel would not rule out an eventual international stabilization force. But he said Israel was first determined to take out Hezbollah's command and control centers and weapons stockpiles.
He described it as a "mop up" operation, and said that Israel had no desire to repeat its 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon that ended in 2000.
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