Waves of warplanes thundering through the darkness
bombed Beirut's southern suburbs for hours Sunday, and Hezbollah guerillas fired rockets
into Israel's third-largest city, killing eight people and wounding seven.
A barrage of rockets pounded the northern Israeli city of Haifa in the worst
strike on Israel since violence broke out along the border with Lebanon last
week. One of the rockets hit a storage room at the train station, killing eight
people, Israeli police said.
Hours later, the guerrillas launched a new onslaught of rockets at Haifa and
other communities across northern Israel, causing more injuries, authorities
said. Rockets hit Kiryat Motzkim and Kiryat Haim, north of Haifa, and the
northern towns of Acco and Nahariya. Area residents were told to head to bomb
shelters.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned there would be "far-reaching
consequences" for the rocket attacks.
Hezbollah said on its TV station that it fired dozens of rockets at Haifa and
targeted the refinery "after the enemy continued all night their destructive
shelling" of Beirut's southern suburbs and other areas.
It was the second time Hezbollah rockets hit Haifa. Israel responded to the
first strike Thursday by stepping up its airstrikes in Lebanon, which it began
last week after Hezbollah militants captured two soldiers in a cross-border
raid.
About 18 powerful explosions rocked southern Beirut - where Hezbollah is
headquartered - for more than two hours after midnight Sunday. A day earlier,
the Israeli air force hit strongholds of the Hezbollah Shiite Muslim guerrilla
group, bombed central Beirut for the first time, and pounded seaports and a key
bridge.
Israeli jets could be heard over the city Sunday, much of it darkened because
airstrikes have knocked out power stations and the fuel depots feeding them.
Warplanes bombed the major Jiyeh power station about 12 miles south of Beirut on
Sunday.
Hezbollah's TV aired footage showing two long columns of smoke rising from
buildings into the night sky. Much of Shiite-populated southern Beirut was
deserted, its residents having fled east to Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.
Trying to defuse the violence, which began when Hezbollah captured two
Israeli soldiers and killed eight others in a cross-border raid, Lebanon's prime
minister indicated he might send his army to take control of southern Lebanon
from Hezbollah — a move that might risk civil war.
In a more ominous sign that the struggle could spread, Israel accused
Iran of helping launch a missile that damaged an Israeli warship, a charge
both Hezbollah and Iran denied.
Hezbollah, meanwhile, fired barrages of rockets ever deeper into Israel, and
Israeli officials warned that Tel Aviv, 70 miles inside Israel, could be hit.
The death toll in the four-day-old conflict rose above 100 in Lebanon, and
stood at 24 in Israel. Hezbollah denied Israeli media reports that its leader,
Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, was hurt in an airstrike Sunday, the Al-Jazeera
television said.
Despite worldwide alarm, there was little indication either Western or Arab
nations could muster a quick diplomatic solution. In New York, Lebanon accused
the United States of blocking a U.N. Security Council statement calling for a
cease-fire. Diplomats said Washington for now preferred to see the issue dealt
with at this weekend's Group of Eight meeting in Russia and in other ways.
The United States and France, meantime, prepared to evacuate their citizens,
and Britain dispatched an aircraft carrier to the eastern Mediterranean in
apparent preparation for evacuations.
Choking back tears, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora went on television
to plead with the United Nations to broker a cease-fire for his
"disaster-stricken nation."
The Western-backed prime minister, criticizing both Israel and Hezbollah,
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 Saniora's
Sunni Muslim-led government to use force against the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah
guerrillas could trigger another bloody civil war in Lebanon. Many fear the
70,000-strong army itself might break up along sectarian lines, as it did during
the 1975-90 civil war.
Reacting to Saniora's statements, Israel's Vice Premier Shimon Peres 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," Peres told Israel's
Channel 2 TV.
Iran, meanwhile, denied any role in the fighting, disputing Israeli claims
that 100 Iranian soldiers had helped Hezbollah attack an Israeli warship late
Friday.
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. Many believe Iran and Syria are
fueling the battle to show their strength in the region.
