Israeli Strikes Resume After Brief Lull

07/31/2006

QANA, Lebanon (AP) - Israeli planes hit targets in southern Lebanon on Monday after Hezbollah guerrillas blasted an Israeli tank and injured three Israeli soldiers, breaking a brief respite in 20 days of fighting.

Before the fighting resumed, pickup trucks and cars loaded with people streamed north as thousands of civilians trapped in south Lebanon’s war zone for three weeks took advantage of the brief lull to escape.

Israel had said, in announcing the halt to air strikes earlier Monday, that it would suspend that pledge to end air strikes for 48 hours depending on “operational developments” in Lebanon. After Hezbollah guerrillas hit an Israeli tank near Taibeh with an anti-tank missile, Israel said it carried out the air strikes to protect its ground troops.

AP Television footage showed two Israeli tanks side by side in southern Lebanon, with flames suddenly covering one of them. Soldiers soon emerged from one tank and did not appear to be badly hurt.


In a second airstrike around the port city of Tyre, Israel accidentally killed a Lebanese soldier when it hit a car that it believed was carrying a senior Hezbollah official, the Israeli army said. Lebanese security officials said the soldier was killed by a rocket strike from a pilotless drone aircraft.

The Israeli army justified the action, saying the leader believed to have been in the car was a threat to Israel. Instead, the car was carrying a Lebanese army officer and soldiers.

“They were, of course, not the targets and we regret the incident,” the army said.

Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said Israel plans to “expand and strengthen” its attack on Hezbollah, diminishing hopes that the 48-hour halt in air strikes could be turned into a longer term cease-fire.

President Hosni Mubarak, whose Arab country was the first to sign a peace treaty with Israel, warned that the entire Middle East peace could collapse because of Israel’s fighting in Lebanon.


“Egypt, which triggered the peace process, warns of the consequences of its collapse,” Mubarak said in a nationwide televised statement. “The Israeli aggression undermines the opportunities to continue it and its success.”

Fighting was heavy in the northeast corner of south Lebanon around Taibeh and other border villages. Constant Israeli artillery blasts - not covered under the air halt - shook the hills.

Hezbollah guerrillas in the area fired a volley of rockets at the nearby Israeli town of Kiryat Shemona, their first since Israel’s suspension began. No casualties were reported.

In many border areas, Israeli pilotless aircraft also were heard buzzing - though it was not clear whether they were over Lebanese territory.

Still, the suspension of the air campaign brought relative quiet to much of southern Lebanon.


Israel called the 48-hour halt under U.S. pressure amid worldwide outrage over a strike Sunday morning that leveled a house in Qana, killing at least 56 people - mostly women and children - who had taken refuge there.

It was the deadliest single strike in the Israeli onslaught against Lebanon, aimed at reining in the Hezbollah guerrillas who sparked the conflict July 12 by snatching two Israeli soldiers. Some 519 people have been confirmed killed by Lebanon’s Health Ministry since the fighting began.

The pause meant the first relative relief for thousands of Lebanese who have been hiding in their homes, in schools or hospitals in the dozens of villages that dot the mountainous south. While huge numbers had fled already, those who remained were mostly the old, the sick and those too afraid of intense Israeli bombardment on the roads to risk the drive.

Early Monday, hours after Israel called the pause, few southerners took to the roads, likely wary over whether the news was true. But by early afternoon, the roads from villages into the port city of Tyre, then from Tyre heading north along the coast were packed.

The stunning bloodshed in Qana increased international pressure on Washington to back an immediate end to the fighting and prompted U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to cut short her Mideast mission to return home Monday.

In a nationally televised speech before leaving Israel, Rice said she would seek international consensus for a cease-fire and a “lasting settlement” in the conflict between Lebanon and Israel through a U.N. Security Council resolution this week.

“I am convinced that only by achieving both will the Lebanese people be able to control their country and their future, and the people of Israel finally be able to live free of attack from terrorist groups in Lebanon,” Rice said.

But Peretz made clear in a speech to parliament that Israel would not agree to an immediate cease-fire and had plans to expand its operation in Lebanon.

“It’s forbidden to agree to an immediate cease-fire,” Peretz told parliament, as several Arab legislators heckled him and demanded an immediate cessation. “Israel will expand and strengthen its activities against the Hezbollah.”

Israel’s top ministers also were to discuss expanding the army’s ground operation at a meeting later Monday, while thousands of reserve soldiers trained for the possibility that they will be sent into Lebanon.

It was unclear whether the senior ministers would approve a broader ground assault at their meeting, defense officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Rice over the weekend that Israel would need 10 to 14 more days to finish its offensive, and Justice Minister Haim Ramon told Army Radio on Monday that he did not think the fighting was yet over.

“I’m convinced that we won’t finish this war until it’s clear that Hezbollah has no more abilities to attack Israel from south Lebanon. This is what we are striving for,” Ramon said.