|
Hizbollah killed eight people in a rocket attack on the Israeli
city of Haifa on Sunday, saying it was only the beginning as
Israel pursued a five-day-old assault in Lebanon.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Hizbollah's deadliest
rocket strike on the Jewish state would have far-reaching
consequences for Lebanon.
Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said the attack on Haifa,
Israel's third-largest city, was in retaliation for the Jewish
state's killing of civilians and promised more
"surprises". "We are just at the beginning,"
he said in a televised address.
Medical staff said 20 people were wounded in Haifa, which was
hit by about 20 rockets. One that hit a railway station caused
most of the casualties.
In Lebanon's southern port city of Tire, Israeli air strikes
killed at least 10 civilians and wounded scores, witnesses said.
They said most of the casualties were caused by an attack on a
building used by rescue workers.
Israel's campaign in Lebanon, launched after Hizbollah captured
two Israeli soldiers and killed eight on Wednesday, has killed 126
people, all but four of them civilians.
It has drawn only a mild plea for restraint from the United
States, which blames Hizbollah and its allies, Syria and Iran.
President Bush, speaking at a G8 summit in Russia,
characterized Israel's actions as self-defense and did not back
Lebanon's pleas for an immediate ceasefire.
"Our message to Israel is defend yourself but be mindful
of the consequences, so we are urging restraint," said Bush.
A total of 24 Israelis have been killed in the fighting since
Wednesday, including 12 civilians killed in rocket attacks.
Hundreds have been wounded.
Lebanon said Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi had relayed
Israeli conditions for a ceasefire. A government statement quoted
Prime Minister Fouad Siniora as saying Israel had demanded the
return of the two soldiers and a Hizbollah pullback to behind the
Litani river, 20 km (12 miles) north of Israel.
An Italian government source confirmed the demands and said
Prodi was acting as a "go-between".
PEACE ENVOYS
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana arrived in
Beirut on Sunday and met Siniora. A U.N. envoy also visited the
Lebanese capital.
Bombs thudded into Beirut's Shi'ite southern suburbs in raids
which set fire to Hizbollah's al-Manar television complex and
nearby buildings, witnesses said. The station's signal disappeared
briefly several times.
The air strike in Tire raised to 22 the number of civilians
killed in warplane raids in south Lebanon on Sunday, Lebanese
security sources said.
The United States earlier blocked any move by the U.N. Security
Council to demand a ceasefire, saying the focus for diplomacy
should be the G8 summit in St Petersburg.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the G8 countries were
demanding Hizbollah release the two Israeli soldiers and halt
attacks on Israel as a way of ending the violence, "and then
naturally for Israel to halt military action".
Syrian Information Minister Mohsen Bilal said there would be a
"harsh and direct" response to any attack on Syria's
territory by Israel.
Hizbollah said it had fired "Raad (Thunder) 2 and Raad
3" rockets at Haifa. A senior political source said Israel's
army chief, Dan Halutz, had told a cabinet meeting that "some
of the missiles were probably produced by Syria".
Israel raised the alert level in Tel Aviv, 130 km (80 miles)
south of Lebanon, as a precaution. Halutz has said Hizbollah has
rockets with a range of 70 km (43.5 miles) and possibly longer.
Israel's bombing campaign, which has laid waste to vital
installations, is its most destructive assault on Lebanon since a
1982 invasion to expel Palestinian guerrillas.
Israel has said Lebanon must implement a U.N. resolution
demanding the disarming of Hizbollah, a Shi'ite group formed in
1982 to fight an Israeli occupation that lasted 22 years.
But the Beirut government, led by an anti-Syrian coalition,
lacks the unity and firepower to tackle Hizbollah.
The group has said it wants to swap the two captured Israeli
soldiers for Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners in Israel.
Israel's campaign in Lebanon followed the launch of an
offensive in the Gaza Strip on June 28 to try to retrieve another
captured soldier and halt Palestinian rocket fire.
Israel widened that assault on Sunday, killing a Palestinian
civilian in southern Gaza and three militants in the north.
The operation has piled pressure on the Palestinian government
led by the Islamist militant Hamas movement, which has demanded a
prisoner swap for the Israeli corporal.
|
FEDI-TEC INC. All right reserved 保留所有权利
.
NYCHINATOWN.COM.gif){kind=small}
is an independent source of information and