- Title: LEBANON: Israeli planes attack Beirut airport
- Date: 17th July 2006
- Summary: WIDE SHOT: MORE OF AIRPORT ATTACK
- Embargoed: 1st August 2006 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Lebanon
- Country: Lebanon
- Topics: International Relations
- Reuters ID: LVA2MQ2H7BSEJF1VQHODAJMV6WC9
- Story Text: Sources at Beirut's international airport said Israeli aircraft fired rockets at fuel tanks at the airport, which was closed on Thursday after Israeli planes bombed its runways. They also struck again at the main road between Beirut and Damascus in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, witnesses said.
Israel's strikes have drawn only a mild plea for restraint from the United States, which blames Hizbollah and its allies, Syria and Iran.
A total of 24 Israelis have been killed in the fighting since Wednesday, including 12 civilians killed in rocket attacks. Hundreds have been wounded. The Lebanon death toll is 140, mostly civilians.
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".
Israel's bombing campaign 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 five 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 - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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