LEBANON: Israeli air strikes kill 23 people in Lebanon; United States Ambassador to Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman meets with House Speaker Nabih Berri

Record ID: 354314

  • Title: LEBANON: Israeli air strikes kill 23 people in Lebanon; United States Ambassador to Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman meets with House Speaker Nabih Berri
  • Date: 17th July 2006
  • Summary: (BN06) TRIPOLI, LEBANON (JULY 16, 2006) (REUTERS) (NIGHT SHOTS) WIDE: PEOPLE SIFTING THROUGH RUBBLE NEAR A DESTROYED BUILDING MID VIEW: MAN BEING CARRIED DOWN A LADDER BY A RESCUE WORKER WIDE: PEOPLE SIFTING THROUGH RUBBLE
  • Embargoed: 1st August 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Lebanon
  • Country: Lebanon
  • Topics: War / Fighting,International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA1AHB0KSXJ66E657THALWMWZ5X
  • Story Text: Israeli air strikes killed 23 people in Lebanon on Monday (July 17) and Israel dismissed as premature a proposal for an international military force to help end Hizbollah rocket attacks into the Jewish state.
    Raids destroyed two army posts on the northern Lebanese coast, killing at least six Lebanese soldiers, and damaged the homes of Hizbollah officials in eastern Lebanon, killing 11 people in over 60 strikes on the sixth day of violence.
    Four more people died in strikes south of Beirut. Several thunderous blasts echoed over the capital and black smoke rose from a blazing fuel storage depot in the Christian suburb of Dora. Civilian installations, petrol stations and factories elsewhere were also hit, security sources said.
    U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Security Council members will start hammering out a detailed agreement on deploying a multilateral security force to Lebanon.
    But Israel said it was too soon to talk of deploying the force. "We're at the stage where we want to be sure that Hizbollah is not deployed at our northern border," government spokeswoman Miri Eisin said.
    Hizbollah, which captured two Israelis soldiers and killed eight others last week, is seeking the release of Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. It has not commented on international efforts to halt the fighting.
    Israel is demanding the disarming of Hizbollah in line with U.N. Security Council resolutions -- a task that is beyond a fragile Lebanese government dependent on consensus among rival sectarian groups.
    Lebanon, just emerging from three decades of Syrian tutelage, fears that any attempt to tackle Hizbollah directly would re-ignite civil war and split its army.
    Hizbollah rocketed Haifa on Sunday, killing eight people in its deadliest attack on Israel, prompting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to warn of far-reaching consequences for Lebanon.
    Hizbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said the rocketing of Haifa, Israel's third-biggest city, was retaliation for Israeli killing of civilians and promised more "surprises".
    Israel's army later said Hizbollah rockets struck a town 50 km (33 miles) south of the border. Hizbollah said it had also rocketed the towns of Nahariya and Acre in northern Israel.
    An Israeli army spokesman said Hizbollah had fired about 20 rockets at Israel overnight, wounding several people. More than 100 rockets had crashed across the border in 24 hours, it said. An Israeli newspaper said Israel's offensive had so far destroyed a quarter of Hizbollah's fighting capabilities.
    It has also killed 176 people and wounded more than 500, Lebanon's health ministry said. All but 13 of them were civilians. The dead include seven Canadians killed in a strike on a southern village on Sunday.
    Twenty-four Israelis have been killed in the fighting, including 12 civilians hit in rocket attacks.
    Israel's campaign in Lebanon followed the launch of its offensive in the Gaza Strip on June 28 to try to retrieve another captured soldier and halt Palestinian rocket fire.
    G8 leaders meeting in St Petersburg on Sunday said they wanted to "create conditions for a cessation of violence" in Lebanon and Gaza, insisting first on the release of the Israeli soldiers and an end to Hizbollah and Hamas rocket attacks.
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