LEBANON: Israeli bombing campaign cuts main costal highway to Syria, as fighting rages in the South of Lebanon

Record ID: 356140

  • Title: LEBANON: Israeli bombing campaign cuts main costal highway to Syria, as fighting rages in the South of Lebanon
  • Date: 4th August 2006
  • Summary: (W1) BEIRUT, LEBANON (AUGUST 04, 2006) (REUTERS) (NIGHT SCENES) VARIOUS OF BLASTS AS STRIKES HIT SOUTHERN SUBURBS OF BEIRUT
  • Embargoed: 19th August 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Lebanon
  • Country: Lebanon
  • Topics: Defence / Military
  • Reuters ID: LVA5HWTRK4V9T36F0SI4U4KGBAE5
  • Story Text: Hizbollah fired more rockets at Israel on Friday (August 4) and Israeli air strikes destroyed four highway bridges north of Beirut, disrupting efforts to aid civilians caught up in the mounting conflict in Lebanon.
    With no action to end the 24-day-old war emerging from the United Nations, fierce fighting raged in the south as Israeli troops tried to expand seven small border enclaves they control.
    Hizbollah guerrillas fired dozens of rockets into northern Israel, killing one person and wounding several others, medics said. Hizbollah rockets killed eight Israelis on Thursday.
    The bombing of bridges in the Christian heartlands north of the capital cut off the main coastal highway to Syria.
    Israeli raids have already wrecked the main Beirut-Damascus highway, although mountain roads still offer a perilous passage.
    Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said on Thursday Lebanon had only enough fuel for another week due to an Israeli blockade.
    More than 150 Israeli air strikes hit targets across the south and artillery pounded border areas as Hizbollah tried to stop new Israeli incursions near Markaba and a strategic hill near the coastal town of Naqoura, security sources said.
    "The thuds of explosions are continuous," a Lebanese security source said. "There's an air strike every few minutes."
    Hizbollah fighters, setting roadside bombs and firing anti-tank missiles, killed five Israeli soldiers near Markaba, Al Arabiya television said. Israel said two of its soldiers and 10 Hizbollah guerrillas were killed.
    At least 693 people in Lebanon and 69 Israelis have been killed in the conflict ignited by a cross-border raid in which Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers on July 12.
    Five people, including a Lebanese army soldier, were killed and 12 wounded in the bombing of the bridges, the Red Cross said. Another soldier was killed in overnight strikes on the Ouzai slum area near Beirut airport, the army said.
    Bombs punched sections out of the bridges, spewing rubble and twisted metal over passing cars.
    British Prime Minister Tony Blair delayed the start of his holiday on Friday to work on a U.N. ceasefire for Lebanon. "He thinks the next few days will be critical," a spokesman said.
    U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Welch will visit Beirut on Saturday for talks with Lebanese officials on ways to end the war, Lebanese political sources said.
    Siniora, angered by an Israeli air raid that killed 54 civilians, told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to stay away from Beirut last Sunday, insisting on an immediate ceasefire.
    The political sources said Welch would meet Siniora and other officials to discuss efforts at the United Nations to broker a ceasefire and deploy an international force in south Lebanon more robust than the U.N. peacekeepers already there.
    The United States and France were to hold more talks to try to bridge their differences over a draft U.N. resolution.
    Washington wants an international force in southern Lebanon immediately after a truce. France, a likely leader of the force, wants the troops to move in only after a permanent ceasefire.
    Malaysia said it was ready to send 1,000 troops to Lebanon for a U.N. peacekeeping force once a ceasefire is in place.
    Hizbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah offered on Thursday to end cross-border rocket fire if Israel stopped attacking Lebanon, but said Tel Aviv would be hit if Israel bombed Beirut.
    Israel has also launched an offensive in the Gaza Strip to recover another captured soldier and stop Palestinian rockets.
    Israel killed three Palestinians in the Strip on Friday amid air strikes on militant targets that also wounded four people.
    At least 164 Palestinians, more than half of them civilians, have been killed since Israel's Gaza offensive began on June 28.
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