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Israel Hammers Targets in Fourth Day of War
By SAM F. GHATTAS, AP

BEIRUT, Lebanon (July 15) - Israeli warplanes pounded Hezbollah's south Beirut stronghold and roads around the country, killing at least 15 Lebanese as they fled the onslaught. Hezbollah expanded its rocket fire, hitting another of Israel's main cities, and Israel warned that the guerrillas could strike Tel Aviv.




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A senior Israeli intelligence official said Iranian troops helped Hezbollah fire a missile that damaged an Israeli warship off the Lebanese coast Friday night.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the information, said about 100 Iranian soldiers are in Lebanon and helped fire the Iranian-made, radar-guided C-102 at the ship that killed one and left three missing.

The Lebanese guerrilla force has shown an increasing sophistication since snatching two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid, sparking Israel's largest assault against Lebanon in 24 years.

"You wanted an open war and we are ready for an open war," Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said in a taped statement.

Five Hezbollah rockets hit Tiberias in northern Israeli on Saturday, causing no injuries - the first rocket attack on Tiberias, about 22 miles south of the border, since the 1973 Mideast War. An Israeli intelligence official said Hezbollah has rockets with ranges of 60 to 120 miles that could reach Tel Aviv, Israel's largest metropolitan area.

At least 88 people have died in Lebanon, most of the them civilians, in the four-day Israeli offensive, sparked by Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid. On the Israeli side, at least 15 have been killed - four civilians and 11 soldiers.

In successive early morning raids that continued through the afternoon, Israeli warplanes pounded roads, destroying one bridge after another, splitting large parts of the country.

At least 12 Lebanese villagers, including women and children, were killed in what appeared to be an Israeli airstrike on a convoy of vehicles evacuation a village near the border with Israel in southern Lebanon, a witness said. The convoy was leaving the village of Marwaheen, which abuts the border, when it was attacked. Associated Press Photographer Nasser Nasser said he counted 12 bodies in two cars that burned from the attack shortly after midday.

At least three civilians were killed in another Israeli airstrike on the main highway linking Lebanon to Syria.

Israel also renewed bombardment of south Beirut suburbs, stronghold of Hezbollah which was blasted by several raids early and late Friday, destroying the headquarters of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah and his residence. Nasrallah survived unharmed, said Hezbollah TV.

Black smoke billowed from the Haret Hreik neighborhood after four loud impacts reverberated across the Lebanese capital. Witnesses said the planes were attacking Hezbollah's security compound in the area, a sealed-off bloc of buildings where Nasrallah has an office and residence, and where the Shura Council political decision-making body is located.

As the fighting continued unabated, Lebanon sought support from fellow Arabs whose foreign ministers were meeting at an emergency session in Cairo on Saturday to discuss the the worst Israeli attack since the 1982 invasion of the country.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh presented his fellow Arab League members with a draft resolution condemning Israel's military offensive and supporting Lebanon's "right to resist occupation by all legitimate means."


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President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin also discussed the worsening situation, but the two appeared divided on how to restore calm.

Bush blamed Hezbollah and Syria for the escalating violence in the Middle East. "In my judgment, the best way to stop the violence is to understand why the violence occurred in the first place," Bush said. "And that's because Hezbollah has been launching rocket attacks out of Lebanon into Israel and because Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers."

Putin said it was unacceptable to try to reach political goals through abductions and strikes against an independent state. "In this context we consider Israel's concerns to be justified," he said. At the same time, he said, "the use of force should be balanced."

The attack on fleeing Marwaheen residents followed an Israeli warning by a loudspeaker from a facing Israeli military position across the border that residents of Marwaheen had to leave the village by evening. No reason was given for the Israeli ultimatum.

The convoy of several vehicles was hit near the border fence about half a mile from the village.

The residents said they had first gone to a U.N. Ghanaian position to take refugee but they were turned down. There was no immediate confirmation from U.N. peacekeepers, who have a force in southern Lebanon.

At least three civilians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a bridge on the Beirut-Damascus highway in eastern Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, security officials said.

Israeli warplanes fired four missiles on an overpass linking the eastern city of Chtaura with the Masnaa crossing point on the Lebanese-Syrian border, the officials added.

Jets also hit six gas stations and fuel storage tanks were also set ablaze in attacks along the coastal highway linking Beirut to the south of the country. One bomb dug a 30-foot-deep hole in the coastal highway at Naameh 10 miles south of Beirut, turning a bridge overpass into a heap of concrete and twisted steel.

Residents of nearby buildings swept the glass, fixed blown out windows and doors. Motorists, particularly minivans carrying families fleeing from the south manevered its way through narrow side roads to bypass the blocked sections of the highway.

The jets pounded a mountainous area near the border with Syria where radio and satellite TV antennas are located, they said.

In Jerusalem, an Israeli army spokesman said Saturday that it attacked 44 Hezbollah targets in the past 24 hours, including the group's headquarters, al Manar broadcasting offices and several bridges in Lebanon, one on a Beirut-Damascus road.

The renewed violence came as Israel announced that the navy had retrieved two bodies of four sailors who went missing on Friday after Hezbollah struck a warship off the Lebanese coast.

Israeli military officials said the ship had been struck by Hezbollah missile, shortly after Israel destroyed Nasrallah's office and residence in south Beirut's neighborhood of Haret Hreik.

Nasrallah, addressing supporters in an audiotape broadcast on the group's TV station, vowed to continue the fight.

Israel launched its offensive after Hezbollah guerrillas crossed the Israel-Lebanon border on Wednesday and captured two Israeli soldiers. Israel has bombarded Lebanon's airport and main roads in the most intensive offensive against the country in 24 years, while Hezbollah has launched hundreds of rockets into Israel.

Associated Press reporters Hussein Dakroub and Hamza Hendawi in Beirut, and AP Photographer Nasser Nasser from south Lebanon contributed to this report.


07-15-06 06:14 EDT