Posted on 07/17/2006 4:28:40 AM PDT by Brilliant
Israeli ground forces entered southern Lebanon to attack Hezbollah bases there, an Israeli government spokesman said Monday. The announcement came after Israeli fighter bombers pummeled Lebanese infrastructure Monday, setting Beirut's port ablaze and hitting a Hezbollah stronghold in attacks that killed at least 17 people.
Hezbollah retaliated by firing rockets that flew farther into Israel than ever before.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for the deployment of international forces to stop the bombardment of Israel and to persuade the Jewish state to stop attacks on Hezbollah, while the European Union said it was considering the deployment of a peacekeeping force.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki also arrived in Syria for talks with the government on the crisis. Syria and Iran have applauded Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers, which triggered the offensive.
The Katyusha rockets landed in the town of Atlit, about 35 miles south of the border and five miles south of the port city of Haifa, but nobody was hurt.
Hezbollah fired more rockets Monday at Haifa, but no injuries were immediately reported, according to Israeli security officials and medics. Rockets fired by Hezbollah killed eight people there Sunday.
Israeli planes and artillery guns killed 17 people and wounded at least 53 others in overnight attacks, Lebanese security officials said as the death toll from the conflict rose to more than 200 — 196 in Lebanon and 24 in Israel.
Israel also kept up pressure in the Gaza Strip as it searched for a kidnapped soldier, bombing the empty Palestinian Foreign Ministry building for the second time in less than a week in what it said was a warning to the ruling Hamas party.
Israel launched the offensive June 28 after Hamas-linked militants carried out a cross-border attack on a military outpost, killing two soldiers and capturing another. Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas joined the fray last week, attacking a military patrol in northern Israel, killing eight soldiers and capturing two.
Israel said its planes and artillery struck 60 targets in Lebanon overnight as its military sought punishment for the barrage of 20 rockets on Haifa, the country's third-largest city and one that had not been hit before the current round of fighting began July 12.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed "far-reaching consequences" for the Haifa attack. The eight deaths made it Hezbollah's deadliest strike ever on Israel.
Israeli officials accused Syria and Iran of providing Lebanese guerrillas with sophisticated weapons, saying the missiles that hit Haifa had greater range and heavier warheads than those Hezbollah had fired before.
Speaking on the margin of the Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, Blair said the fighting would not stop until the conditions for a cease-fire were created.
"The only way is if we have a deployment of international forces that can stop bombardment coming into Israel," he said.
Annan appealed to Israel to spare civilian lives and infrastructure. The G-8 nations, who had struggled to reach a consensus on the escalating warfare between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, have expressed concern on the "rising civilian casualties" and urged both sides to stop the violence.
President Bush, not realizing his remarks were being picked up by a microphone, also bluntly expressed his frustration with the actions of Hezbollah, a militant Islamic group believed backed by Iran and Syria that is engaged in escalating warfare with Israel.
"See, the irony is what they really need to do is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this (expletive)," Bush told Blair before the Group of Eight leaders began their lunch.
Foreigners continued to flee and several nations moved to get their citizens out. Russia sent an airliner to Jordan on Monday as it prepared to evacuate its citizens from Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. Britain also airlifted 40 of its citizens from Lebanon over the weekend and another group was taken out Monday, Ambassador James Watt said. A French ship was due to arrive in the port later Monday to evacuate Europeans.
In their raids on Beirut Monday, Israeli planes killed two people in the harbor and started a large fire that was later extinguished.
The Israeli jets also set fire to a gas storage tank in the northern neighborhood of Dawra and another fuel storage tank at Beirut airport, sending up plumes of smoke. The airport has been closed since Thursday, when Israeli jets blasted its runways.
Israeli missiles also hit southern Beirut, causing three explosions that shook the city. The targets were not immediately clear, but Hezbollah has a host of offices, clinics, schools, social clubs and the homes of its leaders in the southern suburbs.
Elsewhere in Lebanon, Israeli planes again hit the Beirut-to-Damascus highway, which has been targeted as part of a strategy of severing Lebanon's links to the outside world. Monday's attacks struck the highway in the eastern Bekaa Valley and killed two people.
In another attack, eight Lebanese soldiers were killed when Israeli aircraft attacked a small fishing port at Abdeh in northern Lebanon near a highway leading to Syria. Witnesses and security officials said 12 Lebanese soldiers were wounded.
An Israeli army spokesman said his force was investigating the attack. "In principle, the Israeli military does not target Lebanese soldiers," he said.
Hezbollah is not known to operate in northern Lebanon, but the Israeli army said it had targeted radar stations there because they had been used by Hezbollah to hit a warship Friday. It all but accused the Lebanese military of lending its support to Hezbollah.
"The attacks ... are against radar stations used, among other things, in the attack on the Israeli missile boat, by Hezbollah in cooperation with the Lebanese military," the Israeli army spokesman told The Associated Press.
Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said Sunday that despite Israel's attacks, the guerrillas were "in their full strength and power" and that their "missile stockpiles are still full."
"When the Zionists behave like there are no rules and no red lines and no limits to the confrontation, it is our right to behave in the same way," Nasrallah said in a televised address, looking tired. He said Hezbollah had hit Haifa because of Israel's strikes on Lebanese civilians.
The Israeli military warned residents of south Lebanon to flee, promising heavy retaliation after the Haifa assault.
In one airstrike on southern Lebanon early Monday, an Israeli missile missed its apparent target — a Hezbollah site — and hit a private house, killing two people, according to security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Beginning of ground offensive? Rather than merely just a raid?
I think this should be in breaking news folks!
If this is confirmed it ought to be in the sidebar - its a big deal.
May God keep the innocent safe and show the terrorists the gates of hell.
Can you put this in breaking news?
FOX went with this a few minutes ago.
Yes, this is the beginning of the ground offensive with the purpose of attacking Hezbollah guerrilla bases in Lebanon.
From your lips to God's ears.
Confirmed via Fox News. Live coverage on now...
Let's see how many Hezbollah actually fights the IDF. My bet is that the majority of the terrorists are planning (if not already) to flee to Syria.
Ground Offensive Begins?
See keyword 2006ISRAELWAR for compiled threads.
FOX backtracking now.
Tremendous.
Hopefully he is listening. Look what mankind has brought upon itself. The farther we stray the worse it becomes.
Edie Hill on Fox & Friends just said the initial report was not correct and that Israeli forces HAVE NOT moved into southern Lebanon.
Hang on boys, phase 2 has started.
With the exits sealed it is time to clean up the mess. We look forward to seeing the captured Iranian guards on Fox.
Both CNN and MSNBC are quoting AP agreeing that the ground offensive has begun.
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