Israel pounds Lebanon from air and by land

By Lin Noueihed

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Israel struck Lebanon from the air and
made pinpoint attacks across the border on Wednesday as
thousands awaited evacuation and the death toll mounted in a
conflict that has entered its second week with no end in sight.

The Israeli army said Israeli ground troops crossed into
southern Lebanon to attack Hizbollah guerrilla outposts in
“restricted” attacks while its jets pounded the group’s Beirut
stronghold and the Shweifat area outside the capital.

There was no immediate word on casualties, which have
mounted as the conflict has dragged on and forced around
100,000 Lebanese to flee their homes and foreigners to flee the
country.

Nine U.S. military ships were set to evacuate more than
2,400 U.S. citizens by air and sea on Wednesday, the first big
group of up to 8,000 the Pentagon expects to bring out.

Britain said six ships were in the region to start moving
its citizens, with around 5,000 to be evacuated this week.

Other nations mustered boats and planes to reach citizens
stranded by the bombing of Beirut’s airport and dozens of roads
and bridges in an Israeli campaign that began after Hizbollah
captured two Israeli soldiers in a border attack on July 12.

Israeli armored forces also clashed with Palestinian
militants after pushing into the central Gaza Strip early on
Wednesday, killing one, in a three-week old offensive there to
recover another soldier, captured by Palestinians on June 25.

Civilians on both sides of the Lebanon-Israel border were
angry about the attacks but Israel and Hizbollah showed no
desire to stop the fighting, which has killed 235 people in
Lebanon and 25 Israelis, or heed proposals for a new
U.N.-backed stabilization force.

“I don’t even know where our neighborhood was,” said one
Lebanese Shi’ite, looking for where his home had been on the
edge of a bomb-blasted Hizbollah compound in southern Beirut.

“They’re still bombarding the area to grind it to dust.
What kind of crime is this?” said the man, giving his name as
Hassan.

Israelis, stunned by Hizbollah rocket attacks, said they
wanted their army to smash the guerrilla group and most favored
killing its leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, a poll showed.

“We are killing those we need to kill,” said Hanna Dehan,
speaking near the Israeli city of Haifa, where eight people
were killed on Sunday when a Hizbollah rocket hit a train
station.

SYRIAN CONNECTION?

President Bush described Hizbollah as the root cause of the
current conflict and said Syria, which supports the Shi’ite
Muslim group, was trying to “get back into Lebanon” one year
after ending its 29-year military presence.

Bush spoke to Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah about the crisis
in Lebanon, with both expressing concern about the humanitarian
situation and agreeing to assist those displaced or in need.

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations said the U.S.
secretary of state would go to the region on Friday, but an
aide to Condoleezza Rice said she would not go abroad on Friday
and there was no final decision on any foreign travel.

While U.N. peace envoys held talks in Israel, the Israeli
army was refusing to rule out a ground invasion, only six years
after it ended a 22-year occupation of south Lebanon.

Israeli troops have crossed into southern Lebanon several
times in recent days, returning soon afterwards.

Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Hizbollah had
coordinated the abduction of the two Israeli soldiers with
Iran, enabling Tehran to divert attention from its nuclear
program.

Olmert said there was no time limit to Israel’s offensive
and there would be no negotiations with Hizbollah.

World powers have said Hizbollah must first free the two
soldiers and stop cross-border attacks. Israel also demands
that Hizbollah disarm in line with U.N. Security Council
resolutions.

France proposed late on Tuesday that the U.N. Security
Council consider a resolution calling for a lasting ceasefire
in the Middle East, the release of captured Israeli soldiers
and the disbanding of all militia in Lebanon.

Lebanon’s government, which wants an immediate ceasefire,
said it had not received any clear proposals to end the
assault.

The Beirut government is too weak and divided to impose its
authority on Hizbollah, which wants to swap the soldiers for
Lebanese and Arabs in Israeli jails.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for a bigger, more
robust international force to stabilize southern Lebanon and
buy time for the Lebanese government to disarm Hizbollah
guerrillas.

Israel, bent on driving Hizbollah from the south, says it
is too early to discuss such a force. Washington has queried
how it could restrain the Islamist group.

(Reporting by Nadim Ladki, Alaa Shahine, Laila Bassam,
Alistair Lyon and Dominic Evans in Beirut, Jerusalem bureau)