Israeli Soldiers Move Into Lebanese Village
By GREG MYRE and JAD MOUAWAD
JERUSALEM, July 22 — Israel’s Air Force today pressed ahead with punishing bombing raids on Lebanon, and Israeli soldiers moved into a village just across the Lebanese border in what the military described as a limited operation against a Hezbollah stronghold.
Also, northern Israel again came under attack, with more than 70 rockets falling on the region and injuring more than 10 Israelis as of this afternoon.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is scheduled to arrive in Israel on Sunday in the most significant diplomatic visit since the fighting began July 12. However, her stop is expected to be relatively brief and there is no sign the hostilities are about to end.
Speaking Friday in Washington, Ms. Rice said any settlement must address the root causes, which she described as the Hezbollah attacks coming out of south Lebanon.
With Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers lining the roads of northern Israel, there is increased speculation that a major Israeli ground offensive could be in the works. However, Israeli military officials say that only small numbers of troops are being sent into villages and other areas near the border to clear out Hezbollah posts and destroy weapons.
Israeli soldiers in armored vehicles were operating today in Maroun al-Ras, an area where intense firefights took place on Wednesday and Thursday. Six Israeli soldiers and a number of Hezbollah fighters were killed in those battles just across the border.
The Israeli troops were in control today, but the military was continuing to hit nearby areas with bombs or shells. The Israeli soldiers were searching for Hezbollah bunkers and other posts, as well as rockets and other arms, the military said.
According to an Associated Press report from the border, a group of Israeli tanks, bulldozers and personnel carriers knocked down a border fence and entered the Maroun al-Ras this afternoon. Gunfire could be heard from the village, the A.P. reported, and artillery based inside Israel also was firing into the area. In all, up to 2,000 Israeli troops entered the area today, but some later returned to Israel.
The Israeli Army is looking to systematically destroy Hezbollah positions near the border, but the military leadership remains extremely wary of a large-scale ground incursion.
Hezbollah detonated a powerful roadside bombs that destroyed a tank and killed four Israeli soldiers on the first day of the fighting, July 12, and the Lebanese group is also considered skilled in staging ambushes in the territory it knows best.
"We shall carry out limited ground operations as necessary in order to strike at the terrorism which strikes at us," the Army’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, said Friday.
In northern Lebanon, Israeli jets bombed transmission towers that knocked Lebanese television stations off the air and disrupted mobile phone service.
One rocket hit the LBC television tower overlooking the port of Jounieh,
north of Beirut, and a nearby mobile phone tower owned by a private company, Alfa. Other transmisson towers were destroyed in mount Sannine, the top of a mountain chain between the coast and the Bekaa Valley, and a third was destroyed near the northern city of Tripoli.
One LBC employee was killed in the strike. LBC, a private broadcaster started as a Christian television during the civil war, was still on air in Beirut.
The missile apparently missed a nearby transmission tower for Manar TV, a television station owned by Hezbollah. Since the beginning of the conflict, the Israeli air force has repeatedly targeted the headquarters of Manar TV in southern Beirut. Its building in Haret Hraik was totally leveled in the pounding of that neighborhood. But the station has not stopped broadcasting.
“Israel does not want the world to see the truth of what it is doing in Lebanon, it wants to shut the news down,’’ said Ibrahim Oud, the deputy president of the National Information Council, a trade group.
Israeli military officials said the towers were targeted because they were being used by Hezbollah for communications.
The Lebanese government, however, has complained bitterly about the extensive damage to civilian infrastructure during the 11 days of fighting.
Today’s bombings were in Christian areas north of Beirut. The Israeli military said that it had attacked more than 150 targets across Lebanon in the previous 24 hours.
Many were Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon, the military said, including command posts, buildings used for storing weapons, and 11 rocket launchers.
The military also said it bombed a number of Hezbollah vehicles and 12 roads connecting Lebanon and Syria.
Hezbollah, meanwhile, again targeted many of the larger cities and towns in northern Israel, including Haifa, Nahariya, Safed and Carmiel. Kiryat Shmona, the main town in Israel’s panhandle in the northeast, and a favorite target of Hezbollah for many years, came under a heavy barrage this e morning, with more than 20 rockets falling. The town is mostly empty, but remaining residents described it as the most intense rocket fire since the fighting began. No serious injuries were reported.
Israeli artillery guns in the area responded with a sustained barrage at the Hezbollah launch sites across the hilly border terrain.
Because so few civilians remain in northern Israel, even rockets that score direct hits on residential areas often cause no injuries. However, the rockets do frequently ignite brush fires, and clouds of smoke hung over northern Israel again today.
Israel has been dropping leaflets on southern Lebanon that urge residents to leave the area and move north of the Litani River. The river runs east to west in a line about 15 miles north of the Israeli border.
Israel said it issued the waring in an effort to “avoid casualties among the civilian population of south Lebanon, an area used by Hezbollah terrorists who exploit the local population as human shields.”
Roads leading out of southern Lebanon were again clogged with traffic, and travel has been greatly complicated by the destruction of many roads and bridges in the Israeli bombing campaign. Families and their belongings were crammed into cars, many of which sported white flags.
The United Nations and aid groups are seeking to organize an evacuation of the area, but say they need to coordinate their efforts with the Israelis.
French ships will be allowed to dock in the southern coastal town of Tyre to deliver supplies, Israel radio reported. However, Tyre is a Hezbollah stronghold, and Israel continued to bomb near the town today.
In Beirut, thousands of foreign nationals continued to flee the country, with many boarding ships headed for nearby Cyprus.
Greg Myre reported from Jerusalem for this article and Jad Mouawad from Beirut. |
