Hezbollah threatened ”open war” on Friday night as Israel ramped up its attacks on Lebanon, bombing roads and bridges in the centre of Beirut and warning that its fight would last until the militant group was destroyed. Israeli politicians and army officers brushed aside international criticism and said their goal was to force Hezbollah’s disarmament. So far at least 73 people, nearly all civilians, have been killed in Lebanon since the bombing began three days ago.
In response, Hezbollah’s chief, Hassan Nasrallah, threatened ”open war” against Israel, hinting at rocket attacks deep inside the country. He made his threat shortly after he survived an air raid on his home that appeared to be an assassination attempt. ”You wanted an open war and we are ready for an open war,” he said in a taped statement.
On Friday night an Israeli naval vessel, 16km off the coast of Beirut, was badly damaged when it was hit by an unmanned Hezbollah aircraft packed with explosives. Four sailors were reported missing after a blaze on board. The vessel was on Friday night being towed back to Israel .
Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV reported that guerrillas had targeted the warship after it fired missiles into south Beirut. ”Now in the middle of the sea, facing Beirut, the Israeli warship that has attacked the infrastructure, people’s homes and civilians — look at it burning,” Nasrallah said.
Hezbollah, which triggered the latest crisis by capturing two Israeli soldiers and killing eight on Wednesday, fired 60 rockets into northern Israel on Friday. An Israeli woman and a child were killed in the Mount Meron area when a rocket hit a house, bringing the total of Israeli dead to at least 12.
Brigadier General Ido Nehushtan said: ”We know that it’s going to be a long and continuous operation, but it’s very clear: we need to put Hezbollah out of business. Our aim is to change the situation in which a terrorist organisation operates from within a sovereign territory.”
Israel’s Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, said his country would not halt its attacks until Hezbullah was disarmed. He gave the warning in a telephone conversation with the United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan. Olmert also agreed to let a UN team try to mediate a ceasefire. The UN Security Council met on Friday night to discuss the crisis and Lebanon demanded that Israel agree to a ceasefire.
Hezbollah wants a prisoner exchange for the captured soldiers. Israel refuses to negotiate directly with Hezbollah or with the Palestinian group, Hamas, which is also holding an Israeli soldier.
For the first time Israel struck residential targets in Beirut on Friday, bombing the capital’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold. Hezbollah’s previous leader, Abbas Musawi, was killed in 1992.
Ronnie Bar-On, Israel’s Interior Minister, said Nasrallah had ”issued his own sentence. I doubt if he would be able to find a life insurance agent these days,” he told Yediot Ahronot newspaper.
The violence came despite international condemnation. Jacques Chirac, the French President, said Israeli retaliation was ”completely disproportionate” and Hezbollah was ”irresponsible”. George Bush, in St Petersburg for the G8 summit, promised Lebanon’s Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, he would press Israel to spare innocent lives. Syria on Friday night offered its ”full support to the Lebanese people and their heroic resistance …”.
Israel holds Lebanon responsible for the actions of Hezbollah, a political-military faction which has members in Parliament and in Siniora’s mainly anti-Syrian Cabinet.
The fragile Beirut government, too divided to disarm Hezbollah or extend its own control to the border, urged the UN Security Council to tell Israel to halt its onslaught.
It asked the council to impose a ceasefire, but Israel said it was trying to free its neighbour from terrorist occupation and insisted the Beirut government secretly backed its actions.
In Gaza on Friday, Israel bombed offices of Hamas lawmakers, destroyed a bridge and fired a tank shell that killed a Palestinian.
Palestinian gunmen blew a huge hole in the border wall between Gaza and Egypt, allowing hundreds of Gazans who had been stranded on the closed border for two weeks to enter the Gaza Strip.
Since the Gaza offensive was launched on June 28, Israel has killed more than 80 Palestinians, a majority of them militants. – Guardian Unlimited Â