Israeli air raids shook Beirut on Sunday, the fifth day of a devastating assault on Hezbollah and Lebanon that has prompted no United Nations Security Council action and only a mild plea for restraint from Israel’s United States ally.
US President George Bush, speaking at a G8 summit in Russia, characterised Israel’s campaign as self-defence and did not back Lebanon’s pleas for an immediate ceasefire.
”Our message to Israel is defend yourself but be mindful of the consequences, so we are urging restraint,” said Bush, who has blamed Hezbollah for the conflict in Lebanon.
French President Jacques Chirac called for ”a show of moderation” from all parties in the Middle East. British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the way to calm the violence was to tackle the reasons behind it. He did not elaborate.
The United States earlier blocked any move by the UN Security Council to demand a ceasefire, saying the focus for diplomacy should be on the summit in St Petersburg.
”Destruction is still going on, people are still dying … and here we are impotent,” Lebanese Foreign Ministry official Nouhad Mahmoud told reporters in New York.
Israel’s onslaught, which has killed more than 100 people, all but four of them civilians, is meant to cripple Hezbollah and force Lebanon to dislodge the Syrian- and Iranian-backed group from its southern border strongholds.
Hezbollah has rained about 700 rockets on a score of towns in northern Israel, killing four Israelis, since it provoked the latest conflict by capturing two Israeli soldiers and killing eight in a cross-border raid on Wednesday.
Bombs crashed into Beirut’s Shi’ite Muslim southern suburbs in overnight raids that the Israeli army said were aimed at Hezbollah’s al-Manar television building.
The station’s signal twice disappeared briefly before returning and it was not known if it was broadcasting from its original location. Israeli raids have previously targeted al-Manar and flattened Hezbollah’s headquarters in Beirut.
Four civilians were wounded in a raid on the Bir al-Abed area in the southern suburb, al-Manar reported.
Israeli jets also blasted a road between the Shouf mountains south of Beirut and the Bekaa Valley, security sources said.
Israel’s bombing campaign, which has laid waste to Lebanon’s vital installations, is its most destructive assault since a 1982 invasion to expel Palestinian guerrillas.
Israel has said Lebanon must implement a UN resolution demanding the disarming of Hezbollah, a Shi’ite group formed in 1982 to fight an Israeli occupation that lasted 22 years. But the Beirut government, led by an anti-Syrian coalition, lacks the unity and firepower to tackle Hezbollah, the only Lebanese faction to keep its guns after the 1975-90 civil war.
Hizbollah has said it wants to swap the two captured Israeli soldiers with Lebanese and Arab prisoners in Israel’s jails.
The campaign in Lebanon coincided with an offensive Israel launched in the Gaza Strip on June 28 to try to retrieve another captured soldier and halt Palestinian rocket fire.
Israeli forces moved back into the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing at least three militants and wounding 10. The air force also targeted a Hamas office in the Islamist stronghold of Jabalya.
Israeli troops had pulled out of northern Gaza a week earlier after a major raid in the territory, which Israel abandoned in 2005 after a 38-year occupation.
‘Disaster zone’
In Beirut, a visibly emotional Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora denounced Israel on Saturday for turning his country into a ”disaster zone” and appealed for foreign aid.
The same day, Israel bombarded ports in Christian areas for the first time and a helicopter missile hit a lighthouse on Beirut’s seafront. Another Israeli missile incinerated a van in southern Lebanon on Saturday, killing 20 people, among them 15 children, in the deadliest single attack of the campaign.
Israel warned the Lebanese army on Sunday against shooting at its aircraft and said it would not hesitate to strike ”at any party operating against it”.
Israel’s assault has paralysed Lebanon’s economy and forced thousands of tourists and foreigners to flee, mostly via Syria.
About 20 South Africans trapped in Lebanon were being assisted by the Foreign Affairs department to cross the border to Syria, the Sunday Times reported on Saturday night.
Consul-General Mohammed Dangor personally escorted the tourists and none of them were injured.
The South Africans were expected to board a plane back home, the newspaper reported.
Italy began evacuating its nationals on Saturday. Many other countries said they were planning to extract their citizens. – Reuters