Thousands of Lebanese civilians fled north on Friday after Israel warned them to leave border villages and called up 3 000 army reserves in a possible prelude to a ground offensive against Hezbollah guerrillas.
Amid mounting world alarm at the crisis, United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to leave for the Middle East on Sunday in what diplomats called a bid to reduce the fighting.
But political analysts have questioned how much Rice can achieve as a broker in the Middle East because the US is largely isolated in holding the position that an immediate ceasefire would be counterproductive.
It is also unclear how effective her diplomacy can be when she is unlikely to talk to some main players in the conflict — Hezbollah, a group the US calls terrorists, and its backers Syria and Iran — they say.
Israel has so far failed to stop Hezbollah cross-border rocket attacks, despite a 10-day bombardment that has killed 344 people in Lebanon, forced half a million to leave their homes and destroyed many of the country’s vital installations.
Hezbollah rockets crashed into the northern Israeli city of Haifa, wounding 19 people. Other towns were also hit.
Israel’s main ally, the US, has rebuffed Lebanon’s appeals for an immediate United Nations-backed ceasefire, saying this would not last unless Hezbollah, which is backed by Syria and Iran, is prevented from attacking the Jewish state.
Families with possessions packed into cars and pick-up trucks clogged roads to the north after Israeli planes dropped leaflets warning residents of south Lebanon to flee for safety beyond the Litani river, about 20km from the frontier.
An estimated 300 000 mostly Shi’ite Muslim Lebanese normally reside south of the Litani. There was no word on how many have already fled the bombing and fighting of the past few days. Air raids have wrecked many roads and bridges in the region.
Aid blocked
”The siege on Lebanon is not letting humanitarian aid in,” said Hisham Hassan, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). ”The south is isolated.”
Two ICRC trucks were on their way from Beirut to a hospital in Tyre, where staff began burying corpses temporarily in a mass grave dug in an army barracks to clear space in the morgue. An Israeli military source said the army had told 3 000 reserves to report for duty. The call-up came a day after Defence Minister Amir Peretz spoke of a possible land offensive.
Elite Israeli troops have been launching small-scale raids in Lebanon to try to stop Hezbollah rocket attacks. But Israel has been wary of launching a full-scale invasion, only six years after it ended a costly 22-year occupation of the south.
It first invaded Lebanon in 1978, pushing up to the Litani to try to drive Palestinian guerrillas from the border.
Lebanon’s defence minister said the army, which has not fought so far despite losing a score of soldiers in Israeli air strikes, would defend the country against invasion.
Foreigners flee
US helicopters plucked frightened Americans from Beirut, adding to the swelling tide of evacuees to Cyprus and Turkey.
At a beach near Beirut, people carrying suitcases and babies queued for a landing craft to take them out to US warships.
”My parents are staying. They think it will last three to six weeks but I think it might get worse when we leave,” said George Abi-Habib (25), one of many who voiced similar worries.
Israel began its assault after Hezbollah captured two soldiers and killed eight in a cross-border raid on July 12. It has also waged a military campaign in Gaza since June 28 to recover another soldier, seized by Palestinian militants.
Hezbollah’s rocket attacks have killed 15 civilians in Israel, which has also lost 19 soldiers in the conflict.
Israelis still overwhelmingly back the war, a new poll in Maariv newspaper showed.
Israeli jets bombed Shi’ite districts in Beirut, the eastern Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon around sunrise on Friday and hit a previously bombed bridge on the Beirut-Damascus highway.
At least eight people were killed, bringing the Lebanese death toll to 344, based on revised Health Ministry figures.
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy, pushing for a ceasefire and a humanitarian aid corridor, held talks in Beirut.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who was involved in brokering a 2004 prisoner swap between Israel and Hezbollah, also plans a trip to the Middle East next week.
In Gaza, Palestinian medics said Israeli shelling killed a Hamas militant and four civilians on Friday, as tanks and troops withdrew from a refugee camp after a three-day assault. — Reuters