IHT : Israel Adds Ground Troops To Air Assault

Israel Adds Ground Troops To Air Assault

AP/NYT | July 19, 2006

BEIRUT -- Israeli ground troops clashed with Hezbollah guerrillas on the Lebanese side of the border Wednesday, while warplanes flattened 20 buildings and killed at least 19 people, officials said, as fighting between the two sides entered its second week.

Military officials said Israeli troops crossed the Lebanese border in search of tunnels and weapons. Hezbollah claimed to have "repelled" Israeli forces near the coastal border town of Naqoura. Casualties were reported on both sides.

Israeli bombers hit a Christian suburb on the eastern side of Lebanon's capital for the first time. The target was a truck-mounted machine that was used to drill for water but could have been mistaken for a missile launcher.

Israel stressed on Wednesday it did not plan to target Hezbollah's main sponsors, Iran and Syria, during the current fighting.

"We will leave Iran to the world community, and Syria as well," Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres told Army Radio. "It's very important to understand that we are not instilling world order."

The outlines of an American-Israeli consensus began to emerge Tuesday, in which Israel would continue to bombard Lebanon for about another week to degrade the capabilities of the Hezbollah militia, officials of the two countries said.

Then, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would go to the region and seek to establish a buffer zone in southern Lebanon and perhaps an international force to monitor Lebanon's borders to prevent Hezbollah from obtaining more rockets with which to bombard Israel.

U.S. officials signaled that Rice was waiting at least a few more days before wading into the conflict, in part to give Israel more time to weaken Hezbollah.

The strategy carries risk, partly because it remains unclear just how long the rest of the world, particularly America's Arab allies, will remain silent as the toll on Lebanese civilians rises.

The fighting has already dealt a blow to diplomatic efforts to broker a cease- fire, and sending a new international force to bolster the 2,000-member UN force in south Lebanon seemed stalled.

American officials said that Washington is discussing with its Arab allies and Israel how to strengthen Lebanon's borders, a key Israeli demand. Israel has been lukewarm to the idea of international troops in Lebanon, but is willing to consider such troop deployment if it includes troops of major powers and is used to prevent Hezbollah from supplementing its arsenal.

American and Israeli officials are also contemplating a 12-mile, or 19-kilometer, buffer zone in southern Lebanon to keep Hezbollah away from the Israeli border. While disarming Hezbollah entirely remains Israel's goal, it is no longer demanding that as a condition of a cease-fire, officials said.

The estimated 19 Lebanese fatalities from Israeli airstrikes late Tuesday and early Wednesday brought to at least 245 the number of people killed in Lebanon since the fighting began on July 12, when Hezbollah guerrillas raided an Israeli border outpost and kidnapped two soldiers.

Twenty-five Israelis also have been killed in the past eight days as Hezbollah fired rockets across the border.

The UN children's and health agencies said Wednesday they were concerned about civilian casualties and new health risks because of escalating violence in Lebanon and Israel.

"Civilian deaths include dozens of children, with many more injured," the joint statement said. "The psychological impact is serious as people, including children, have witnessed the death or injury of loved ones and destruction of their homes and communities," Unicef and the World Health Organization said.

Movement of medical supplies and ambulances to affected areas is seriously limited, the statement added.

Five people were killed when a missile struck the southern Lebanese town of Nabatiyeh, police and hospital officials said. The target was a commercial office of a firm belonging to Hezbollah, but those killed were residents.

In the village of Srifa, near Tyre in southern Lebanon, the airstrikes flattened 15 houses. The village's leader, Hussein Kamaledine, said 25 to 30 people lived in the houses, but it was not known if they were at home at the time.

"This is a real massacre," Kamaledine told Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV as fire engines extinguished the blaze and rescue workers searched for survivors.

In the southern Lebanese village of Ghaziyeh, one person was killed and two were wounded when a missile struck a nearby building that housed a Hezbollah-affiliated social institution.

In the eastern Bekaa Valley, four people were killed and three were wounded in an air raid on the village of Loussi, police said.

Hundreds of Americans, meanwhile, boarded a luxury ship at Beirut's port that was to carry them from the country, with many complaining about the slow pace of the U.S. evacuation effort.

Europeans and Lebanese with foreign passports already have fled in large numbers. Some 500,000 Lebanese have left their homes to escape the violence, the United Nations estimated.

President Jacques Chirac of France said Wednesday his country would send an aircraft to Cyprus with humanitarian aid for Lebanon and urged the creation of "humanitarian corridors" to help civilian evacuations. $@

9 Palestinians killed in Gaza

Israeli troops killed nine Palestinians in clashes in the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank on Wednesday, including four gunmen and two civilians as tanks pushed into a central Gaza refugee camp, Reuters reported.

Three militants from the governing Hamas group were killed, along with one gunman from President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction, medics and Palestinian security sources said.

In the West Bank, troops backed by armored vehicles surrounded a Palestinian security compound in the city of Nablus and killed three gunmen of the Fatah faction, medics said.

Troops detained Palestinian security men at the scene, an Israeli military source said. Israeli bulldozers then tore down a building in Nablus used by the Hamas-led Interior Ministry as well as offices used by a security service that falls under Hamas's jurisdiction.

About 100 Palestinians, over half of them militants, have been killed in the Israeli offensive.

Israel holds Hamas responsible for the capture of Gilad Shalit, 19, by three militant groups. Israel has rejected a demand to swap more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for the tank gunner.