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Pleasure Burn
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Israel invades Lebanon, Hezbollah attacks N. Israel
Israel is invading Lebanon to attack Hezbollah targets in the country after Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers. In addition, Israel is looking towards Syria for more retaliation against Hezbollah, and the H. has attacked northern Israel (including Haifa, the third largest city in Israel) with rockets. That roughly sums it up at this point.
Link: http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/...ast/index.html
Quote:
Israeli bombs Beirut airport again
Lebanese prime minister appeals for help
BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- Israeli aircraft Friday struck a runway at Beirut's international airport, shortly after it was repaired and reopened following airstrikes Thursday, the Lebanese and Israeli armies said.
Escalating violence between Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops moved Lebanon's prime minister to call for a comprehensive cease-fire Friday and request help from the U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a spokesman for the prime minister said.
Rice promised Prime Minister Fouad Siniora to exercise the utmost pressure to help achieve a cease-fire, according to the spokesman.
Siniora is planning to meet with the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- China, France, Britain, Russia and the United States -- on Friday, the spokesman said.
Violence continued for a third day when Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon fired 10 Katyusha rockets into northern Israel early Friday, damaging property as tit-for-tat bombings between the Islamic group and Israel continued, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
Overnight, IDF warplanes attacked 18 targets in Lebanon, including the headquarters for the Syrian-backed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in east Lebanon.
Hezbollah headquarters in southern Beirut was also the target of Israeli airstrikes overnight, according to IDF. Bridges and roads leading to the offices were destroyed in the operation.
Along the Israel-Lebanon border, IDF attacked two Hezbollah outposts, a weapons storage facility used by militants and three fuel stations south of Sidon.
Israeli attacks on Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon have killed at least 55 Lebanese, including two soldiers, and wounded 160 others, Lebanon's internal security forces told CNN on Friday.
Israel launched the military operation against Hezbollah after its militants kidnapped two Israeli soldiers from northern Israel Wednesday morning.
Since that cross-border raid, five more Israeli soldiers have been killed, as well as two Israeli civilians, two Lebanese soldiers and 55 Lebanese civilians, according to Israeli and Lebanese sources.
Hezbollah guerillas on Thursday lobbed dozens rockets into northern Israel. Rockets also landed in the northern port city of Haifa, which would mark the deepest point into Israel that Hezbollah rockets have ever reached. But Hezbollah denied that they fired the rockets.
Daniel Ayalon, Israel's ambassador to the United States, called the rocket attacks "a major escalation" in the violence.
Israeli airstrikes and artillery hammered hundreds of targets in Lebanon, including two previous strikes on the Beirut airport. (Beirut airport map)
The United States and Israel have accused Iran and Syria of fueling the three-day-old crisis in Lebanon.
Israel: Lebanon held responsible
Despite the fact that several countries -- including the Unites States and Lebanon -- have said that the Lebanese government doesn't have the capacity to extend its authority into Hezbollah-held territory, Israel has blamed the Lebanese government for the violence and charged it with the safe release of the soldiers.
Hezbollah, which enjoys substantial backing from Syria and Iran, is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and Israel. The group holds 23 of the 128 seats in Lebanon's parliament.
"There are a number of different strategic targets that we're hitting -- obviously the Hezbollah posts, their command centers and also where they store their weapons," said Capt. Erik Snider, spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces.
"We're also trying to hit other strategic targets where we know that we can prevent the re-arming of Hezbollah," Snider told CNN.
Ayalon told CNN Thursday night that Israel's attacks are intended to "de-fang the Hezbollah."
He added, "Hopefully this will strengthen the Lebanese government so that they will exercise their sovereignty" in the south of the country, where Hezbollah is virtually autonomous.
Israeli warships set up a blockade, preventing cruise ships from docking in Beirut and cutting off the delivery of fuel used to operate Lebanese power plants.
Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz has said Israel won't let Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim militia, return to the border -- raising the prospect that Israel may again occupy southern Lebanon, as it did from 1978 to 2000.
Under the treaty that ended Lebanon's 15-year civil war in 1990, Hezbollah was allowed to retain its weaponry to fight Israeli troops in southern Lebanon. It says it won't disarm until Israeli troops leave the disputed Shebaa Farms region near the Syria border, which the United Nations recognizes as Syrian territory.
Israeli troops pull out of central Gaza
Israel Defense Forces withdrew troops from central Gaza Friday after "completing their activities in the area," but Israeli troops remained in southern Gaza, the IDF said.
The army had been active in central Gaza in efforts to locate an Israeli soldier kidnapped June 25 and quell rocket attacks against Israeli citizens.
The violence continued, however, and on Friday morning four Israelis were treated for shock after Qassam rockets launched by Palestinian militants hit the border town of Sderot, the IDF said.
The Israeli army said it "hit" more than 30 armed militants overnight in land and sea attacks targeting seven rogue groups who, they asserted, were plotting against Israeli troops. The fate of the militants was not immediately known.
CNN's Barbara Starr and John Vause and journalist Anthony Mills in Beirut contributed to this report
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I pray that this will not escalate into a very large war between the Islamic world and Israel, for the souls of the innocent who will die and have already died. However, this seems expected from the Israelis after what Hezbollah has done to Israel in the past few days. We will see how this is played out by the UN and Israel, and again, I hope that there are no more killings. |