Israel keeps up Lebanon assault

BEIRUT - Israel struck Hizbollah targets and devastated a wide array of Lebanese civilian installations yesterday, drawing mounting world criticism of its tactics since Shi'ite fighters seized two of its soldiers and killed eight.

Hizbollah, which wants to trade its captives for prisoners held in Israel, fired more rockets across the frontier.

US President George W. Bush telephoned Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and assured him he was pressing Israel to "contain the damage" to Lebanon and avoid civilian casualties, Siniora's office said in a statement. Siniora urged Bush to get Israel to halt its attack, agree to a cease-fire and lift its blockade.

A senior Bush administration official said Bush called Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Jordan's King Abdullah and Siniora. He had no details of the calls.

Bush has previously upheld Israel's right to self-defence, but said it should not weaken the Lebanese government.

Strong criticism of Israel came from France and the Vatican, long close to Lebanon, especially its Christian community.

French President Jacques Chirac, describing Israeli strikes as "completely disproportionate", said: "One can ask oneself whether there isn't a sort of desire to destroy Lebanon."

The Vatican deplored Israel's "attack on a sovereign and free nation", Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano said.

The Lebanon violence is the fiercest since 1996 when Israel launched a 17-day blitz on Hizbollah strongholds in the south.

Israeli aircraft rocketed runways at Beirut's international airport and bombed a flyover just to the south, witnesses said.

The airport has been shut since runways and fuel tanks were hit on Thursday. Four planes of Lebanon's Middle East Airlines had taken off empty for Amman shortly before the latest raids.

Siege tightens

Israeli warplanes blasted the main Beirut-Damascus highway overnight, tightening an air, sea and land blockade of Lebanon, and bombed targets in Beirut's teeming Shi'ite Muslim suburbs, killing three people and wounding 40, security sources said.

Five more people died in similar strikes in south Lebanon.

Their deaths brought to 66 the number of people, almost all civilians, killed in Lebanon since Israel's campaign began, police said. At least 170 people have been wounded.

A score of Hizbollah rockets fell in northern Israel and one hit a house in Safed, wounding eight people, residents said. Another five people were hurt by rockets that fell on the coastal city of Nahariya.

Israel said the group had launched 130 missiles in the previous 48 hours, killing two civilians and wounding over 100.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour urged both sides to refrain from attacking civilian targets.

Black smoke billowed from two burning fuel depots at power plants south of Beirut. Air raids also hit mobile phone antennas and a pro-Syrian Palestinian guerrilla base in eastern Lebanon.

Israel holds Lebanon responsible for the actions of Hizbollah, a Syrian- and Iranian-backed Islamist group which has members in parliament and in the mainly anti-Syrian cabinet.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Israel would not dare to move against the Islamic republic. He had warned of a "fierce response" if Israel struck at Syria, saying it would be considered an attack on the whole Islamic world.

The fragile Beirut government, too divided to disarm the Shi'ite faction that effectively controls south Lebanon, has urged the UN Security Council to call on Israel to halt its onslaught when the top world body meets later on Friday.

Gaza pullback

The violence in Lebanon coincided with an Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip launched last month to try to retrieve another captured soldier and halt Palestinian rocket fire.

The army said on Friday it had pulled out of the central Gaza Strip, which it entered as part of the offensive. It said its forces had targeted an office of the ruling Hamas militant group in the northern Gaza Strip and a bridge overnight.

Troops fired a tank shell at a vehicle, killing a Palestinian and wounding another, medics said. Israel has killed more than 80 Palestinians during the offensive.

Fearing a prolonged Israeli-Hizbollah confrontation, Lebanese queued for petrol and hoarded food and drink. Power rationing began and many shops and offices stayed shut.

The crisis has helped drive world oil prices to record highs and has shaken financial markets in Israel and Lebanon.

Beirut stocks have slumped nearly 14 per cent this week. Israeli stocks have dropped more than eight per cent in the past three days and the Israeli shekel has lost over three per cent.

- REUTERS