Israeli air strikes kill 42 as civilians hit by bombings

ISRAELI air strikes killed 42 people across Lebanon yesterday, including 10 civilians hit on a southern bridge, on the sixth day of a bombardment that has wreaked the heaviest destruction in Lebanon for over 20 years.

Rescuers also pulled nine bodies from the wreckage of a building in the southern city of Tyre that was bombed on Sunday, raising the death toll since Israel’s offensive to 204, all but 14 of them civilian.

Israeli planes hit coastal targets in the north and south, struck Beirut and damaged homes in the east belonging to members of Hezbollah, which fired more rockets into Israel.

Blasts rocked Beirut through the day and smoke rose from a blazing fuel depot. Civilian installations, petrol stations and factories elsewhere were also hit, security sources said.

“I can’t believe they are doing all this for two captives. This is just an excuse,” said Ali Sharara, 21, who fled his home in south Beirut to sleep in a city park for the last two nights.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets at the Israeli city of Haifa and medics said a three-storey building collapsed, wounding two people. Israel closed Haifa’s port.

Twenty-four Israelis have been killed in the fighting, including 12 civilians hit in rocket attacks.

The fighting was triggered when Hezbollah, the guerrilla group which is backed by Syria and Iran and is part of Lebanon’s government, seized two Israeli soldiers and killed eight in a cross-border raid on northern Israel on July 12.

Israel may step up attacks in coming days, mindful that its chief ally, the US, might not resist indefinitely international pressure for a ceasefire.

Three Israeli tanks briefly crossed a few hundred metres into Lebanese territory yesterday afternoon, a UN source said, following a similar incursion overnight in which Israel said Hizbollah positions were destroyed.

Israeli Army Radio, quoting a top officer, said the country would enforce a one-km “free-fire” zone to bar Hezbollah from the border, without keeping troops on the ground.

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said that the offensive has inflicted billions of dollars of damage.

Israel radio said Hezbollah tried to fire an Iranian-made missile with a range of 100 km but it malfunctioned.

Israel is demanding the disarming of Hezbollah in line with UN resolutions — a task beyond the fragile Beirut government.