Israeli jets attack targets around Lebanon

Israeli warplanes staged a series of raids in northern, eastern and southern Lebanon early today, targeting suspected Hezbollah hideouts, striking a Lebanese army base and destroying roads, Lebanese security officials said.

The Israeli airstrikes, which caused at least one death and wounded others, came as the Israeli government was to meet to decide whether to broaden the military offensive, now in its third week, against Hezbollah guerrillas.

Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon said Israel must unleash massive air strikes against villages in south Lebanon to clear out Hezbollah gunmen.

Calls for greater firepower came as Israel suffered its heaviest casualty toll in the 15-day campaign, with nine soldiers killed and 25 wounded in house-to-house fighting in Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon yesterday.

A Lebanese policeman, Mohammed Abu Hamdan, was killed early today when an Israeli missile struck his car as he drove in the eastern city of Zahle, Lebanese security officials said.

Israeli warplanes struck a road in Rayak, a few miles from the Lebanese-Syrian border, at 4.30am local time (2.30am Irish time) today, wounding two soldiers and a civilian, the Lebanese officials said.

Israeli fighter jets also carried out more than 30 bombing runs in Iqlim al Tuffah, a highland region where Hezbollah is believed to have offices and bases, the officials and witnesses said.

The airstrikes, which targeted mostly deserted houses allegedly belonging to Hezbollah activists, and roads linking villages in the region, caused a number of casualties, the officials said.

Ambulances and civil defence crews were unable to reach the targeted areas because of intense bombardment, witnesses said.

Israeli planes attacked a residential neighbourhood in the village of Shoukin near the southern market town of Nabatiyeh at 10.30am local time (8.30am Irish time), wounding at least three people, security officials in Nabatiyeh said.

An Israeli airstrike at 9.35am local time (7.35am Irish time) on a deserted house near Nabatiyeh wounded Mohammed Hassan Bahmad, who lives in a nearby house, the officials said.

An hour earlier, an Israeli missile destroyed a four-storey building belonging to the Shiite Muslim Amal Movement in the southern port city of Tyre, the officials said.

Israeli jets struck a deserted house, owned by Khalil al-Bazaal, near the eastern city of Baalbek. It was not known whether Bazaal was a Hezbollah activist.

A Hezbollah official in Tyre today denied Israeli reports that the group’s commander in south Lebanon, Sheikh Nabil Kaouk, was killed in yesterday’s Israeli air raid on the city.

The strike in the centre of Tyre ripped the façade off an empty seven-storey building where Kaouk has offices. The strike wounded 13 people, including six children.

Early today, Israeli warplanes hit a Lebanese army base and a relay station belonging to Lebanese state radio north of Beirut, local TV and radio stations said.

The privately-owned Lebanese Broadcasting Corp. TV station said Israeli jets struck the army base at Aamchit, 30 miles along the Beirut-Tripoli highway north of the Lebanese capital near the coast and knocked down a relay tower in an adjacent field of antennae belonging to Radio Liban.

The incident occurred at approximately 1.45am local time (11.45pm Irish time).

The television channel broadcast footage it said was of firefighters trying to put out a fire caused by the shelling at Aamchit, but it wasn’t clear what was ablaze.

The army sealed off the area and prevented people from approaching, the Lebanese TV channel said.

Witnesses in Aamchit reached by phone from Beirut described loud explosions, but could not provide additional details. There were no reports of casualties and comment could not be immediately obtained from the army.

Israeli military officials said the target of the airstrike was a radar station used by Hezbollah for attacks like the one on the Israeli missile boat on July 14.

Four Israeli soldiers died in that incident. When asked about the reports on Aamchit, the officials did not give the location of the incident but referred only to “the attack north of Beirut”.

Twenty Lebanese soldiers are among the 423 people killed in Lebanon in hostilities between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas. Eleven died last week when Israeli jets bombarded the Jamhour army base east of Beirut.

Israeli fighter planes hit Lebanese military communication facilities hard last week, knocking out nearly a dozen radar stations along the entire length of Lebanon’s 120-mile coastline, including those at Beirut, Jounieh and Byblos ports.

Calls for the army to deploy along the border with Israel in the south have mounted during the fighting, now in its third week.

Israel and the United States are among the leading proponents of sending the army to secure areas where fierce fighting has raged between Hezbollah guerrillas and Israeli forces.

But those demands are also a tacit call to disarm Hezbollah, a move over which the Lebanese are divided.

The attacks on Aamchit followed an Israeli air raid late yesterday at approximately 11pm local time (9pm Irish time) that destroyed three pick-up trucks witnesses said were carrying vegetables at the mountain resort town of hour Shweir 18 miles north of Beirut.