Hezbollah threatens more rocket attacks

Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah threatened more rocket attacks on cities in central Israel tonight and dismissed a new diplomatic effort by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, saying the United States wants the fighting to continue.

Speaking on Hezbollah television, Nasrallah said Israel has not made a “single military accomplishment” in the fighting. He claimed Israel suffered a “serious defeat” in ground fighting around a Lebanese border town from which troops pulled back today after a week of heavy battles.

The threat of more attacks deep in to Israel came a day after Hezbollah fired one of the most powerful rockets in its arsenal for the first time, one able to reach the outskirts of Tel Aviv. Friday’s rocket strike hit outside the Israeli town of Afula, the furthest rocket strike yet.

“The bombardment of Afula and its military base is the beginning … Many cities in the centre (of Israel) will be targeted in the ‘beyond Haifa’ if the savage aggression continues on our country, people and villages,” Nasrallah said in a speech aired on Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television.

Hezbollah has said the strike targeted an Israeli military base, but the rockets fell in an empty field.

Nasrallah dismissed a new diplomatic effort by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was headed for Israel today with American proposals for a resolution to the crisis. She was widely expected to come to Lebanon as well, though no stop has been announced.

“Now Ms Rice is returning to the region to try and impose her conditions again on Lebanon to serve her project, the new Middle East and to serve Israel,” he said. He said Israel is ready to stop the fighting, but “the American administration is the one insisting on continuing the aggression against Lebanon".

Nasrallah pledged to cooperate with the Lebanese government, which has presented a peace package that could lead to the eventual disarming of Hezbollah. The guerrilla group’s politicians in the government agreed to the package.

Nasrallah did not mention the proposals specifically. But he suggested that Hezbollah would not follow through with disarmament if the government compromises on conditions outlined in the Lebanese proposal.

Most notably, the proposals demand a prisoner swap with Israel and the resolution of Lebanese claims on a patch of land on the border that Israel controls. Israel has ruled out a prisoner swap and has not said whether it would be willing to reconsider its hold on the Chebaa farms area.

“We are keen to cooperate with the government,” Nasrallah said.

But “for Lebanon to win the battle, it needs political will no less than the will of the resistance fighters in the field ... The government is required to act in a way that reflects the Lebanese people’s steadfastness and unity,” he said.

“We have a historic opportunity in Lebanon to liberate every inch of our land, regain of our prisoners and guarantee our national sovereignty, so that our skies, water, land and our people are no longer subject to Zionist violation and aggression,” he said.

In other developments two Indian UN peacekeepers were wounded when an Israeli airstrike hit near their border post in southern Lebanon, a spokesman said.

The two soldiers from the Indian battalion of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon were “moderately wounded as a result of the impact of an aerial bomb that hit in the vicinity” of their position in the border village of Adaisseh, UNIFIL spokesman Milos Strugar said.

And five people suffered minor injuries from Hezbollah rockets fired into Galilee in northern Israel, police said.

The rockets were some of 39 recorded hits on northern Israel by late afternoon, the police said.

Meanwhile, Israeli missiles that landed near a Lebanese border post at the main Syria-Lebanon crossing closed the border between the two countries for the first time in the 18-day-old conflict, police officials said.

Israeli warplanes fired three missiles that landed at the Masnaa crossing, about 300 yards beyond a Lebanese customs post, the officials said. They said the area is considered to be part of Lebanese territory.

The road between Syrian and Lebanese checkpoints was closed in both directions, officials said.