Fears of Escalation Rise as Syria Issues Warning to Israel
July 24, 2006
As a host of top European diplomats descended on the region, Syria fueled fears the fighting could spread, issuing a stark warning that it would intervene if Israel invaded Lebanon.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was also heading to the Middle East with Washington increasingly estranged from European and Arab allies over a conflict that has killed close to 400 people and triggered a major humanitarian crisis.
At least eight civilians, including a Lebanese press photographer, were killed in air strikes across southern and eastern Lebanon as Israel kept up its punishing war on Hezbollah following the seizure of a strategic border village by Israeli ground forces on Saturday.
The Shiite militant group said three of its fighters had also been killed.
In a wave of pre-dawn raids, fighter-bombers for the first time struck directly inside the main southern city of Sidon, where tens of thousands of Lebanese have sought refuge from the relentless Israeli offensive.
A three-storey building housing a Hezbollah religious centre was hit.
Israel hit Hezzbollah from air and land
Israel also targeted Hezbollah's power base in Beirut's Shiite southern suburbs and struck factories, roads and bridges in air strikes in the eastern Baalbek region. Shiite guerrillas responded with a new hail of rocket fire on Israel's third city of Haifa, killing two people.
Streams of people, many waving white flags, are making a desperate trek from southern Lebanon after Israel ordered them to leave their homes, raising fears it was planning a large scale ground invasion.
Around 360 people have been killed in Israel's massive blitz against Lebanon which was launched after the capture of two soldiers by Hezbollah guerrillas in a deadly border attack on July 12. A total of 37 Israelis have died.
Syria to intervene if Israel invades
Syria, blamed by the United States for stoking the conflict, warned that if Israel invaded Lebanon it would have no choice but to respond. "If Israel makes a land entry into Lebanon, they can get to within 20 kilometers (12 miles) of Damascus," Information Minister Moshen Bilal told the Spanish newspaper ABC.
"What will we do? Stand by with our arms folded? Absolutely not. Without any doubt Syria will intervene in the conflict."
Israel, which has called up thousands of reserve soldiers nd massed its troops on the border, seized control of the strategic hilltop village of Marun Al-Ras on Saturday after sending tanks, bulldozers and armored cars rolling across the border.
An unarmed UN military observer was seriously wounded in an exchange of fire in the village Sunday. The UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said initial reports suggested Hezbollah fire was responsible.
Ground assault "no invasion"
Defense Minister Amir Peretz insisted Israel did not plan a wide scale invasion. "The ground operation is focusing on a limited entry of forces," he told the cabinet. "We are not dealing with an invasion of Lebanon."
But his reassurances failed to stop mounting international criticism of the Israeli offensive, which has left Lebanon virtually cut off from the world, made hundreds of thousands refugees in their own country and destroyed billions of dollars of infrastructure.
"The whole thing has to stop. It's no natural disaster but a man-made crisis. This is a senseless war," UN relief coordinator Jan Egeland said.
He was in Beirut to launch an appeal for millions of dollars in aid to help the half million civilians displaced in what the United Nations says is a "catastrophic" humanitarian situation.
Britain belatedly joins chorus of disapproval
Even close US ally Britain, which had drawn Arab anger for declining to back UN calls for an immediate ceasefire, stepped up its criticism of the Israeli offensive.
"These are not surgical strikes. It's very difficult to understand the kind of military tactics that are being used," junior foreign office minister Kim Howells said in Beirut. "If they are chasing Hezbollah, then go for Hezbollah. You don't go for the entire Lebanese nation. I very much hope that the Americans understand what's happening to Lebanon -- the destruction of the infrastructure, the death of so many children and so many people."
Bush repeats belief in self-defense
But US President George W. Bush maintained his backing for Israel's campaign as Rice prepared travel to the region in search of what she described as a long-term solution.
"I believe sovereign nations have the right to defend their people from terrorist attack, and to take the necessary action to prevent those attacks," Bush said in his weekly radio address.
Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon said the aim of the offensive was to keep Hezbollah -- which controls southern Lebanon in the absence of the regular Lebanese army -- at least 20 kilometers (13 miles) from the frontier. "For Israel, there are no longer civilians in southern Lebanon," he warned.
Lebanon's parliament speaker Nabih Berri -- a close Hezbollah ally -- said the militant group was ready for the Lebanese government to negotiate on its behalf through a third party for an exchange of prisoners with Israel.
Prisoner swaps not on the table
Israel has so far ruled out any swap either for the two soldiers held by Hezbollah or another serviceman who was captured last month by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, triggering a similar offensive.
Israel said it opened an 80-kilometre by eight-kilometer (50-mile by five-mile) safe passage to Beirut for ships and aircraft, a humanitarian corridor to allow aid to the Lebanese.
Israel's air and sea blockade put Lebanon's only international airport out of action, and the bombing of houses, roads, bridges, factories, warehouses and trucks has created scenes reminiscent of the 1975-1990 civil war.
Foreign governments have been forced to lay on a flotilla of ferries, warships and cruise liners to evacuate stranded nationals, mainly to the nearby resort island of Cyprus which has been battling to find temporary accommodation and flights for the estimated 70,000 evacuees at peak summer holiday season.