Middle East violence: Haifa, Bairut..

[General Duke]

Deadly Hezbollah attack on Haifa

 

 

It is the worst attack on Israel since the violence began

 

Rockets fired by Hezbollah militants in Lebanon have killed at least nine people and wounded dozens of others in the coastal Israeli city of Haifa.

 

Meanwhile, Israeli jets have hit targets in the south of the Lebanese capital Beirut, including Hezbollah's al-Manar TV and a power station.

 

At least 100 Lebanese, most of them civilians, have been killed in five days of Israeli air strikes.

 

The Israeli air raids began after Hezbollah seized two Israeli soldiers.

 

Cars abandoned

 

The rocket attack on Haifa is the worst attack on Israel since hostilities with Lebanon broke out, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has warned it could have "far-reaching consequences".

 

"Our government is determined to do everything necessary to reach our objectives. Nothing will prevent us," Mr Olmert said.

 

It is the second time Haifa has been hit by Hezbollah rockets in recent days.

 

 

 

 

Mid-East crisis map

Voices from the conflict

Who are Hezbollah?

 

In a first salvo at least 13 rockets were reported to have landed in the city. The majority of those killed and injured were at a train station which was hit.

 

According to Israel Radio a second wave of four rockets then hit, one landing in city street. People driving on the roads in Haifa reportedly abandoned their cars as they fled from the onslaught.

 

The BBC's Bethany Bell in Jerusalem says that until now it had been thought that towns like Haifa, which is some 30km (19 miles) south of the Lebanese border and, Tiberias, on the Sea of Galilee, which was attacked on Saturday, had been out of range of Hezbollah's rockets.

 

More than 400 rockets have been fired into Israel by Hezbollah since Wednesday and, with the rockets penetrating ever further into the country, Israelis living all the way south to Tel Aviv have now been told to be on the alert, says the BBC's Mike Wooldridge in Jerusalem.

 

The militant group has claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was retaliation for the deaths of Lebanese civilians and the destruction of the country's infrastructure during the Israeli air raids.

[General Duke]

Israel rains bombs on Lebanon

 

 

Sunday 16 July 2006, 4:25 Makka Time, 1:25 GMT

 

 

Israeli offensive does not look like ending soon

 

Israel continued to pound Beirut's southern suburb on Sunday, the fifth successive day of an offensive on Lebanon.

The air strikes, which killed 35 civilians on Saturday, including 15 children, were meant to punish the Lebanese government for failing to disarm the resistance group Hezbollah.

Israel says this has allowed Hezbollah to menace Israel's northern border, where measures just short of a state of emergency have been ordered.

 

Israel has said it aims not just to force Hezbollah to free the soldiers, whom the Shia group wants to trade for prisoners in Israel, but to destroy its ability to fire rockets into Israel.

 

The bombing of Lebanese roads, bridges, ports and airports, as well as Hezbollah targets, is Israel's most destructive onslaught since an invasion to expel Palestinian forces in 1982

The attacks started after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border operation on Wednesday.

 

Air strikes in the early hours of Sunday damaged a flyover linking the southern suburb with the eastern part of Beirut, Hezbollah's al-Manar television reported, and the loud blasts were heard throughout the capital. Israeli aircraft have already flattened Hezbollah's nine-storey headquarters.

 

The campaign in Lebanon coincided with an offensive Israel started in the Gaza Strip on June 28 to try to retrieve another captured soldier and halt Palestinian rocket fire.

 

Israeli forces clashed with fighters in Gaza on Sunday as tanks moved back into the north of the Gaza Strip. Tanks and armoured personnel carriers, backed by helicopter gunships, moved into farmland near Beit Hanoun, an area often used by fighters for launching rockets.

Small groups of fighters opened fire at the Israeli forces, but there was no report of casualties.

 

Appeals for aid

 

Fouad Siniora, the Lebanese prime minister, repeated his demands for an immediate UN-backed ceasefire on Saturday. He denounced Israel for turning his country into a "disaster zone" and appealed for foreign aid.

 

His speech came hours after Israel bombarded ports in Christian areas for the first time and a helicopter missile hit a lighthouse on Beirut's seafront.

 

Israel has said the way out will be for Lebanon to implement a UN resolution demanding that Hezbollah be disarmed. The Beirut government, led by an anti-Syrian coalition, lacks the unity and firepower to disarm Hezbollah, the only Lebanese faction to keep its guns after the 1975-90 civil war.

 

George Bush, the US president, who has declined to urge Israel to curb its military operations, said Syria should tell Hezbollah, also backed by Iran, to stop cross-border attacks.

 

Meanwhile, an Israeli missile incinerated a van in southern Lebanon, killing 20 people, among them 15 children, in the deadliest single attack of the campaign.

 

Police said the van was carrying two families fleeing the village of Marwaheen after Israeli loudspeaker warnings to leave their homes.

At least 104 people, all but four of them civilians, have been killed in the five-day assault, which has choked Lebanon's economy and forced tourists and foreigners to flee.

 

Four Israelis, including a five-year-old child, have been killed and 300 wounded by about 700 rockets fired since Wednesday at more than 20 towns.

 

The offensive has forced

families to flee their homes

 

The Israeli offensive has forced hundreds of families to flee their homes in south Lebanon and Beirut's southern suburb, and they are sheltering in schools across the capital. Human rights activists said the makeshift shelters lacked basic services.

"They don't have enough blankets and medical supplies," Ghassan Makarem, one activist, told Reuters on Sunday. "The situation is disgusting."

 

The Israeli government gave authorities the power to shut schools, factories and public institutions in the north in a move that falls just short of a full state of emergency.

 

Israel has deployed Patriot missile batteries in the northern city of Haifa to intercept rockets.

It also warned the Lebanese army on Sunday against shooting at its aircraft and said it would not hesitate to strike "at any party operating against it".

 

Israel says it aims not just to force Hezbollah to free the soldiers, whom the Shia group wants to trade for prisoners in Israel, but to destroy its ability to fire rockets into Israel.

[General Duke]

 

Rockets hit northern Israeli city of Haifa, killing nine(updated 03:31 p.m.)

 

 

2006/7/16

JERUSALEM (AP)

 

Lebanese guerillas fired a relentless barrage of rockets into the northern Israeli city of Haifa on Sunday, killing nine people and wounding dozens of others, police said. A subsequent attack hit a major street in the city, causing further casualties, police said.

 

The attack was the worst strike on Israel since violence broke out along the border with Lebanon last week after Hezbollah guerillas captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid. Israel was almost certain to increase its already intense campaign of airstrikes on Lebanon in response.

 

Hezbollah guerillas said they hit the city with Raad-2 and Raad-3 rockets, which have a longer range than the hundreds of Katyusha rockets they had been firing into Israel in recent days.

 

The group said it intentionally avoided hitting petrochemical installations in Haifa, which houses Israel's major oil refinery, according to a statement read on Hezbollah's Al-Manar television station.

 

 

"But the next time, it (Hezbollah) will not spare anything in Haifa and its surroundings," the statement said.

 

Footage shown on Israel's Channel 10 showed smoke rising over Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, and air raid sirens could be heard wailing.

The attacks came after Israeli warplanes bombed a major power station south of Beirut.

 

Hezbollah said in a statement read on it Al-Manar television station that it fired dozens of rockets at Haifa at 9 a.m. Rockets continued to pound the city after the initial attack, landing in major areas of the city.

 

"After the enemy continued all night their destructive shelling of (Beirut's) southern suburb and other areas ... the resistance movement fired dozens of rockets on Haifa," the Hezbollah statement said. Some of the rockets landed near the oil refinery, gas storage tanks and the train station, Israeli police and emergency officials said.

 

The dead were all at a train station in Haifa, where a rocket hit a storage room, police said.

 

Police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said at least nine people were killed in the attacks.

 

Rockets fired by Lebanese militants also hit Acco and Nahariya and several other northern towns, and residents of the region were told to head to bomb shelters.

 

The rocket attacks came after a relatively quiet night along Israel's northern border, which had been pounded by hundreds of rockets fired from Lebanon in recent days.

 

Israel deployed a Patriot missile battery in Haifa on Saturday to protect the city against surface-to-surface missiles. But the defense system is useless to stop the rocket fire.

 

Hezbollah guerillas hit Haifa with a rocket for the first time ever Thursday. Israel responded by stepping up its airstrikes in Lebanon, which it began last week after militants captured. The attack on Haifa raised Israel's death toll from the fighting to at least 24, 11 soldiers and 13 civilians.

 

Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon have killed 106 people, mostly civilians.

[FatB]

gd i notice most of your stories favor the zionests, is there a hidden agenda or are your sourse from western media....

[General Duke]

^^^lol,

Give us a break mate, the Middle East is a specially important region,

Here is some previous posts of mine...

 

 

Shiekh Ahmed Yassin

 

Hamas stands its ground

 

 

Hamas

 

Contribution

 

on Fallujah

 

arafat profile

 

....The news that the Hizbullah movement could strike the third largest city of Israel it changes everything. LEBANON is ablaze the infrustructure of that nation is being taken out by the zionists state. Do not forget that Gaza is also under siege....More news to come

[General Duke]

Hezbollah rockets kill eight in Haifa

 

 

Sunday 16 July 2006, 11:54 Makka Time, 8:54 GMT

 

Smoke rises from a train station in Haifa after a rocket attack

 

Rockets fired by Hezbollah have killed eight people in Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, according to medics.

 

 

Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, warned Lebanon of "far-reaching" consequences after the attacks by the armed Lebanese group on Sunday morning.

 

An Aljazeera reporter in Haifa reported that Israeli authorities had declared a state of emergency in the city.

 

Israeli medics said more than a dozen people had also been wounded in the attacks. The city of 260,000 was hit by at least 20 rockets, including one that struck a train station.

 

Hezbollah said the latest attacks were in retaliation for Israel's killing of civilians and destruction of Lebanese infrastructure during the past five days.

 

"After the Zionist enemy exceeded all limits killing and destroying ... the Islamic Resistance announces that it bombarded the city of Haifa with dozens of Raad 2 and Raad 3 rockets at 9am (0600 GMT)," Hezbollah said in a statement.

 

The attacks are Hezbollah's deadliest rocket strike in at least 10 years. Hezbollah usually hits Israeli border towns and this is the first time that Haifa has been reached.

 

In the last five days Hezbollah has fired about 400 rockets into Israel, killing at least 16 civilians.

 

 

Israel has killed at least 80 Lebanese civilians since Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed two others in a cross-border raid on Wednesday.

 

 

On Friday and Saturday the Israeli air force also struck several Hezbollah targets across Lebanon. The attacks levelled the group's headquarters in south Beirut and hit the movement's television station Al-Manar.

 

 

Aljazeera + Agencies

[General Duke]

Lebanon exodus gathers pace

 

 

Sunday 16 July 2006, 4:42 Makka Time, 1:42 GMT

 

Foreign governments were drawing up plans for a voluntary evacuation of their nationals from Lebanon as Israel kept up air strikes against its neighbour.

Britain is to send two Royal Navy warships to the Middle East as part of the contingency plans for a possible evacuation, the ministry of defence said in London on Saturday.

 

A ministry of defence spokeswoman said the aircraft carrier Illustrious and the warship Bulwark would shortly be sent to the Middle East, but she would not comment on news reports that they would be used to evacuate Britons from the area.

 

"As you would expect we are monitoring the situation closely and are engaging in prudent contingency planning," said the spokeswoman, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with government policy.

 

"As part of this HMS Illustrious and HMS Bulwark will shortly head toward the region. They have been given no specific tasking."

 

Britain also advised its citizens not to attempt to leave Lebanon under their own steam and said it had not yet made a decision on whether to evacuate its nationals. There are 10,000 Britons in Lebanon, plus a further 10,000 with joint nationality.

 

France, Italy and Sweden followed Britain's lead in preparing to evacuate their citizens, mainly by land to Syria or by ferry to the Mediterranean island of Cyprus.

 

US says it is working on a plan to

move Americans to Cyprus

 

The US State Department said it was working on a plan with the Pentagon to transport Americans to Cyprus, where they can board commercial aircraft for onward travel. There were around 25,000 US citizens in Lebanon.

 

Air travel from Beirut was made impossible after the international airport was shut down on Thursday after Israeli air strikes blew craters in the runways.Dominique de Villepin, the French prime minister, announced that "sea and air facilities, both civilian and military" would be made available for any French national who wished to leave.

France began deploying about 800 military personnel plus aircraft to Lebanon, chartered a ferry and dispatched two warships as part of its operation to evacuate its own citizens and others to Cyprus.

 

Cyprus as a European Union member said on Friday that it was ready to support a joint EU-co-ordinated mass evacuation of Europeans stranded in Lebanon.Naval sources in Toulon said France was sending a landing-craft transporter with four helicopters and equipped with a hospital and operating rooms, should they be needed. A French frigate was also due to arrive in the area on Thursday.

 

France is sending a landingcraft

with hospital facilities

 

Up to 20,000 French, including residents, tourists and business travellers are currently in Lebanon, according to a foreign ministry estimate.Italy said the foreign ministry had already organised with its embassy in Beirut a convoy of 410 Italian citizens and other nationals, mainly from the European Union, heading for Syria.

 

However, witnesses reported that an Israeli bombardment forced the convoy to stop at Tripoli, Lebanon's second city located about 90kms (60 miles) north of Beirut.

 

About 15 buses carrying European nationals were stopped at Tripoli until security conditions allowed them to continue on the route to Syria, witnesses said.

[General Duke]

Middle East crisis continues

 

Published: 17 Jul 2006

By: Jonathan Miller; Jon Snow & Faisal Islam

 

Israeli pIanes attack lebanese army posts on the countrys coast killing nine Lebanese soldiers.

 

 

Six days into this crisis the US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice says she'll visit the Middle East.

 

Tonight Lebanon's Prime Minister tells Channel 4 News the UN must intervene now. He accuses Israel of a pre-prepared plan to invade Lebanon.

 

We are Live in Beirut, in northern Israel, here in Tel Aviv and at the G8 Summit in St Petersburg with the latest:

 

 

In Northern Israel a Hezbollah missile destroys a building, injuring two, as Israel continues to bombard Gaza and Lebanon.

Caught at the G8 summit: who Bush really blames for the crisis

Amid the first evacuations of international citizens, Britain prepares to bring out more than twenty thousand by sea.

 

 

In Tel Aviv, they're digesting the news that the American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is planning to travel to the Middle East to calm tensions.

 

It's not clear when that will be, but the Israeli Prime Minister said the offensive in Lebanon was set to continue. He was speaking after the sixth day of air strikes in Lebanon.

 

Hezbollah militants continued to fire dozens of rockets at northern Israel - and promised more "surprises."

 

Overnight, Israel bombed Beirut airport again, along with an area in the south of Beirut, killing seven. An air strike on a Lebanese army base in Tripoli killed nine soldiers - another killed 10 people driving from south Lebanon towards Beirut - yet another flattened the Palestinian Foreign Ministry in Gaza.

 

Yet Hezbollah militants continued to fire hundreds of rockets at northern Israel up to 33 miles away - several hit Haifa.

 

Our Foreign Affairs Correspondent Jonathan Miller - in Beirut - has been to the scene of that bombing in Tripoli.

 

He reports now on the feelings among the Lebanese - and examines exactly who Hezbollah are: who are their backers - what is their strategy?

[Modesty]

Isreal is evil.

[FatB]

^^^

i second that