Israeli aircraft attacked Hezbollah's headquarters in south Beirut
as top US, European Union and United Nations officials prepared to
discuss the conflict after appeals by Lebanon for a truce.
Air force jets dropped about 23 metric tons of explosives on the compound late yesterday, an army spokeswoman said, speaking anonymously by regulation. Hezbollah's Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah may have been at the base, she said. Hezbollah issued a statement today saying none of its leaders were harmed, the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz reported.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora said his country is being “torn apart'' and estimated that 500 000 people have been displaced since the start of the conflict July 12. At least 300 Lebanese and 29 Israelis have been killed in the violence.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, will meet UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in New York today, Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown told reporters.
The air force attacked more than 200 terrorist targets in Lebanon in the past 24 hours, the Israel Defense Forces said today in a statement. Hezbollah fired more than 140 missiles across the border in the same period, killing two children and injuring dozens of civilians, it said.
Two Israeli soldiers and a Hezbollah gunmen were killed yesterday in a clash in southern Lebanon. Israel has avoided land operations against Hezbollah in favor of air strikes since it began its attacks on the Islamic group that abducted two soldiers.
Annan has asked the five permanent Security Council members to consider a force that would attempt to secure the border area between Israel and Lebanon as part of a cease-fire. US and Israeli officials insist that Hezbollah must be disarmed in the area and the Lebanese army sent in to claim the territory in compliance with a 2004 resolution of the Security Council.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington that Rice plans to remain in New York on July 21 to hear a report from the delegation of envoys Annan dispatched to the region.
Solana, meeting yesterday in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, said “every day counts'' in trying to end the fighting. Livni reiterated Israel's position that it won't negotiate with Hezbollah and said the campaign of aerial assaults will go on.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said the toll of casualties and damage “raise serious questions regarding the respect of the principle of proportionality in the conduct of hostilities,'' according to a statement yesterday in Geneva by the group's operations chief, Pierre Krahenbuhl.
The US is delaying Security Council action on Lebanon's plea for a truce, a Lebanese envoy said after meeting yesterday with US Ambassador John Bolton. “They are stalling to have more time,'' Ambassador Nouhad Mahmoud said.
Bolton said the Security Council shouldn't do anything until Annan briefs the 15 member governments on his initiative to end the hostilities. Bolton declined to endorse a French proposal for a resolution that would call for a “comprehensive and lasting cease-fire.''
Crude oil prices fell to a three-week low in New York as concerns that the Lebanon fighting may spread to elsewhere in the Middle East waned. Crude for August delivery fell 88 cents, or 1,2%, to $72,66 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the lowest close since June 28.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak told Bloomberg Television from Jerusalem that fighting Syria, a patron of Hezbollah, was unlikely. “No one here intends to do it deliberately,'' Barak said. “I don't think it will contribute to the stability of the region if we now attack Syria.'' The crisis can be resolved “short of such a step,'' he said.
The US and other countries stepped up evacuations of their citizens from Beirut amid Israel's largest military offensive in Lebanon since 1982. As many as 1 000 US citizens left Beirut yesterday for Cyprus aboard the Orient Queen, a cruise ship chartered by the US to bring evacuees to Cyprus. Another 136 were taken out by a Norwegian ferry.
The French government said 811 of its citizens are back in France and a second group of 800 French and 200 other Europeans will depart today. Australia may evacuate as many as 6 000 of its citizens in coming days, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said.
In the Gaza Strip, an Israeli assault on the Maghazi refugee camp killed nine Palestinians in clashes with militants, Palestinian medics and witnesses said. Five Palestinians were killed in clashes with Israeli forces in Nablus in the West Bank.
Israel started its attack on Lebanon two weeks after it sent its forces into Gaza after a group led by the Islamic Hamas movement kidnapped a soldier in a cross-border raid. Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005, razing Jewish settlements it established after seizing the area from Egypt in the 1967 Six-Day War.
Air force jets dropped about 23 metric tons of explosives on the compound late yesterday, an army spokeswoman said, speaking anonymously by regulation. Hezbollah's Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah may have been at the base, she said. Hezbollah issued a statement today saying none of its leaders were harmed, the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz reported.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora said his country is being “torn apart'' and estimated that 500 000 people have been displaced since the start of the conflict July 12. At least 300 Lebanese and 29 Israelis have been killed in the violence.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, will meet UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in New York today, Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown told reporters.
The air force attacked more than 200 terrorist targets in Lebanon in the past 24 hours, the Israel Defense Forces said today in a statement. Hezbollah fired more than 140 missiles across the border in the same period, killing two children and injuring dozens of civilians, it said.
Two Israeli soldiers and a Hezbollah gunmen were killed yesterday in a clash in southern Lebanon. Israel has avoided land operations against Hezbollah in favor of air strikes since it began its attacks on the Islamic group that abducted two soldiers.
Annan has asked the five permanent Security Council members to consider a force that would attempt to secure the border area between Israel and Lebanon as part of a cease-fire. US and Israeli officials insist that Hezbollah must be disarmed in the area and the Lebanese army sent in to claim the territory in compliance with a 2004 resolution of the Security Council.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington that Rice plans to remain in New York on July 21 to hear a report from the delegation of envoys Annan dispatched to the region.
Solana, meeting yesterday in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, said “every day counts'' in trying to end the fighting. Livni reiterated Israel's position that it won't negotiate with Hezbollah and said the campaign of aerial assaults will go on.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said the toll of casualties and damage “raise serious questions regarding the respect of the principle of proportionality in the conduct of hostilities,'' according to a statement yesterday in Geneva by the group's operations chief, Pierre Krahenbuhl.
The US is delaying Security Council action on Lebanon's plea for a truce, a Lebanese envoy said after meeting yesterday with US Ambassador John Bolton. “They are stalling to have more time,'' Ambassador Nouhad Mahmoud said.
Bolton said the Security Council shouldn't do anything until Annan briefs the 15 member governments on his initiative to end the hostilities. Bolton declined to endorse a French proposal for a resolution that would call for a “comprehensive and lasting cease-fire.''
Crude oil prices fell to a three-week low in New York as concerns that the Lebanon fighting may spread to elsewhere in the Middle East waned. Crude for August delivery fell 88 cents, or 1,2%, to $72,66 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the lowest close since June 28.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak told Bloomberg Television from Jerusalem that fighting Syria, a patron of Hezbollah, was unlikely. “No one here intends to do it deliberately,'' Barak said. “I don't think it will contribute to the stability of the region if we now attack Syria.'' The crisis can be resolved “short of such a step,'' he said.
The US and other countries stepped up evacuations of their citizens from Beirut amid Israel's largest military offensive in Lebanon since 1982. As many as 1 000 US citizens left Beirut yesterday for Cyprus aboard the Orient Queen, a cruise ship chartered by the US to bring evacuees to Cyprus. Another 136 were taken out by a Norwegian ferry.
The French government said 811 of its citizens are back in France and a second group of 800 French and 200 other Europeans will depart today. Australia may evacuate as many as 6 000 of its citizens in coming days, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said.
In the Gaza Strip, an Israeli assault on the Maghazi refugee camp killed nine Palestinians in clashes with militants, Palestinian medics and witnesses said. Five Palestinians were killed in clashes with Israeli forces in Nablus in the West Bank.
Israel started its attack on Lebanon two weeks after it sent its forces into Gaza after a group led by the Islamic Hamas movement kidnapped a soldier in a cross-border raid. Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005, razing Jewish settlements it established after seizing the area from Egypt in the 1967 Six-Day War.
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