Israel pounds Lebanon, says campaign to take weeks

Lebanese children sit at a centre set up by the Syrian government to help people crossing from Lebanon, in Damascus. Picture / Reuters

BEIRUT - Israeli warplanes battered Lebanon today, killing 31 people, and more Hizbollah rockets hit northern Israel, killing one, as the Israeli army said its offensive to crush Hizbollah could take a few more weeks.

Civilians on both sides were angry about the bombardment but Israel and Hizbollah showed no willingness to halt the fighting, which has killed 235 people in Lebanon and 25 Israelis, or heed proposals for a new UN-backed stabilisation force.

"I don't even know where our neighbourhood was," said a Lebanese Shi'ite, looking for where his home had been on the edge of a bomb-blasted Hizbollah compound in southern Beirut.

"They're still bombarding the area to grind it to dust. What kind of crime is this?" said the man, giving his name as Hassan.

Israelis, stunned by Hizbollah rocket attacks, said they wanted their army to smash the guerrilla group and most favoured killing its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, a poll showed.

Israel's army refused to rule out a large-scale ground invasion of the south only six years after it ended its 22-year occupation of the area.

"At this stage we do not think we have to activate massive ground forces into Lebanon but if we have to do this, we will," Moshe Kaplinsky, Israel's deputy army chief, told Israel Radio.

He said the offensive would end within a few weeks, adding that Israel needed more time to complete "very clear goals".

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he expected European powers to join a proposed Lebanon stabilisation force.

Annan and British Prime Minister Tony Blair have urged the UN Security Council to deploy a security force in Lebanon but Israel says it is too early to discuss such a move and the United States has questioned how it would restrain Hizbollah guerrillas from attacking Israel.

"It is urgent that the international community acts to make a difference on the ground," Annan said in Brussels, suggesting a force that would operate differently from toothless UN peacekeepers who have patrolled south Lebanon since 1978.

"I would expect contributions from European countries and countries from other regions," Annan said.

He was speaking after talks with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, who said some European Union member states were willing to contribute to the proposed force.

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said the option should be explored.

"We believe there is a contribution that an international force can make," Beckett told BBC radio, saying it could help maintain a ceasefire, if the two sides agree to stop shooting.

A rocket attack on the northern Israeli town of Nahariya killed one person on Tuesday. Other Hizbollah rockets hit Haifa.

In Lebanon, nine family members, including children, were killed in an air strike on their house in Aitaroun village. Ten people were killed in strikes in the south and the Bekaa Valley.

Warplanes bombed a Lebanese army barracks east of Beirut, killing 11 soldiers, including four officers, and wounding 30.

A truck carrying medical supplies donated by the United Arab Emirates was hit and its driver killed en route from Damascus.

The Israeli army said Hizbollah was smuggling weapons from Syria, but added it did not regard Syria as a target. The United States called for Hizbollah backers Iran and Syria to exert their influence to halt the guerrilla group's rocket fire.

Hizbollah said another of its fighters had been killed, only the fourth such death it has acknowledged in the past week.

A poll in the mass-circulation Yedioth Ahronoth daily showed a vast majority of Israelis backed the Lebanon offensive. Many favoured assassinating Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

It showed 86 per cent of Israelis believed the army's attacks on Lebanon were justified.

Thousands of foreigners fled Lebanon, some by road to Syria, others seeking places on US and European ships after Beirut's international airport was closed by Israeli bombardment. About 100,000 Lebanese have fled their homes to escape the violence.

The fighting was triggered when Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hizbollah seized two Israeli soldiers and killed eight in a cross-border raid on northern Israel on July 12.

Israel's retaliation has killed 227 people, all but 24 of them civilians, and inflicted the heaviest damage on Lebanon since the 1982 Israeli invasion to expel Palestinian guerrillas.

Hizbollah has responded by attacking an Israeli naval vessel off Beirut, killing four sailors, and firing hundreds of rockets across the border, killing 12 Israelis.

Israel is also pursuing an offensive in the Gaza Strip after Palestinian militants captured another soldier on June 25.

Lebanon has repeatedly called for an immediate ceasefire, but world powers said any solution to the crisis must include the release of the two soldiers. Israel also wants Hizbollah to disarm in line with UN Security Council resolutions.

The Beirut government is too weak and divided to force Hizbollah to yield to such demands.

The Shi'ite Muslim group wants to swap the two soldiers for Lebanese and Arab prisoners in Israeli jails.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Hizbollah must free its two Israeli captives without conditions.

She was speaking just hours after Public Security Minister Avi Dichter said Israel might at some stage have to negotiate over Lebanese prisoners held in Israel to end the crisis.

- REUTERS