BEIRUT, 4 August 2006 — Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah yesterday vowed that his fighters would strike at Israel’s commercial capital of Tel Aviv if Beirut was hit by airstrikes, drawing Israeli threats to destroy all Lebanese infrastructure. “All the Lebanese territory is already the target of the Israeli bombardments ... but this threat is against Beirut, if you bombard our capital we will bombard the capital of your aggressive entity,” he said in a televised speech.
Hezbollah fighters killed eight people in a rocket barrage on Israel and three Israeli soldiers in clashes in Lebanon yesterday, the deadliest day of the war for Israel in 23 days of fighting. As world powers struggled to agree on a UN resolution to end the fighting, both sides threatened to escalate the war.
Despite an intensive air and ground campaign to wipe them out, Hezbollah fighters continue to unleash rockets and battle Israeli troops on the ground in Lebanon.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora said the war had killed 900 people in Lebanon and wounded 3,000, with a third of the casualties being children under 12. He said a million Lebanese, a quarter of the population, had been displaced and infrastructure devastated.
Sixty-seven Israelis have been killed in the war including 40 soldiers. Al-Arabiya television said a fourth soldier was killed yesterday but there was no official confirmation.
The Israeli Army has carved out a “security zone” of 20 villages in south Lebanon up to six km (four miles) from the border and will stay until an international force arrives.
The United States, France and Britain hope for a UN Security Council resolution within days that would call for a truce and maybe strengthen existing UN peacekeepers until a more robust force can be formed, UN officials said.
The US State Department said it still hoped for an agreement by today on a resolution to end the fighting.
But splits between the United States and France, a possible leader of the new force, over the timing of a cease-fire have complicated diplomatic efforts to halt the war.
France’s UN ambassador said he was less confident that a Security Council resolution could be adopted within days.
“Yesterday morning I was confident that we could have a resolution adopted in the coming days, but by the end of the day I was less confident,” Jean-Marc de la Sabliere said.
The Lebanon war, which erupted after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a raid across the border on July 12, has coincided with an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip to recover another captured soldier and halt Palestinian rocket fire.
Israeli aircraft launched strikes on 70 targets in southern Lebanon and Beirut overnight.
Jets bombed Hezbollah-dominated suburbs of Beirut for the first time in days overnight and hit a bridge in the northern Akkar region, as well as targets in the eastern Bekaa Valley and roads near the Syrian border, a Lebanese security source said.
Planes repeatedly bombed targets around the southern town of Nabatiyeh and shelling cut a road in the southern Bekaa Valley.
Heavy Israeli airstrikes and shelling also hit the area around the southern village of Blat, north of Marjayoun.
Two Lebanese civilians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a car in a village east of Tyre, security sources said.
Israel is expanding the ground war in southern Lebanon. Seven brigades, or up to 10,000 troops, were fighting Hezbollah yesterday. Israel’s Channel Two television said Defense Minister Amir Peretz asked the army to prepare for a possible push north to Lebanon’s Litani River. UN peacekeepers of the UNIFIL force said the Israelis had made two new incursions into Lebanon in the past 24 hours.
A Lebanese security source said 80 Hezbollah fighters had been killed so far — well below the Israeli estimate.
An Israeli inquiry into Sunday’s bombing of Qana, where up to 62 Lebanese civilians died, said the military had made a mistake, but accused Hezbollah of using civilians as human shields. Amnesty International said the probe was inadequate.
