In their raids on Beirut Monday, Israeli planes killed two people in the
harbor and started a large fire that was later extinguished. A French ship was
due to arrive in the port later Monday to evacuate Europeans.
The Israeli jets also set fire to a gas storage tank in the northern
neighborhood of Dawra and another fuel storage tank at Beirut airport, sending
plumes of smoke billowing into the sky. The airport has been closed since
Thursday, when Israeli jets blasted its runways.
Israeli missiles also blasted southern Beirut, causing three explosions that
shook the city. The targets were not immediately clear, but Hezbollah has a host
of offices, clinics, schools, social clubs and the homes of its leaders in the
southern suburbs.
Elsewhere in Lebanon, Israeli planes again hit the Beirut to Damascus
highway, which has been targeted as part of a strategy of severing Lebanon's
links to the outside world. Monday's attacks struck the highway in the eastern
Bekaa Valley and killed two people.
In another attack, eight Lebanese soldiers were killed when Israeli aircraft
attacked a small fishing port at Abdeh in northern Lebanon near a highway
leading to Syria. Witnesses and security officials said 12 Lebanese soldiers
were wounded in the attack.
An Israeli army spokesman said his force was investigating the attack. "In
principle, the Israeli military does not target Lebanese soldiers," he said.
Hezbollah is not known to operate in northern Lebanon, but the Israeli army
said it had targeted radar stations there because they had been used by
Hezbollah to hit a warship on Friday. It all but accused the Lebanese military
of lending its support to Hezbollah.
"The attacks... are against radar stations used, among other things, in the
attack on the Israeli missile boat, by Hezbollah in cooperation with the
Lebanese military," the Israeli army spokesman told The Associated Press.
Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said Sunday that despite Israel's
attacks, the guerrillas were "in their full strength and power" and that their
"missile stockpiles are still full."
"When the Zionists behave like there are no rules and no red lines and no
limits to the confrontation, it is our right to behave in the same way,"
Nasrallah said in a televised address, looking tired. He said Hezbollah had hit
Haifa because of Israel's strikes on Lebanese civilians.
The Israeli military warned residents of south Lebanon to flee, promising
heavy retaliation after the Haifa assault.
In one airstrike on southern Lebanon early Monday, an Israeli missile missed
its apparent target - a Hezbollah site - and hit a private house,
killing two people, according to security officials who spoke on condition of
anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
