Israel Attack Targets Hezbollah Leader

Hezbollah Says No Members Died In Attack; U.S. Evacuees Arrive In Cyprus

(CBS/AP) 
The international Red Cross and U.N. officials said Wednesday they were seriously concerned about civilian casualties in escalating violence in Lebanon and Israel.

"Starting Thursday, the U.N. takes up the issue of the crisis in the Middle East when the Secretary-General returns to headquarters and briefs the Security Council, with the three-person shuttle diplomacy team at his side, on prospects for peace with options that include the call for a ceasefire, a new multinational military force, or reinforcements for the U.N. observer team already on the ground in Lebanon," said CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk.

"The shuttle diplomacy team headed by Vijay Nambiar and includes Terje Roed-Larsen and Alvaro de Soto, will brief the council as well as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on their meetings with officials from Lebanon and Israel," added Falk, "but the difficulty for world leaders gathered at the U.N. will be to find a negotiated solution that includes an end to the violence at the same time as it reduces the continuing threat of Hezbollah attacks against Israel."

In a swipe at the international community, particularly the United States, which said Israel was acting in self-defense, Saniora asked: "Is this what the international community calls self defense? Is this the price we pay for aspiring to build our democratic institutions?"

"Can the international community stand by while such callous retribution by the State of Israel is inflicted on us?" he added.

"We will spare no avenue to make Israel compensate the Lebanese people for the barbaric destruction" inflicted on the country, he told the gathering, which included U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman.

His comments were the first casualty figure officially announced by the government since Israel began its campaign July 12 after Hezbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers.

Hezbollah’s Nazareth attack came hours after Israeli troops engaged in a fierce firefight on the ground with Hezbollah guerrillas inside Lebanon, in a clash that killed two soldiers and one of the militants.

In Nazareth, smoke billowed from a building damaged in one of the strikes on the town of 70,000 about 20 miles south of the Lebanese border. Nazareth is the largest Israeli-Arab town in the country and is the center of Arab life in northern Israel.

"They're firing at Muslims and places sacred to Christianity," Israeli government spokesman David Baker said.

In Moshav Avivim, an Israeli town on the border, Israeli soldiers were engaged in a substantial battle with Hezbollah guerrillas, reports CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan (video). "There are shells landing all around us. We can hear the constant boom of outgoing artillery. Israeli tanks on the road and on the border are engaged in this firefight," Logan said.

Two soldiers and one militant were reported killed.

In all, 15 houses in the Najdeh neighborhood of Tyre were destroyed Wednesday in an air strike by Israel apparently determined to stop the frequent rocket fire from this region.

Israel's bombardment, now in its second week, has wreaked its worst damage in the southern Lebanon. Warplanes have knocked down bridges and roads and turned villages into ghost towns as civilians flee, leaving the area for Hezbollah guerrillas who continued to fire rockets on Israel and engage any ground force that advances across the frontier. The campaign has wreaked havoc with the lives of people in a farming region that is traditionally poor.

Israeli forces also killed six Palestinians on Wednesday after tanks moved into a refugee camp in central Gaza under cover of machine gun fire, the latest incursion in Israel's three-week military push in the seaside territory.