Israel Renews Attacks On Beirut Suburb
Israeli aircraft renewed attacks on Beirut's southern Dahiyeh suburb at daybreak Friday.
Eight powerful explosions were heard in central Beirut within a span of 20 minutes, but the exact target of the attacks were not known. The Voice of Lebanon said several fires erupted and thick smoke rose from the area.
There were not immediate reports of damage or casualties.
VOL and LBC TV said a bridge was also attacked by the Israeli jets at Heitsa in the Akkar province in north of Lebanon. Both stations said initial reports from the area indicated there were casualties.
This comes one day after Israel grabbed strategic high ground in south Lebanon but said it was delaying a new ground offensive toward the Litani River, as diplomats said the United Nations had made progress toward constructing a cease-fire agreement that could go to a vote before the weekend.
Israel lost one soldier in fierce battles with Hezbollah guerrillas, and the Lebanese interior minister said Israeli forces detained 350 Lebanese soldiers and police in their garrison in the southern city of Marjayoun. Israeli denied the report.
With fighting in its fifth week and Israeli troops closer to Beirut than at any time since the war began, reports emerged of progress toward unlocking the stalemate on a United Nations cease-fire resolution. At the United Nations, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said there could be a vote by Friday.
"We've closed some of the areas of disagreement with the French," he said.
Prime Minister Fuad Saniora met twice Thursday with U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman, and a senior aide to the Lebanese leader, who spoke on the customary condition of anonymity, said new ideas for ending the fighting involved combining two envisioned resolutions into one overarching document.
A similar report arose in Israel where lawmaker Otniel Schneller, an adviser to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said the United Nations was at work on a new approach.
"A new proposal is being drafted, which has positive significance that may bring the war to an end," Schneller said.
Broadly speaking, a much debated U.S.-French plan called for establishing a cease-fire in one document, with a second and later resolution that would organize a peacekeeping force and outline details of the peace.
In other developments:
While Israel appeared braced for a prolonged conflict after leaders there authorized a major new ground offensive deeper into Lebanon, officials said they were temporarily holding back to give diplomats time to craft the cease-fire deal.
Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said the military would use "all of the tools" to cripple Hezbollah if diplomacy was not successful soon, but later Thursday he softened those remarks, perhaps in response to diplomatic progress.
"If we can achieve that by diplomatic means and are sure that there is an intention to implement that document, we shall definitely be in a position where the military operation has achieved diplomatic space and a new situation has been created here in the north," Peretz said.
Israeli ground troops took control of the mainly Christian town of Marjayoun before dawn and blasted away throughout the day at strongly fortified Hezbollah positions in several directions.
And Israeli soldiers worked their way through southern Lebanese neighborhoods, breaking through earthworks and looking through the basements of homes where Hezbollah fighters hide with their weapons, reports CBS News correspondent Robert Berger.
A huge explosion rocked the center of the town and the surrounding countryside about sunset and a big fire could be seen raging from a vantage point in Ibl el-Saqi, about 2 miles to the east.
Lebanese Interior Minister Ahmed Fatfat told The Associated Press about 350 Lebanese soldiers and police garrisoned in the town were taken into custody. Residents said the Israelis also took over one building in the barracks, locked up the ammunition and weapons depot and took away the keys.
An Israel military spokeswoman denied the report, saying said troops arrived at a building in the town, where there were soldiers, police and refugees. The Israelis advised them to remain there for their own safety but was not detaining them by force.
"Nobody has been taken prisoner," she said, speaking on condition of anonymity because military rules did not allow her to make public comments.
Israel reported one of its soldiers was killed in Qleia, just south of Marjayou when Hezbollah guerrillas fired an anti-tank missile at a tank. Two soldiers were wounded. Hezbollah reported killing as many as 16 Israeli soldiers and destroying 18 tanks.
Two Israeli civilians died in Hezbollah rocket attacks, an Arab-Israeli mother and her young daughter in the village of Deir al-Assad. Israel reported 160 Hezbollah rockets landed during the day. On the Lebanese side the death toll was significantly lower than in recent days, with only four people killed, all of them civilians hit in Israeli air strikes. More than 800 people in Lebanon and Israel have died since fighting erupted — 715 on the Lebanese side and 121 on the Israeli side.
Israel suffered its worst one-day military losses on Wednesday, with 15 soldiers killed.
By taking Marjayoun the Israeli army was closer to Beirut than at any time since the fighting began 30 days ago. At the same time, the army was still within about 5 miles of the Israeli border. Marjayoun, which sits near major road junctions in the south, lies due north of Israel's Galilee panhandle that juts north into Lebanon.
Marjayoun was used as the command center for the Israeli army and its allied Lebanese militia during an 18-year southern Lebanon occupation that ended in 2000. The high ground around Marjayoun, including the village of Blatt, overlook the Litani River valley, one of the staging sites for the relentless Hezbollah rocket assault on northern Israel.
In Beirut, Israeli warplanes blanketed the downtown area with leaflets that threatened a "painful and strong" response to Hezbollah attacks and warned residents to evacuate three southern suburbs. Other warnings dropped from planes said any trucks on a key northern highway to Syria would be considered targets for attack.
Earlier, missiles from Israeli helicopter gunships blasted the top of a historic lighthouse in central Beirut in an apparent attempt to knock out a broadcast antenna for Lebanese state television.