Israeli Strikes Bury Dozens In Rubble
Israeli air strikes on two villages in south Lebanon on Friday flattened two houses, and 57 people were reported buried in the rubble, Lebanese security officials and the country's official news agency reported. The number of dead was not immediately known.
Meanwhile, three Hezbollah rockets hit near the Israeli town of Hadera, about 50 miles south of the Lebanon border, police said. It's the furthest south the rockets have hit so far. No casualties were reported.
The Israeli air strikes hit a building in Aita al-Shaab, 1 mile inside Lebanon, Lebanon's National News Agency reported on Friday night. A large number of civilians were inside at the time, but the exact number was unknown, it said.
Lebanese security officials said the number of occupants was around 50, and that they were still buried in the rubble there. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Warplanes also hit Taibeh, about 3 miles from the Israeli border, destroying a house where 17 people had taken refuge, the agency reported. It said an unknown number of people were killed, and several others were wounded.
In Jerusalem, the Israeli military press office said it was checking the reports. A spokesman said that residents had repeatedly been warned to leave the area for their own safety.
In other developments:
Israel expanded its pounding of Hezbollah positions across Lebanon Friday with missiles targeting bridges in the Christian heartland north of Beirut for the first time. A top U.N. aid official said air strikes on the main north-south highway risked cutting off Lebanon's "umbilical cord" to the world.
Four civilians were killed and 10 wounded in the air raid, the Lebanese Red Cross said. A Lebanese soldier and four civilians were also killed in air raids near Beirut's airport and southern suburbs, security officials and witnesses said.
Four Israeli missiles also slammed into a warehouse where farm workers were loading vegetables near the Lebanon-Syria border, killing at least 28, according to officials at the Syrian hospitals where the dead and wounded were taken.
The Lebanese and Kurdish farm laborers were in a field in a strip of no-man's land along Lebanon's eastern border with Syria, foreman Rabei al-Jabali said.
The broadened bombing came as Hezbollah hammered Israel with more than 120 rockets, killing three people.
Another rocket crashed into a house in the Arab village of Mughar, near the town of Tiberias, killing a 26-year-old woman and seriously wounding a second person, police said.
Later, rockets hit the Arab villages of Majdel Krum and Dir el-Assad, killing a man in each, police said.
By Friday, police said more than 2,400 missiles had landed in Israel, destroying property and scorching vast swathes of forests and fields in the most intensive fire to hit the country since its independence in 1948.
Aid workers in Lebanon said Israel's bombing of several bridges north of Beirut was a major setback to international efforts to bring supplies to hard-hit areas of the country, reports CBS News correspondent Robert Berger. Israel said the bridges were destroyed to prevent Syria from rearming its ally Hezbollah.
"This is Lebanon's umbilical cord," Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Program said. "This (road) has been the only way for us to bring in aid."
A convoy that was meant to carry supplies and emergency personnel to Beirut is now stuck, she said, and U.N. teams have so far been refused permission to assess the damage caused by the bombing. She added that U.N. trucks might be able to take secondary roads, but this would slow down aid shipments.
Portugal put a cargo plane at the U.N.'s disposal, which will fly food and medicines from Italy to Beirut once a day for four days. Israel has given permission for these flights to start immediately, said Berthiaume. A Greek boat will ferry supplies from Italy, starting Saturday, she said.
An Israeli army spokesman, Capt. Jacob Dallal, said Israel targeted the bridges to stop the flow of weapons from Syria.
Lebanese President Emile Lahoud accused Israel of waging a "war of starvation" against Lebanon.
"The Israeli enemy's bombing of bridges and roads is aimed at tightening the blockade on the Lebanese, cutting communications between them and starving them," Lahoud said in a statement.
He said Israel was trying to pressure Lebanon to accept its conditions for a cease-fire, which include Hezbollah's ouster from a swath of south Lebanon to put an international force in place.
Fierce fighting continued along the border, and Hezbollah said in a statement broadcast by the group's Al-Manar TV station that guerrillas had killed several Israeli soldiers near the villages of Aita al-Shaab and Markaba.
The Israeli army confirmed a Hezbollah anti-tank missile killed three soldiers and wounded two others in southeastern Lebanon.