4 Children Die in Lebanon as Israel Targets Ambulance

In a grisly attack that cast a darker shadow over Israel’s military campaign against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, Israeli forces pounding the country for a third day Saturday rocketed an ambulance packed with refugees, killing two women and four children.

The attack came as Israel stepped up its campaign against Hezbollah fighters by imposing a partial naval blockade on Lebanon--raising anxieties in this capital city that gasoline and food shipments might be impeded.

The ambulance attack, witnessed by journalists at a U.N. checkpoint five miles south of the port city of Tyre, enraged television viewers in Lebanon and undercut Israeli assertions that its offensive has been limited to strongholds of the Shiite Muslim guerrillas and has been carried out with surgical precision.

In the Israeli drive to avenge cross-border rocket attacks by Hezbollah guerrillas, a campaign dubbed “Operation Grapes of Wrath,” more than 3,000 shells and rockets have rained down on nearly 50 towns and villages in southern Lebanon. At least 25 people have been killed, mostly civilians, and more than 85 have been wounded, Lebanese media and police officials reported.

Posing a humanitarian crisis for the Lebanese government, 200,000 people have fled their homes to escape the pounding by tanks and howitzers in southern Lebanon. They have bedded down in schools, mosques and barracks or slept in parks or along roadsides.

Hezbollah retaliated late Saturday by firing a new salvo of Katyusha rockets at northern Israel, security sources in Lebanon told the Associated Press. Israel confirmed that seven rockets landed within northern Israel, causing no injuries or damage.

The leader of Hezbollah issued a call on his movement’s television station for a general mobilization of fighters, including volunteers to carry out suicide bombings against Israel.

“I call on all the suicide fighters to join their stations,” Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said. “These are the days when holy war and martyrdom are sweetest.”

Two other anti-Israel groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, also threatened suicide attacks.

While there were no signs of a break in the conflict, Israel’s Channel Two reported late Saturday that a diplomatic effort may be mounted involving the United States, Israel, Syria and Lebanon.

Any such attempt “should come as no surprise,” Israeli government spokesman Uri Dromi said, because the United States “seems to be the only power that can broker anything here.” But he could not confirm that any diplomatic moves were underway.

U.S. diplomats helped bring about an unofficial understanding between Israel and Hezbollah in 1993 after the last serious offensive by Israel in Lebanon. That fighting lasted seven days, killed about 130 people and forced 500,000 villagers from their homes.

Israel began its latest offensive Thursday, saying it was targeting Hezbollah installations in retaliation for a barrage of Hezbollah missiles fired at northern Israel on Tuesday that injured 36 people.

Increasingly, however, the Israeli tactics have seemed focused on the Lebanese government itself, with Jerusalem’s apparent message being: Shut down Hezbollah or suffer the chaos and panic of an ongoing mini-war that would scuttle Lebanon’s efforts to rebuild after its own civil war.

Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has said it would be political suicide for the government to clamp down on Hezbollah when the group is seen as heroic for resisting the 12-year Israeli occupation of a 9-mile-wide “security zone” in southern Lebanon.

But in the face of ongoing Israeli military action, Israeli Foreign Minister Ehud Barak said, “I believe that they will reappraise. It could take another 24 or 48 hours.”

Saturday’s attack on the ambulance came at a busy U.N. checkpoint south of Tyre where vehicles loaded with refugees streamed northward to escape the Israeli assault.

According to a Reuters reporter who saw the attack, the white Volvo station wagon, with red markings on its side and a siren and lights mounted on its roof, was rocketed by an Israeli helicopter without warning, the force of the blow flinging the vehicle 20 yards into a house.

“I want my sister! I want my sister!” screamed a girl who survived and raced from the wreckage. “Oh God, oh God.”

Of the six people killed, the Associated Press reported, three were sisters, ages 3, 6 and 7. Eight people were wounded.

Markings on the ambulance indicated that it belonged to a scout organization affiliated with Amal, Hezbollah’s main political rival among Lebanon’s Shiite population. Israeli Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Amnon Lipkin-Shahak conceded that one of his helicopter gunships had rocketed the ambulance but said the vehicle was believed to be carrying a Hezbollah activist.

“It will be conclusively proven the target was Hezbollah terrorists using the ambulance for their own means,” he said.

But televised scenes of the mangled bodies of the children in the wreckage and of hysterical survivors screaming in agony added fuel to the mounting rage in Lebanon against Israel.

“Everyone has a bad taste in his mouth,” said Beirut banker Anas Hibri, 48, who said Hezbollah fighters are waging “a legal and legitimate struggle” to get Israel off Lebanese land.

Israel’s campaign continued with more rocket attacks on southern Lebanon this morning.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Faris Bouez--who traveled to the Syrian capital, Damascus, with Hariri on Saturday to consult with Syrian President Hafez Assad--said Lebanon will ask the U.N. Security Council to condemn Israel even though the United States has indicated already that it would veto such a resolution.

Lebanon also will seek an emergency meeting of the Arab League, he said.

Israel’s naval blockade affects the ports of Beirut, Sidon and Tyre. Marwan Iskander, an economic advisor to Hariri, said Lebanon gets 60% of its food through the ports.

The Israeli army said the blockade will last “as long as necessary” to keep any arms from reaching Hezbollah by sea.

“If [the blockade] is maintained for any length of time, the cost of food in Lebanon will increase dramatically,” Iskander said. “They are trying to squeeze the government as much as they can.”

The blockade marks the first time since Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon that the Israeli navy has closed off the Beirut harbor.

Daniszewski reported from Beirut and Miller from Jerusalem.