Israel and Hezbollah Widen Strikes; Civilians Bear Brunt

Israeli airstrikes hit central Beirut for the first time Saturday and cross-border rocket barrages struck deeper inside Israel, reaching the previously unscathed city of Tiberias as the confrontation between Hezbollah guerrillas and the Jewish state spiraled toward all-out war.

Fueling fears that the conflict could spill over into regional strife, Israeli officials asserted that Iranian personnel had helped fire a missile Friday that crippled an Israeli naval vessel off the coast of Lebanon and killed at least three sailors. Israel and the United States have accused Iran, Hezbollah’s chief patron, of bearing ultimate responsibility for the Shiite Muslim militant group’s actions.

With diplomacy yielding little fruit, Israeli forces and Hezbollah traded heavy blows for a fourth day. Israeli warplanes pounded targets across Lebanon, killing dozens of people, including fleeing families, and demolishing more infrastructure and Hezbollah offices.

The planes swooped in off the Mediterranean on Saturday afternoon to attack grain silos, ports and a lighthouse near the American University of Beirut. Massive clouds of smoke billowed into the sky over the coast; eerily quiet streets in the capital grew even more deserted as night fell.

Civilians on both sides bore the brunt of the violence. In southern Lebanon, an Israeli airstrike killed at least 15 people fleeing the fighting, 12 of them children. Lebanese officials said more than 100 people had been killed in the four days of airstrikes. Four Israeli civilians and 11 military personnel have died.

Two rocket barrages hit the Israeli resort city of Tiberias, injuring eight people and sending sunbathers fleeing from the shores of the Sea of Galilee.

The strike, the first rocket attack in Tiberias since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, heightened Israel’s anxiety that many of its urban centers, including the densely populated outskirts of Tel Aviv, are now within range of Hezbollah’s weapons.

At least 90 rockets fell Saturday across northern Israel, pushing the total since the fighting broke out to more than 400, the Israeli military said. Tens of thousands of northern Israel’s 750,000 people are spending much of their time in bomb shelters or at home, venturing out only to stock up on supplies. Many others have sought refuge in the south.

Even some Orthodox Jews, whose religious precepts forbid them to drive on the Sabbath, climbed behind the wheel Saturday to escape the rocket fire.

In the northern town of Carmiel, residents abandoned an apartment building shortly before it took a direct hit.

“They left in time and were saved. There is the proof,” neighbor Yair Bomler told Israel’s Channel 2, gesturing toward the rubble.

The fighting was triggered by a cross-border raid Wednesday in which Hezbollah killed eight Israeli soldiers and captured two.

Israel declared the raid an act of war by Lebanon, whose leaders say they are powerless to rein in the militant group, which is also a partner in the government. In by far the strongest statement to emerge from the Lebanese administration -- largely silent during the last four days -- Prime Minister Fouad Siniora implored the international community to save his country from ruin.

“We call for an immediate cease-fire backed by the United Nations,” an impassioned Siniora said at a news conference Saturday evening in Beirut.

In a counterweight to the enraged declaration of war issued the previous night by Hezbollah chief Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, Siniora spoke with despair of civilian suffering.

“Destruction is raining down around the clock,” he said.

The Arab League said after an emergency meeting in Cairo that the peace process had failed in the Middle East, and it called on the U.N. Security Council to intervene.

Israel has asserted that Iran is a driving force behind Hezbollah’s attacks. On Saturday, Israeli officials made their most specific allegation yet of such involvement, saying an Iranian military or technical team helped Hezbollah fire an Iranian-made radar-guided missile to strike the Israeli warship.

“We have particular knowledge that they assisted them,” a senior military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official said more than 100 Iranian troops, including members of the elite Republican Guard, were in Lebanon and assisting Hezbollah.

In a statement issued by its embassy in Beirut, Iran denied having troops in Lebanon or playing any role in the warship strike. State television in Iran said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad condemned the Israeli offensive. “The Zionist regime behaves like Hitler,” it quoted him as saying.

The attack on the Israeli ship left three sailors dead and one missing. The ship had been helping enforce the Israeli blockade of the Lebanese coast begun Thursday; it returned to Israel under escort Saturday.

Israel said the use of a sophisticated C-802 missile showed that the world had been too slow to recognize the threat posed by Iran’s arming of Hezbollah.

“We’ve seen that Hezbollah isn’t a bunch of guerrillas with Kalashnikovs. It is a very powerful terror movement with an infrastructure that has been built up over the years,” said Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry. “They have some very advanced weaponry, and the truth is that we haven’t seen all their weaponry in action yet.”

Israel deployed antimissile batteries near Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city. The equipment can’t provide protection against the Katyusha rockets being fired at northern Israel. Rather, military officials said they were meant to guard against surface-to-surface missiles possessed by Syria, another patron of Hezbollah.

At the Group of 8 summit of industrialized nations in Russia, President Bush urged Syria to “exert influence” to rein in Hezbollah.

Israel says Syria is not a target of the offensive. When an Israeli airstrike hit close to the Syrian border Saturday, Israeli commanders quickly put out word that military activity was within Lebanese territory and accused Hezbollah of falsely reporting otherwise.

“We recognize clear signs of Hezbollah seeking to entangle the Syrians in the tangle they themselves have entered,” Maj. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, head of the army’s operations branch, said at a briefing in Tel Aviv. “Their expectation is to bring the Syrians into this equation.”

In Lebanon, the latest airstrikes hit heavily Shiite neighborhoods in Beirut’s southern suburbs, the Bekaa Valley and villages along the Israel-Lebanon border.

Civilians killed as they fled the southern town of Marwaheen were apparently leaving on Israeli orders. The group included 12 children, and images of their bodies were shown on Lebanese television. Troops had used loudspeakers to warn people to evacuate, panicked residents said in calls to TV stations.

The Israeli military said the intended target had been Hezbollah rocket-launching sites, and it expressed regret over civilian casualties.

Lebanese officials said more than 100 people have been killed and hundreds wounded. Except for two Hezbollah casualties, virtually all of the dead are civilians, they said.

Amid fears of a prolonged conflict, several European countries began to evacuate citizens. The U.S. Embassy in Beirut is investigating ways to help Americans get to Cyprus, an embassy spokeswoman said.

Thousands of Americans are trapped in Lebanon, she said, and the embassy doesn’t have enough phone lines to accommodate all the fearful callers.

Israeli military officials, meanwhile, again sought to prepare the country for a lengthy confrontation.

“We have to be ready for some more days, perhaps more than that -- perhaps weeks -- to face this reality,” Eizenkot said.

The onslaught in Lebanon coincides with an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip that began more than two weeks ago. That incursion also was launched after the capture of an Israeli soldier, and in the wake of Palestinian militants’ persistent rocket attacks on Israeli towns near the Gaza border.

On Saturday, Israel bombarded the Palestinian Authority Economics Ministry, the third ministry of the Hamas-dominated government to be targeted by airstrikes. Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh’s office has also been hit.

A Hamas militant was reported killed Saturday. More than 85 Palestinians, most of them militants but about a third of them civilians, have been killed since the offensive was launched June 28.

Israeli troops and armor moved into the northern Gaza Strip for the second time since the start of the incursion, and two Palestinians were reported killed in clashes early today.

King reported from Jerusalem and Stack from Beirut. Times staff writer James Gerstenzang in Strelna, Russia, and special correspondent Rania Abouzeid in Beirut contributed to this report.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Widening strife

The death toll in the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel topped 100, as dozens of Lebanese died amid Israeli airstrikes on infrastructure and other targets. Hezbollah continued to fire rockets at Israel, and the Israeli military put the number at more than 400 since the fighting began Wednesday. Recent developments:

Lebanon

Beirut: City center is struck for the first time, including the port area and a lighthouse. Hezbollah headquarters in the Hrat Hreik neighborhood is destroyed. The airport remains closed.

Nationwide: Israeli attacks spread, hitting ports as far north as Tripoli, including Amchit and Jounie. To the east, the homes of Hezbollah leaders in Baalbek and Rayak are attacked. Near the southern village of Marwaheen, an airstrike kills at least 15 people, 12 of them children, as they attempt to flee.

Beirut-Damascus highway: Airstrikes take out the last remaining bridge, over the Litani River.

Israel

At least 90 rockets fall on northern cities, including Tiberias for the first time since the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Israel accuses Iran of providing military or technical personnel to help Hezbollah fire a missile that hit an Israeli warship Friday.

Gaza Strip

Airstrikes hit the Palestinian Economics Ministry in Gaza City. Israeli troops and armor enter the northern Gaza Strip for the second time since that offensive began June 28.

Estimated deaths

Lebanon: 106, mostly civilians.

Israel: 15, four civilians and 11 military personnel.

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Sources: Associated Press, Reuters, Israel Defense Forces, BBC, ESRI, GlobeXplorer (2001)