Israel pounds Lebanon as world urges restraint

BEIRUT: Israeli warplanes struck at the heart of Hezbollah's power base in pre-dawn raids on Friday after a day of relentless attacks on Lebanon that left about 50 people dead and ignited fears of a regional war.   

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had ordered the army to intensify the offensive against Lebanon after a barrage of rockets hit towns in northern Israel, including the Mediterranean port city of Haifa, killing two people. 

In a wave of strikes early Friday, Israeli jets pounded Hezbollah's command headquarters in Beirut's Shiite-dominant southern suburbs, a power station, bridges and a Palestinian guerrilla base in eastern Lebanon.   

Lebanon was virtually cut off from the outside world after Israel imposed an air and sea blockade on its northern neighbour, forced the closure of the country's only international airport with a wave of attacks that damaged runways and sent fuel tanks up in flames, and bombed the main highway to Syria.   

World powers have issued urgent calls for calm after the deadliest violence between Israel and Lebanon in a decade opened up a dangerous new front in the Middle East conflict after a massive Israeli onslaught against Gaza.   

Washington said Israel, its closest Middle East ally, had the right to defend itself but urged restraint while several European powers openly criticised the scale of the Israeli offensive as disproportionate.   

Envoys from the United Nations and the European Union are being urgently despatched to the region to try to defuse the escalating crisis while the Security Council is to meet on Friday and Arab foreign ministers on Saturday.   

Israel has pointed the finger of blame at Syria and Iran, saying its two arch-foes formed an "axis of terror" along with Hezbollah and Palestinian militant group Hamas, the target of its offensive in the Gaza Strip.   

The latest crisis was triggered when Hezbollah guerrillas seized two Israeli servicemen in a deadly attack on the volatile Lebanon-Israel Wednesday, leading to Israel's first ground incursion since it withdrew in 2000.   

The abduction came less than three weeks after a similar raid by Palestinian militants, including members of the ruling Islamist movement Hamas, on the Gaza border that resulted in the capture of an Israeli corporal.   

An Israeli cabinet minister also threatened to eliminate Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, its military mastermind who has said the two captured soldiers would only be released in a prisoner exchange.   

"Nasrallah decided his own fate," Interior Minister Roni Bar-On said. "We will settle our accounts with him when the time comes."   

In a sign the Lebanon assault was far from over, Olmert authorised the army "to press on with its operation and hit more targets" after a late-night meeting with top defence officials.   

At least 46 civilians in Lebanon, including children and whole families, were killed in wave after wave of Israeli strikes Thursday that hit the airport, Hezbollah targets and areas across southern Lebanon.   

After a barrage of rocket attacks against towns in northern Israel that left two dead and 50 injured, two rockets fired from south Lebanon also penetrated deeper than ever inside Israel, hitting its third largest city of Haifa.   

Hezbollah, which has threatened to avenge the "massacres" of Lebanese by Israel, denied however that it was involved the Haifa attack.   

UN chief Kofi Annan's personal representative to Lebanon, Gier Pederson, said he was "highly alarmed by Israel's heavy attacks and escalation" while   Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas warned of the risk of "regional war."   

US President George W. Bush also said that Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, who was forced to end 29 years of military domination in Lebanon last year, should be held to account over the escalation of violence.   

He said Israel had the right to defend itself but also said that "whatever Israel does should not weaken" the Lebanese government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora.   

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, already locked in an international standoff over its suspect nuclear programme, warned that Israel would receive a "stinging response" from the Islamic world if it committed any aggression against Syria.   

Regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia however indirectly accused Hezbollah of "adventurism" for its capture of the Israeli soldiers, the kingdom's official news agency reported, saying "these elements... risk putting in danger all the Arab countries".   

With Lebanon's airport shut and Israeli blockading its ports, thousands of tourists, mostly Gulf Arab nationals, fled across the border to Syria and a number of foreign governments issued travel warnings.   

In northern Israel the army ordered about half a million Israelis in northern towns into bomb shelters fearing more rocket strikes.   

Lebanon has been mired in its own political crisis since the murder of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri in 2005 and is still rebuilding after the devastating 1975-1990 civil war.   

The Lebanese government -- which includes two Hezbollah ministers but is led by anti-Syrian politicians -- denied any involvement in the Hezbollah action and demanded a "complete and immediate ceasefire"."   

Israel also pressed on with its air assault on Gaza but withdrew ground troops from the centre of the territory after the United States vetoed a UN resolution calling on Israel to halt its military operations there.   

The air force carried out at least two overnight raids, hitting the house of a Hamas MP, while ground artillery and naval gunboats pounded the territory.   

At least 76 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier have been killed since Israel launched its assault on Gaza, which the United Nations has warned is causing a humanitarian crisis in one of the most densely populated areas on earth.   

Israel has launched air strikes almost nightly in Gaza since late June in a bid to stop rocket attacks and secure the release of an Israeli corporal captured on June 25 by three groups including the armed wing of Hamas -- which is branded a terrorist movement by Israel and the West.