Israel bombed Hizbollah's stronghold in Beirut and civilian targets in east and south Lebanon on Sunday, hours after seizing a strategic Lebanese frontier village.
By Lin Noueihed
MARJAYOUN, (Lebanon): Israel bombed Hizbollah's stronghold in Beirut and civilian targets in east and south Lebanon on Sunday, hours after seizing a strategic Lebanese frontier village.
At least seven blasts echoed across Beirut as jets roared over the southern suburbs. Strikes destroyed a Shi'ite centre in Sidon, wounding three people.
A least 12 strikes in the eastern Bekaa Valley destroyed three factories, a house and several bridges, starting large fires and killing at least one civilian and wounding two.
Another civilian died in a raid on a south Lebanon village. Israel's 12-day-old onslaught in Lebanon to cripple Hizbollah has claimed 357 lives, mostly civilians. Hizbollah attacks and rockets have killed 35 Israelis.
Israeli aircraft repeatedly bombed the Haret Hreik neighbourhood in south Beirut, flattening scores of buildings, many of them used by the guerrilla group.
An Israeli general said soldiers took control on Saturday of Maroun al-Ras, a hilltop village overlooking both sides of the border, where six Israeli commandos have been killed in heavy fighting this week.
Israel's Army Radio said Defence Minister Amir Peretz had decided early on Sunday to continue with the current military incursions into southern Lebanon close to the border.
The Israeli Army found the body of a soldier who went missing last week during fighting in south Lebanon.
Envoys from three European countries hold talks in Israel later on Sunday ahead of the arrival of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a new round of diplomacy aimed at ending the fighting.
Cyprus braced to take in nearly 10,000 more fugitives from Lebanon as the United Nations urged international donors to send aid swiftly to the far greater numbers of people left behind.
About 14 crowded vessels were expected at the Cypriot ports of Larnaca and Limassol over the next 30 hours or so, part of a days-old mass evacuation involving dozens of countries from India to Sweden that shows no sign of slowing.
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