Israeli bombing blitz kills 16 in Lebanon

BEIRUT: Israeli fighter jets bombed houses, bridges and roads across Lebanon on Monday, killing at least 16 civilians, as military commanders vowed to expand the massive offensive in the face of faltering international efforts to broker peace.

 

The deadly raids came as Arab foreign ministers met in the war-ravaged Lebanese capital, with no signs of a let-up in almost four weeks of a conflict that has killed well over 1,000 people.           

 

At least one Israeli soldier was also killed in fierce battles with Hezbollah guerrillas around a flashpoint border town, after Israel suffered its heaviest single-day death toll on Sunday with 15 killed in rocket attacks.           

 

Top Israeli officials warned they would continue the offensive to cripple the fundamentalist Shiite Muslim Hezbollah movement regardless of any ceasefire negotiated at the United Nations.   

 

The UN Security Council had been expected to adopt a resolution by Tuesday, but diplomats said they could no longer say when a vote would take place after Lebanon objected to the text and demanded revisions.           

 

Arab foreign ministers began meeting in closed-door session with Lebanon's Prime Minister Fuad Siniora who has proposed an alternative seven-point plan to bring a halt to 27 days of warfare.         

 

As day broke over the capital, Israeli fighter-bombers pounded Hezbollah's stronghold in the southern suburbs with bombs and air-to-ground missiles, sending huge clouds of black smoke into the air over districts that had already been largely reduced to rubble.          

 

Warplanes also struck houses in villages around Sidon, the main city in the south, bombed roads linking the region with Syria, including the highway leading to the main border crossing, and hit targets in the Bekaa Valley.         

 

At least 16 civilians were killed, and in one southern village television pictures showed workers hacking with axes through the rubble and twisted metal struts of a house in a bid to find survivors or recover corpses.    

 

The road to Syria, one of the few ways out of Lebanon for people trying to flee, has been knocked out repeatedly as Israel maintains a blockade that has left the country almost completely isolated from the outside world.              

 

The southern port city of Tyre, which like Sidon has been swollen by an influx of people fleeing from outlying villages, was cut off from the rest of the country by Israeli bombardments against roads and a makeshift bridge, witnesses said.             

 

Israeli troops were also engaged in clashes with Hezbollah in a bid to eradicate the Shiite fighters from the border area and halt rocket attacks that killed 15 people on Sunday alone, the deadliest single day for Israel.         

 

The army said one soldier was killed in fighting with Hezbollah around the border town of Bint Jbeil -- the scene of the fiercest ground combat of the conflict, bringing to 59 the number of military personnel killed.         

 

Another 36 civilians have been killed in a barrage of Hezbollah rocket fire from across the border since the offensive began on July 12. Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,000 people in Lebanon, wounded more than 3,300 and driven more than 915,000 -- close to a quarter of the population -- from their homes, according to official tolls.      

 

But with world powers unable to agree on a resolution to end the bloodiest cross-border fighting in a quarter century, Israel vowed it would plough on until it crushed Hezbollah.        

 

"We are continuing operations to clean up southern Lebanon and to meet the goals we have set ourselves, regardless of any possible ceasefire," said the commander of Israel's northern military region, General Alon Friedman.         

 

His comments were echoed by Public Security Minister Avi Dichter, who said the "number one objective is to stop the rocket fire."        

 

"(The army) has not been given any time limit to achieve this goal," he said, warning that operations will continue "with no regards to a ceasefire as long as the objective is not achieved."    

 

Meanwhile, the UN Security Council is debating a ceasefire resolution drafted by France and the United States which calls for a "full cessation of hostilities" and the deployment of an international force in a buffer zone in south Lebanon.