Beirut – Israel imposed a full naval blockade on Lebanon on Thursday and put Beirut’s international airport out of commission, and the militant group Hezbollah unleashed a hail of rockets and mortar shells that killed two and sent thousands of Israelis into bomb shelters.
A day after cross-border raids by Hezbollah fighters brought Israeli troops into Lebanon in force for the first time in six years, Israel sent punishing airstrikes deeper into the country, hitting all three runways at Rafik Hariri International Airport, two Lebanese army bases and Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television station. Beirut police said three people were killed and dozens wounded in Israeli airstrikes on the capital today.
Explosions from at least seven missiles were heard and anti- aircraft fire echoed as Israeli jets roared over Beirut.
Israeli warplanes bombed the main highway between Beirut and Damascus, Syria, early today. Police and witnesses said other strikes targeted a fuel- storage tank and southern suburbs where Hezbollah has its political headquarters.
The Lebanese government said 53 Lebanese had died since Wednesday, including one family of 10 and another of seven in the southern village of Dweir. More than 103 have been wounded, the Lebanese said.
Lebanese residents hoarded canned goods and batteries as lines at gas stations stretched for blocks. Supermarkets and bakeries were flooded. It felt, many said, as if the civil war that ended 15 years ago were back.
Israel said the Lebanese government was responsible for the actions of Hezbollah, which is a member of the governing coalition, and that the cross- border raid that captured two Israeli soldiers Wednesday was an unprovoked act of war by a neighboring state.
Senior Israeli officials said the military had been freed up to cut off Lebanon, permanently drive Hezbollah forces back from the border and punish the government for not upholding a U.N. directive to disarm and control the group.
Israel’s military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, warned that “nothing is safe” in Lebanon and that Beirut itself, especially Hezbollah offices and strongholds in southern Beirut, would be a target.
Hezbollah fired more than 120 Katyusha rockets and mortar shells into Israel on Thursday, Israeli officials said.
The barrage killed a woman on her balcony in Nahariya and a man in Safed and wounded more than 100 other Israelis in some 20 towns and villages, including Haifa, Safed and Carmiel.
Hezbollah said it was using a new rocket, the “Thunder 1,” more advanced than the standard Katyusha.
Thousands of Israelis in the north spent the night in bomb shelters as Hezbollah warned that Israeli attacks on southern Beirut would be met by rocket attacks on Haifa, a port city of 250,000 people 18 miles from the international border. Thursday evening, two rockets landed near the city’s Stella Maris Church.
The rapid surge in fighting on a second front, two weeks after Israel entered Gaza to try to secure the release of another captured soldier, alarmed Arab and Western governments and drove up the price of oil.
The European Union on Thursday criticized Israel for “the disproportionate use of force” in Lebanon “in response to attacks by Hezbollah on Israel,” according to a statement issued by the union’s current Finnish presidency.
It said that “the imposition of an air and sea blockade on Lebanon cannot be justified.”
The Israeli military said it struck the airport because it is “a central hub for the transfer of weapons and supplies to the Hezbollah terrorist organization.”
President Bush, in remarks in Germany, said that “Israel has the right to defend herself,” but he also called for care, warning Israel not to weaken the government in Lebanon.
“There are a group of terrorists who want to stop the advance of peace,” Bush said. “The soldiers need to be returned.”
The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, warned that Israel’s Lebanon offensive “is raising our fears of a new regional war” and urged world powers to intervene.
The Lebanese government, which has said that it had nothing to do with the raid by Hezbollah, called for a cease-fire.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.