Beirut – With no sign of a cease-fire soon, Israeli warplanes and artillery pummeled targets across Lebanon without letup Thursday, concentrating fire on the rocky border hills where Hezbollah fighters are entrenched.
The Israeli government called up thousands of reservists but decided against expanding its onslaught into a full-fledged invasion as some military officers suggested.
Undeterred after 16 days of attacks, Hezbollah militiamen again fired volleys of rockets into northern Israel, igniting a detergent factory and slightly wounding seven people.
More than 110 Hezbollah rockets landed across the north on Thursday, following the launch of more than 150 rockets on Wednesday. More than 1,400 rockets have landed in Israel since the conflict began.
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy called for a ministerial-level meeting of the U.N. Security Council by early next week to consider a cease-fire resolution designed to bring a halt to the bloodshed and begin negotiations on a permanent solution to the crisis.
But Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in Malaysia for a regional gathering, again insisted that a cease-fire would be of no use unless it was part of a comprehensive political solution.
“The key is the extension of Lebanese government authority throughout the country, the ability of the Lebanese government to control all forces, all arms in their country – there should be no militias – and that Lebanon can have the assistance of a U.N.-mandated international force,” Rice said.
With no hope for a swift truce coming out of Wednesday’s crisis meeting of senior officials in Rome, Lebanese braced for more fighting and continued destruction of the country’s freshly rebuilt infrastructure.
Officials warned that fuel was running short, with less than a week’s supply on hand and Israel so far refusing to authorize tankers to deliver oil.
Electricity was sporadic in downtown Beirut. The Israeli military continued to insist on convoy-by-convoy negotiations for delivery of relief supplies to the more than half a million refugees who have fled fighting in the south.
Israeli warplanes attacked a field of radio and television relay stations at Amchit, in the mountains 30 miles north of Beirut, and damaged equipment belonging to the national television and radio broadcasting company, according to soldiers at a nearby army base.
But it was in the south where the airstrikes rained most heavily, particularly around the town of Bint Jbail, where eight Israeli soldiers were killed Wednesday in a Hezbollah ambush. A ninth was killed on a nearby mountain road when Hezbollah gunmen opened fire on an Israeli patrol between Bint Jbail and the nearby village of Maroun al-Ras.
Fighting continued inside the town, which has long been known as a Hezbollah stronghold, said Brig. Gen. Shuki Shachar, deputy commander of Israel’s northern forces, who briefed reporters at regional headquarters in Safed.
The Lebanese government estimated that more than 430 Lebanese have been killed since the conflict erupted after Hezbollah guerrillas captured two soldiers during a raid into northern Israel on July 12.
Hezbollah rockets and missiles have killed 18 Israeli civilians during the same period. Thirty-three Israeli soldiers have been killed.
