Special Report:
New clash between Israeli, Lebanese
troops
An Israeli tank is on duty in a valley, three kilometers
south of the Israeli-Lebanese border, in northern Israel July 13, 2006.
Israeli army on Thursday massed toward the border with Lebanon to deal
with the escalating conflicts with the Lebanese Hizbollah. (Xinhua
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BEIRUT, July 13 (Xinhua) -- Israeli forces
intensified their retaliatory attacks in Lebanon Thursday and brought the death
toll to 55 civilians.
Israeli army is imposing a comprehensive blockade on
Lebanese air, sea and land in a response to Hizbollah's capture of two Israeli
soldiers on Wednesday morning.
A total of 55 Lebanese civilians, including children,
were killed in Israeli raids cross the country on Thursday, Hizbollah's
television channel al-Manar reported.
At Thursday morning, Israeli aircraft bombed runways
at Rafik Hariri International Airport, the country's only international airport,
forcing flights to divert to Cyprus. Later in the day, Israeli aircraft also
attacked two military airbases and gunboats fired shells at fuel tanks at Beirut
airport, witnesses said.
The Hizbullah's Al-Manar television station in the
group's stronghold in Beirut's southern suburb also hit by Israeli missile on
Thursday, wounding six people.
Meanwhile, Israeli Planes dropped leaflets in a
Beirut suburb, urging residents to stay away from Hizbollah offices, witnesses
said.
In order to retaliate for Israeli "massacres",
Hizbollah fired about 60 Katyusha rockets at Nahariya in northern Israel on
Thursday, killing a civilian and 21 others, al-Manar reported.
Israeli security sources said two Katyusha rockets
fired from Lebanon hit Israel's third largest city of Haifa Thursday evening,
while Lebanese Hezbollah denied launching rockets at the city. Earlier, another
rocket hit Israeli northern city of Safed. One woman was killed and 20 wounded,
one of them in critical condition, the sources said.
The deterioration of the situation has begotten
International concerns.
The United Nation's Security Council will hold an
emergency meeting for Friday to discuss the dangerous situation at
Lebanese-Israeli border area.
Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is sending
a three-person team to the Middle East to try to defuse the crisis. The European
Union and Russia criticized Israel's strikes in Lebanon as a dangerous
escalation of the Middle East conflict. Arab foreign ministers agreed to hold an
emergency meeting in Cairo on Saturday to discuss Israeli attacks in Lebanon and
the Palestinian territories. Enditem
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