Middle East conflict escalates

Fighting escalated in Lebanon over the weekend and into this week. The intensification of the conflict, with Israel repeatedly bombing Beirut and southern Lebanese targets as Hezbollah fired rockets deep into Israel, came as international leaders appeared to be deeply split over how to respond to a crisis that threatens to spill over into a full-scale war involving Syria and Iran as well as Israel, Palestine and Lebanon. Israel stepped up its military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon on July 15 with a series of air strikes that left more than 35 civilians dead that day, including a single strike on a convoy of families fleeing the fighting in a village near Tyre in the south of the country that killed more than 20 people, most of them children. Scores of people were killed on July 18 as Israel broadened its military offensive in Lebanon while also launching raids into the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. At least 65 Lebanese civilians were killed in Israeli air strikes, raising the death toll of Lebanese civilians to at least 293 since the offensive began last week. Meanwhile, 25 Israelis have died, 13 of them civilians. Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, after declaring that his country was in a "state of catastrophe," called on the international community to immediately call for a ceasefire to "end the Israeli onslaught" which had caused "unimaginable losses." Top-ranking Israeli military officials have suggested the operation would last at least two more weeks. In other developments on July 18, two Israeli soldiers died and nine were wounded during clashes with Hezbollah on the Lebanese side of the border near the coastal town of Naqoura.One Hezbollah militant was killed during the Israeli raid, aimed at finding weapons and tunnels. In the southern Lebanese village of Srifa, where at least 12 died and 30 more were wounded in an Israeli air strike, the mayor told al-Arabiya television that a "massacre" had taken place. "There are dozens dead and massive destruction," he said. "Emergency services are putting out fires, they cannot reach the houses to recover bodies." Outside Srifa, at least 29 other civilians were reported killed in air strikes on other parts of south and east Lebanon. Further north, Israeli jets hit Hezbollah's south Beirut stronghold and the Shweifat area outside the capital. Six people were killed when a missile struck a neighborhood in the southern Lebanese town of Nabatieh. The target was a commercial office of a firm belonging to Hezbollah, but those killed were residents. Three family members and a Sri Lankan maid were killed by a missile that struck the southern market town, police and hospital officials said. At least nine Palestinian fighters were also killed in Israeli military operations as the violence escalated in Gaza and the West Bank. Five of the militants were killed after Israeli tanks entered the Mughazi refugee camp in central Gaza and one was killed in an air strike. In the West Bank city of Nablus, three fighters died when Israeli troops surrounded a prison where wanted militants were thought to be hiding. At least 107 Palestinian policemen were detained in the operation. Eighteen people, including nine children, died on July 15 when an Israeli helicopter gunship hit their minibus as they fled from their village near Shamaa in the southern border region. A further three people were killed in an attack on the Masnaa crossing into Syria and three more near a bridge at the Syrian border. Hanady Salman, of the Lebanese daily As-Safir, circulated an email containing gruesome photographs of child victims of Israeli attacks. "I am almost certain these pictures won't be published in the west," she wrote. "These are people who were asked to leave their village... within two hours, or else." According to witnesses, an Israeli missile incinerated a car and a small truck full of families leaving their Lebanese border village of Marwaheen near Tyre after the Israeli army used loud speakers to tell residents they had just hours to go. Pictures showed charred bodies of children strewn across the road. Rockets fired by Hezbollah killed three people, including two children, on July 19 in the northern Israeli city of Nazareth and wounded 18. Al-Arabiya television said the victims were Israeli Arabs. Hezbollah television said three Israeli soldiers were killed and 10 wounded in clashes on the Lebanese-Israeli border. Israeli air strikes on Hezbollah militants in Lebanon had destroyed about half of the militia's arsenal, a senior Israeli military figure said. The size of Hezbollah's arsenal and ground troops is largely a matter of speculation. Speaking defiantly in an audiotape on Hezbollah's Al-Manar television less than an hour after missiles struck his headquarters and home, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah addressed Israelis and said they must take responsibility for their actions. "You wanted an open war, and we are heading for an open war," he said. "We are ready for it." Nasrallah's address on July 14 ended with the news that Hezbollah had hit an Israeli naval vessel off the Lebanese coast, which might be relatively insignificant in military terms, but had a massive psychological impact. Both Israel and the US continue to link Hezbollah's uprising with its Iranian and Syrian allies. Iran last week denied that it was supplying Hezbollah with weapons to use against Israel and dismissed accusations that its troops had helped the group launch recent attacks. But a foreign ministry spokesman, Hamid Reza Asefi, appeared to warn that Iran would act if Israel expanded its operations to include Syria, Tehran's close ally. "Expanding the front of aggression and attacks... would definitely face the Zionist regime with unimaginable damages," Asefi said. "If the occupying regime of Jerusalem attacks Syria, it will be equivalent to an attack on the whole Islamic world and...[Israel] will face a crushing response" Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying. The Iranian leader called on Muslim countries to create a united front against Israel. Separately, the spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry, Hamid Reza Asefi, denied Israeli allegations that the captured Israeli soldiers were being transferred to Iran. Some Western analysts say Iran sees the Lebanon crisis as a way to remind Washington of the vulnerability of US allies and interests if the administration seeks United Nations sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear ambitions. On July 13, Israel said it had information that Hezbollah guerrillas were trying to transfer the soldiers to Iran, apparently to prevent Israeli troops from rescuing them. Humanitarian crisis continues to unfolding in Lebanon As bombs continue rain down on southern Lebanon, a humanitarian crisis is unfolding, as civilian casualties mount and thousands either fled their homes or found themselves trapped. As the civilian death toll nears 300, the people displaced by the Israeli bombings is in the hundreds of thousands. At least 1,000 civilians have been wounded. In a televised address on July 18, Lebanese Prime Minister Siniora said his country badly needed international humanitarian aid, adding that there were 500,000 displaced Lebanese people, shortages of food and medical supplies, and the hospitals were crippled, he said. "I hope you won't let us down," Siniora said in a televised appeal. In Beirut, where Israel has dropped leaflets from the air urging residents to leave the teeming suburbs controlled by Hezbollah, schools are being overwhelmed as families set up temporary homes in classrooms. Hundreds of others are sleeping out in the open. Outside Beirut, there is no such help and people are having to fend for themselves. Many cannot leave because roads are impassable, and those who do escape face the risk of being attacked. Israel initially said it was bombing roads to prevent the two soldiers captured by Hezbollah from being moved, but observers say it is mainly trying to prevent Hezbollah transporting its weapons, which are often hidden in isolated places. International response mixed G-8 leaders meeting in Russia last weekend urged Israel to show "utmost restraint" and blamed Islamic militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas for igniting the escalating crisis. The annual summit of the eight major powers set aside other world problems to urgently address Israel's punishing attacks in Lebanon and Hezbollah's missile strikes on civilian targets in Israel. The leaders concluded that the violence was triggered by the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah guerrillas in a raid from Lebanon, and by Hamas's rocket attacks in Gaza and the abduction of a third Israeli soldier. "These extremist elements and those that support them cannot be allowed to plunge the Middle East into chaos and provoke a wider conflict," the G-8 leaders said in a statement. Forged in delicate negotiations, the statement represented a consensus by the leaders of the United States, Russia, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan. But the wording allowed leaders to read the document in different ways, reflecting varying alliances by summit partners with players in the Middle East and conflicting views over whether Israel was using excessive force. French President Jacques Chirac said "it is evident that the G-8 is calling for a cease-fire." Not so, said the United States. "There was no push by any country for a cease-fire," said Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs. Chirac, often at odds with Bush, told the president that they "share the same views of the issues at stake here" and called for implementation of Security Council resolution 1559, which requires the disarming of Hezbollah and other militias in Lebanon. Bush also got support from British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who said the only way to halt the hostilities was to acknowledge that extremists are trying to block peace between Israel and the Palestinians. "There are also extremists backed, I'm afraid, by Iran and by Syria, who want to disrupt the positions in Lebanon and who want to create a situation of tension and hostility there." Russian President Vladimir Putin, host of his country's first G-8 summit, called the declaration "a compromise formulation that in my mind is quite balanced." UN envoys were expected to suggest deploying Lebanese troops in southern Lebanon and enlarging an international force in the region to try to end the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. The proposals will be presented to the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, in New York after talks this week between the envoys and senior Israeli and Lebanese officials. Annan announced on July 17 plans to deploy as many as 2,000 UN troops. The United States, in the process of removing what it estimates to be 5,000 to 6,000 of the roughly 25,000 US civilians in Lebanon, has remained mostly on the sidelines during the latest Middle East crisis US officials have echoed the Israeli government's contention that it has, to this point, used restraint, targeting primarily Hezbollah targets. The US government's position has been to support Israel's right to defend itself, while condemning Hezbollah. The US also criticized Syria and Iran for the alleged role in the crisis. Government officials have repeatedly denied the US was playing any role in setting a timetable for Israeli action. International sources told the British Guardian newspaper this week that the Bush administration had given Israel a one-week window to attack Hezbollah before it would join international calls for a ceasefire. The United States has to this point refused to endorse calls for a cease-fire, saying that must be accompanied by constraints on Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria and Iran. With fighting threatening to spread further, some Middle East experts say Washington's hands-off policy has only made matters worse.