The Associated Press
Israel Hammers at Lebanese Infrastructure
By HAMZA HENDAWI and LEE KEATH
Associated Press Writers
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) -- Israeli warplanes pummeled Lebanese infrastructure Monday, killing at least 17 people. Hezbollah patron Iran said a cease-fire and a prisoner swap were possible, and the international community signaled willingness to send peacekeepers to back a diplomatic solution.
The militant Islamic group, meanwhile, fired rockets that flew farther into Israel than ever before, while Israel said it had briefly sent ground forces into southern Lebanon for the first time in its six-day-old offensive in escalating violence.
Western leaders stepped up efforts on the diplomatic front, with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan calling for the deployment of international forces to southern Lebanon. President Bush bluntly expressed his frustration with the actions of Hezbollah, suggesting Syria could use its influence with the guerrillas.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow would consider contributing troops, and the European Union announced it was weighing a peacekeeping force as well.
Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said a cease-fire and a prisoner swap would be "an acceptable and fair" deal to resolve the conflict.
"In fact, there can be a cease-fire followed by a prisoner swap," he said after talks with Syrian Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa.
On Sunday, Lebanese officials said Israel had sent the terms of a possible cease-fire through Italian mediators. The terms were the release of two captured Israeli soldiers, and a Hezbollah pullback to roughly 20 miles from the Israeli-Lebanese border.
Iran and Syria are the principal sponsors of Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group that provoked the current fighting when its guerrillas crossed into northern Israel last Wednesday and captured two Israeli soldiers.
Katyusha rockets landed in the town of Atlit, about 35 miles south of the border and some five miles south of the port city of Haifa. Nobody was hurt in that attack, which came a day after Hezbollah rockets killed eight people in Haifa, making that Hezbollah's deadliest assault on Israel.
Hezbollah guerrillas also fired three rounds of rockets at Haifa on Monday, with one destroying a three-story building and wounding at least two people, Israeli medics said, adding that other victims could be trapped in the rubble.
A Lebanese TV station showed video of an object falling to the ground in the Jamjour district near the Hezbollah stronghold of southern Beirut, but the Israeli army said reports that it was an Israeli aircraft were false.
Israeli planes and artillery guns killed 17 people and wounded at least 53 others in overnight attacks against Lebanon, Lebanese security officials said as the death toll from the conflict rose to more than 200 - 196 in Lebanon, according to the officials, and 24 in Israel.
Israel said its planes and artillery struck 60 targets in Lebanon overnight as its military responded to the barrage of 20 rockets on Haifa, the country's third-largest city, and one that had not been hit before the current round of fighting began July 12.
Government spokesman Asaf Shariv said Israeli ground troops entered southern Lebanon to attack Hezbollah bases on the border, but rapidly returned to Israel after conducting their military operations.
Israel also kept up pressure in the Gaza Strip as it searched for a captured soldier, bombing the empty Palestinian Foreign Ministry building for the second time in less than a week in what it said was a warning to the ruling Hamas party.
Israel launched the offensive on June 25 after Hamas-linked militants carried out a cross-border attack on a military outpost, killing two soldiers and capturing one other. Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas joined the fray last week, attacking a military patrol in northern Israel, killing eight soldiers and capturing two others.
Israeli officials accused Syria and Iran of providing Lebanese guerrillas with sophisticated weapons, saying the missiles that hit Haifa had greater range and heavier warheads than those Hezbollah had fired before.
Speaking on the margin of the Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, Blair said the fighting would not stop until the conditions for a cease-fire were created.
"The only way is if we have a deployment of international forces that can stop bombardment coming into Israel," he said.
Annan appealed to Israel to spare civilian lives and infrastructure. The G-8 nations, who had struggled to reach a consensus on the escalating warfare between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, have expressed concern on the "rising civilian casualties" and urged both sides to stop the violence.
Bush expressed his frustration in a discussion with Blair before the G-8 leaders began their final lunch.
"See the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this s--- and it's over," Bush said. He also suggested that Annan call Syrian President Bashar Assad to "make something happen."
Foreigners continued to flee and several nations drew up plans to get their citizens out. Russia sent an airliner to Jordan on Monday, and Britain also airlifted 40 of its citizens from Lebanon over the weekend and another group was taken out on Monday. A French ship was due to arrive in the port later Monday to evacuate Europeans.
In their raids on Beirut Monday, Israeli planes killed two people in the harbor and started a large fire that was later extinguished.
The Israeli jets also set fire to a gas storage tank in the northern neighborhood of Dawra and another fuel storage tank at Beirut airport, sending plumes of smoke billowing into the sky. The airport has been closed since Thursday, when Israeli jets blasted its runways.
Israeli missiles also blasted southern Beirut, causing three explosions that shook the city. The targets were not immediately clear, but Hezbollah has a host of offices, clinics, schools, social clubs and the homes of its leaders in the southern suburbs.
Elsewhere in Lebanon, Israeli planes again hit the Beirut to Damascus highway, which has been targeted as part of a strategy of severing Lebanon's links to the outside world. Monday's attacks struck the highway in the eastern Bekaa Valley and killed two people.
In another attack, eight Lebanese soldiers were killed when Israeli aircraft attacked a small fishing port at Abdeh in northern Lebanon near a highway leading to Syria. Witnesses and security officials said 12 Lebanese soldiers were wounded in the attack.
The Israeli military warned residents of south Lebanon to flee, promising heavy retaliation after the Haifa assault.
In one airstrike on southern Lebanon early Monday, an Israeli missile missed its apparent target - a Hezbollah site - and hit a private house, killing two people, according to security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Hamza Hendawi reported from Beirut. Lee Keath reported from Damascus, Syria.
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