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Many Lebanese families were buried under the rubble of what used to be their homes. (Reuters)
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TYRE, Lebanon — At least 55 Lebanese civilians
were killed an d scores others were wounded in fresh Israeli air
strikes across Lebanon in the early hours of Wednesday, July 19, as
the occupation army said it was conducting a limited ground assault
across the Lebanese border.
Twenty-one Lebanese civilians were killed and 30
others wounded in Israeli attacks on Srifa village in southern
Lebanon, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoting police sources.
"Fighter-bombers and helicopters carried out a
series of raids lasting two hours between 1:00 am and 3:00 am (2200
GMT-midnight Tuesday) on the same sector in the centre of the village,
part of which was completely destroyed," one resident told AFP by
phone.
Israeli gunboats also took part in the attack on
the village, which is about 30 kilometers northeast of the southern
port city of Tyre.
"At least 10 houses were destroyed," said
the eyewitness.
In Salaa, another village near Tyre, ten members of
a family were buried in the rubble when their home was completely
destroyed during another Israeli air raid early Wednesday, police
said.
"The raid by an Israeli fighter-bomber
completely destroyed the two-storey house which collapsed onto its
occupants, a family of ten, who are almost certainly dead," a
Lebanese police officer said.
Six people, a Lebanese woman and her three
children, a Sri Lankan and a Sudanese national, were killed in an
Israeli raid on the central town of Nabatiyeh in southern Lebanon,
police said.
Six civilians, members of the same family, were
killed in an Israeli strike on a four-story building in the village of
Nabi Sheet, near the eastern city of Baalbek, they added.
Five more civilians were killed in a raid against a
number of trucks near Maarabun, near Baalbek, according to police.
Israel has so far killed more than 300 Lebanese, all
but 14 of them civilians, and inflicted the heaviest destruction in
Lebanon for two decades, with attacks targeting ports, roads, bridges,
factories and petrol stations.
Hizbullah responded by attacking a naval vessel off
Beirut and firing hundreds of rockets at northern Israel, killing 25
people, 13 of them civilians.
Targeting Aid
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"We have no time limitations…It will take as long as it takes," said Olmert. (Reuters)
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With international aid tickling in, Israeli
warplanes continued to target trucks loaded with nothing but aid
supplies war-ravaged Lebanese civilians.
Four lorries destroyed by Israeli air raids near
the Christian town of Zahle in Lebanon's Bekaa valley on Tuesday, July
18, were carrying nothing but medicines and food provisions, an AFP
correspondent witnessed.
An Israeli military spokesman claimed the lorries
had been carrying arms, munitions and explosives from Syria bound for
Hizbullah fighters in the Bekaa valley
An AFP journalist saw that one of the lorries was
transporting medicine from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Another had been carrying vegetable oil, which
spilled over the road, a third had a cargo of provisions and the
fourth was empty.
The UAE has denounced the Israeli bombardment of
one of their humanitarian convoys.
Meanwhile Turkish diplomats in Beirut said that a
Turkish truck carrying cooking oil was also destroyed by Israeli fire
in the Bekaa valley on Tuesday.
The Israeli military carried out at least six
attacks on lorries in the Zahle area, police said.
"Israel is clearly trying to disrupt daily
life for the Lebanese, to isolate Bekaa from the rest of the country
and to cut the supply lines to the Hizbullah," one police officer
said.
Ground Troops
In what can signal a new strategic development in
the seven-day conflict, the Israeli army said Wednesday its troops
were conducting a limited ground assault across the Lebanese border to
carry out "pinpoint" raids against alleged Hizbullah
positions.
"Our forces have been operating since this
morning over our border with Lebanon," a military source told AFP.
"These are limited and pinpointed actions
aimed at eliminating the threat of Hizbullah near the border," he
added.
"The forces are penetrating into Lebanon and
pulling out when their mission is accomplished... We're not talking
about any large-scale incursion."
Israeli army General Alon Friedman claimed they had
destroyed around 50 percent of the rocket and missile supplies of the
Lebanese resistance group.
During a surprise visit to Haifa, a frequent target
of Hizbullah's retaliatory rocket attacks, Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert
has stressed that there was no time limit to his onslaught on Lebanon.
"We will not end this operation only to be
forced to resume it in two months time. We have no time
limitations."
Olmert said the offensive would continue until the
two soldiers taken prisoner by Hizbullah to trade for Lebanese
detainees in Israeli jails were freed.
"It will take as long as it takes."
