Breaking News: Israel, Lebanon, & Palestinians

[WSUCougar]

Getting even more nasty over there right quick. Rocket attacks, gunships, flames in Beirut. Escalation.

[WSUCougar]

CNN.com

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israeli forces struck Beirut's international airport for the second time Thursday, hitting fuel tanks that exploded into fireballs.

The attack came soon after two rockets struck the northern Israeli port of Haifa on a day of spiraling violence and deepening crisis.

Israel Defense Forces said the Haifa rockets came from Lebanon and blamed the strike on Hezbollah, whose guerrillas triggered the violence when they attacked inside Israel on Wednesday, killing eight Israeli soldiers and capturing two more. (Watch as fighting along the border intensifies -- 1:45)

Daniel Ayalon, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, said the Haifa attack was "a major, major escalation."

Hezbollah earlier had threatened to hit Haifa, but Lebanese TV reported that the militant group denied launching the attack on the city of 280,000.

Ambulance services said no one was hurt in the attack, which -- if confirmed -- would be the first time Hezbollah rockets have hit so deeply into Israeli territory.

Earlier Thursday Israel's warplanes bombed Beirut's international airport for the first time and its navy began a blockade of Lebanon's ports.

Hundreds of targets from the border north to the capital were attacked, the IDF said.

Hezbollah guerrillas fired scores of rockets from Lebanon into northern Israel in the most intense bombardment in years.

Some 45 people and two soldiers have been killed inside Lebanon since Wednesday, the country's health ministry said, while the rocket attacks killed at least one woman in Israel in the wake of the initial violence that saw the Israeli soldiers killed and captured.

Lebanon also said 103 people were hurt by the Israeli attacks, The Associated Press reported, while the IDF said 90 people had been injured by the rockets hitting Israel.

One rocket attack Thursday on the northern Israeli town of Nahariya hit a group of journalists, the AP said.

Both Israel and Lebanon have said the violence amounts to acts of war.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called the attacks and abductions an "act of war" and blamed the Lebanese government, which he said would be held responsible for the two soldiers' safe release.

Lebanese Interior Minister Ahmed Fatfat called Israel's retaliatory attack on Beirut airport a "general act of war," saying the strikes had nothing to do with Hezbollah but were instead an attack against the country's "economic interests," especially its tourism industry.

Beirut's Rafik Hariri International Airport was forced to close after Israeli fighter jets hit all three of its runways, leaving huge craters that made them unusable. All flights have been diverted.

Two other Lebanese airports were attacked Thursday morning, the IDF said.

The Israeli military gave no details, but Lebanese army sources said that the Rayak Air Base in the Bekaa Valley near the Syrian border had been hit as well as a small military airport in Qulayaat in northern Lebanon.

Israel said it targeted the international airport because it was a transfer point for weapons and supplies to Hezbollah.

Israeli warships were stationed off all of Lebanon's ports to enforce the naval blockade, Reuters news agency reported.

Lebanese Information Minister Ghazi Aridi called for a comprehensive cease-fire, saying the Lebanese government had nothing to do with the Hezbollah attacks.

After Israel's airport strike, planes began dropping leaflets warning residents of an impending attack on an area of southern Beirut where Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is believed to live.

Israel: 'We mean business'
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Thursday he fears a "regional war is mounting" with Israel's military campaigns in Lebanon and Gaza, where forces were deployed after last month's capture of an Israeli soldier.

"This is not our interest and will not bring peace and stability to the region," Abbas said, referring to "this [Israeli] aggression."

President Bush said all countries had a right to defend themselves but warned Israel to take care not to "weaken" Lebanon's government. (Full story)

Bush also stressed during a visit to Germany that Syria "needs to be held to account."

Hezbollah enjoys substantial backing from Syria and Iran and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and Israel. The group holds posts in Lebanon's government.

Israeli Security Cabinet Minister Isaac Herzog said: "We are taking strong measures so that it will be clear to the Lebanese people and government ... that we mean business."

The United Nations will send a team to the Middle East to urge both sides to use restraint, a spokesman for Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Thursday.

The Security Council will hold an "urgent meeting" Friday at the request of Lebanon to address escalating the tensions, France's U.N. ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere said Thursday.

Captives named
Israeli airstrikes were aimed at targets used by Hezbollah for storing weapons, the IDF said.

Warplanes also hit al-Manar television station because Hezbollah uses it to incite and recruit activists, the IDF said. A broadcast tower was destroyed and three people injured, but the station was able to continue broadcasting, al-Manar editor Ibrahim Moussawi said.

Israel's Cabinet authorized a "severe and harsh" response to the abduction of two soldiers, named Thursday as Ehud Goldvasser, 31, from Nahariya, and Eldad Regev, 26, from the Haifa suburb of Kiryat Motzkin.

Hezbollah called for a prisoner exchange but, as in Gaza, Israel has rejected the call.

Hezbollah chief Nasrallah told reporters that seizing the soldiers was "our natural, only and logical right" to win freedom for Hezbollah prisoners held by Israel.

Nasrallah said the two soldiers had been taken to a place "far, far away" and that an Israeli military campaign would not win their release.

More than 70 Katyusha rockets have hit Israel in the past 24 hours, the IDF said.

Missiles critically injured one person and hurt at least 10 others in Safed, about 13 miles (20 kilometers) from the Lebanese border, which local officials said not been hit by Hezbollah rockets since 1972.

Also in northern Israel, a woman was killed and 15 people hurt in a rocket attack in Nahariya, and at least 38 people were injured when rockets hit the Arab village of Carmiel, Israeli ambulance services said.

[A-Husker-4-Life]

The radio station WLS in chicago was calling this the early beginnings of WW3... thoughts..????

[Franklinnoble]

Yeah... the rockets into Haifa are a big deal. Not just to Israel. Lots of American companies have a presence there. Including mine.

[Dutch]

So, what was the problem with carpet bombing as an air power strategy again?

[Franklinnoble]

Do we have bombers that can "carpet bomb" anymore? I thought everything was precision-strike these days...

[Klinglerware]

Originally Posted by A-Husker-4-Life

The radio station WLS in chicago was calling this the early beginnings of WW3... thoughts..????

Who are they suggesting as the players/sides in this so-called global conflagration?

[WSUCougar]

Originally Posted by Dutch

So, what was the problem with carpet bombing as an air power strategy again?

Huh???

[chinaski]

this world sucks, can I have a new one please?

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by Franklinnoble

Do we have bombers that can "carpet bomb" anymore? I thought everything was precision-strike these days...

Well, it's easy to convert a B-52 into a platform that can drop gravity bombs. And we actually did some carpet-bombing techniques in Afghanistan. But our B-52 fleet has been reduced so much that we can't really carpet bomb anymore. (read: Vietnam Era=900 B-52s and Gulf War II era = 100 B-52's)

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Franklinnoble

Yeah... the rockets into Haifa are a big deal. Not just to Israel. Lots of American companies have a presence there. Including mine.

Ain't like Israel didn't think that was going to happen.

[Klinglerware]

Originally Posted by Dutch

So, what was the problem with carpet bombing as an air power strategy again?

Countervalue with air-power alone isn't an effective, or cost-effective, means of coercion, if that is the goal.

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by WSUCougar

Huh???

Carpet Bombing IRT

The radio station WLS in chicago was calling this the early beginnings of WW3... thoughts..????

[WSUCougar]

Ah.

[bronconick]

Here's a reason to fall over in shock.

hxxp://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=newsOne&storyID
=2006-07-13T220037Z_01_L13880815_RTRUKOC_0_US-MIDEAST-LEBANON-SAUDI.xml

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia on Thursday blamed "elements" inside Lebanon for the violence with Israel, in unusually frank language directed at guerrilla group Hizbollah and its Iranian backers.
"A distinction must be made between legitimate resistance and uncalculated adventures undertaken by elements inside (Lebanon) and those behind them without recourse to the legal authorities and consulting and coordinating with Arab nations," a statement carried by the official news agency SPA said.
"These elements should bear the responsibility for their irresponsible actions and they alone should end the crisis they have created."

[WSUCougar]

Wow...just wow.

[ISiddiqui]

Well, it isn't like Saudi Arabia is friendly with Iran, who Hizbollah is an arm of. I think they'd like to see the end of Syrian attempts to influence Lebanon as well.

[Buccaneer]

Not just S.A. but other moderate Arab states as well (Egypt and Jordan). The hard-liners said that they must be in league with the Zionists. That's not surprising as the Arab world is getting fed up with the militant hard-liners. I predict this will not amount to much at all, unlike the morons on radio in Chicago.

[Vegas Vic]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Well, it isn't like the Saudi royal family is friendly with Iran, who Hizbollah is an arm of.

FYP

[ISiddiqui]

What's the difference in this situation? When a news report says "Saudi Arabia said", who exactly do you think they are talking about? The guy on the street?

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Not just S.A. but other moderate Arab states as well (Egypt and Jordan). The hard-liners said that they must be in league with the Zionists. That's not surprising as the Arab world is getting fed up with the militant hard-liners. I predict this will not amount to much at all, unlike the morons on radio in Chicago.

Well it is pretty dumb on the whole. Hezbollah, after all, had their own state and were being left alone by Isreal and decided to be idiots and kidnap an Isreali soldier for kicks (actually I think it was to stir shit up to get a "Wag the Dog" effect to get the country to rally around them... or to get Syria to come back to power in Lebanon). It's a far different animal than even Palestinian actions, who don't really have their own 'indepedant state' (Isreal has too much sway to call Palestine that, really).

[Galaxy]

Should merge this thread with the other one.

[Izulde]

All I've got to say right now is, no matter how this turns out, Lebanon's infrastructure is gonna be fucked for quite a while.

[DaddyTorgo]

so the syrian ambassador says "israeli and palestinian/lebanese people are equal" yet thinks "3 israelis for thousands of imprisoned palestinian/lebanese" is "a fair deal"

umm...you can't have your cake and eat it too idiot

it's one-for-one if the two people are equal dipshit

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by chinaski

this world sucks, can I have a new one please?

The world itself is pretty nice, it's just some of the people. For example, Safed, one of the cities mentioned in the article, is a beautiful city. Just this weekend, as I was moving, I found some candles I bought there (the town is famous for its candles) about ten years ago.

I know what you meant, but I just wanted to take this opportunity to change the thread topic from bombs to candles.

[Izulde]

According to cnn.com's headline news story, Lebanon's PM is essentially begging Bush to push Israel for a ceasefire.

Smart move, in my opinion. It's pretty well-known the government can't even contain Hezbollah, let alone stand a chance against Israel, so might as well try and save as much of country and face as possible by appealing directly to the one nation that might have enough clout to get in Israel's ear about it.