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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Israel prepares invasion

Benjamin Harvey Associated Press

ON THE ISRAEL-LEBANON BORDER – Israel massed tanks and troops on the border Friday, hours after calling up reserves, as the army announced plans for a ground operation to destroy Hezbollah’s tunnels, hideouts and weapons stashes.

With Hezbollah’s rocket attacks and Israeli bombings undiminished, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she would visit the Middle East beginning Sunday, but she ruled out a quick cease-fire between Israel and the Shiite guerrillas as a “false promise.”

Israel, which pulled its troops out of Lebanon just six years ago after a lengthy and costly occupation that caused painful divisions within the Jewish state, was poised to carry out its third large-scale ground operation in Lebanon since 1978. This time, however, the Israelis signaled they did not want to stay long.

Israel hopes the operation will end in the neutralization of Hezbollah. But the operation carries great risks for the country and the region. If Lebanon’s weak central government is undermined, it could immerse the country again into disorder and ignite fresh passions in many Arab countries against Israel and the United States.

On Friday, the Israeli army confirmed that small units have been operating in Lebanon for days. An official from the U.N. monitoring force in south Lebanon said 300 to 500 Israeli troops were believed to be in the western sector of the border, backed by as many as 30 tanks – a likely precursor to a larger ground force that Israel could use to sweep Hezbollah from the area.

Israel wants to weaken Hezbollah with a limited ground operation to make it easier for the Lebanese army to move into areas previously controlled by the guerrillas, possibly with the aid of a beefed-up international peacekeeping force, a senior military official said.

On Friday, Israel knocked out a key bridge on the road to Syria and pummeled Hezbollah positions in the south as long lines of tanks and armored personnel carriers lined up at the border – in some places within sight of Lebanese houses.

A barrage of 11 Hezbollah rockets rained down again on Israel’s third-largest city, the northern port of Haifa, wounding at least five people, two seriously. The army said rockets also hit Rosh Pina, Safed and communities near the Sea of Galilee.

Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets at northern Israeli towns from north of the Lebanese border, killing 16 civilians and forcing hundreds of thousands of Israelis to flee repeatedly into bunkers.

Rice plans meetings in Jerusalem and the West Bank with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, as well as sessions in Rome with representatives of European and moderate Arab governments that are meant to shore up the weak democratic government in Lebanon’s capital, Beirut.

“We do seek an end to the current violence, we seek it urgently. We also seek to address the root causes of that violence,” Rice said – a reference to the U.S. position that Hezbollah must not be allowed to rule southern Lebanon with impunity. The group’s capture of two Israeli soldiers on July 12 touched off Israel’s heaviest bombardment of Lebanon in 24 years.

In south Lebanon, soldiers buried 72 people killed in recent bombings in a mass grave just outside a barracks in the city of Tyre. Volunteers put the bodies, many of them children, in wooden coffins and spray-painted the names of the dead on the lids.

Ships lined up at Beirut’s port as a massive evacuation of Americans and other foreigners picked up speed. U.S. officials said about 5,000 Americans were leaving Friday, bringing the total evacuated to more than 8,000. About 3,600 had left, but it wasn’t immediately clear if a ship carrying the remaining 1,400 had left port. Roughly 25,000 Americans were in Lebanon when the fighting began.

France, the United Nations and Red Cross painted a dire portrait of life for civilians trapped in the south or forced to flee their homes there. They demanded Israel open humanitarian corridors to allow shelter, food, water and medicine to reach the swelling numbers of displaced people – an estimated half-million.

At the United Nations, Israeli Ambassador Dan Gillerman said he expected a humanitarian corridor for food, medicine and other supplies to be opened later Friday or today.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan told CNN that the conflict had created 700,000 refugees, most of them remaining in Lebanon, where the destruction has made access and treatment difficult. “I’m afraid of a major humanitarian disaster,” he said.

Responding to a U.S. request, Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said French aid would be allowed into Lebanon’s port of Sidon.

U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland told the U.N. Security Council that “it is estimated that Beirut only has days of fuel supplies remaining.”

The Lebanese health ministry reported 362 deaths so far, an increase of 55 since it released figures Thursday. Thirty-four Israelis have been killed, including 18 soldiers and an air force officer killed Friday in the collision of two helicopters.

Al-Arabiyah television reported that Israeli troops found the body of a fellow soldier in south Lebanon who was killed in clashes the day before in which four other soldiers died.

The count of 362 includes six Hezbollah fighters that the group has confirmed were killed, including three who died Friday. Israel’s army chief of staff said Friday that nearly 100 Hezbollah guerrillas have been killed in the offensive in Lebanon.

The Lebanese toll was expected to rise with heavy Israeli strikes on Friday in Shiite regions of the country’s south and east. In the southern towns of Nabatiyeh and Aytaroun, buildings were leveled – including one on a commercial street – killing at least one person. But rescue crews were too afraid of the continuing waves of strikes to search for more dead or wounded trapped in the rubble.