Israeli raids cutting off Lebanon’s lifeline By Sam Ghattas
Irish Examiner 05 August 2006
ISRAEL’S pounding of Hezbollah positions across Lebanon expanded yesterday, with missiles targeting bridges in the Christian heartland north of Beirut.
More than 50 Lebanese people are reported to have been killed in yesterday’s attacks.
A top UN aid official said air strikes on the main north-south highway risked cutting off Lebanon’s “umbilical cord” to the world.
Four civilians were killed and 10 wounded in the air raid, the Lebanese Red Cross said.
A Lebanese soldier and four civilians were also killed in air raids near Beirut’s airport and southern suburbs, security officials and witnesses said.
Four Israeli missiles hit a warehouse where farm workers were loading vegetables near the Lebanon- Syria border, killing at least 23 people, said Ali Yaghi, a Lebanese civil defence official at the scene.
At least 17 others were wounded and more were likely buried under rubble, he said.
The Lebanese and Kurdish farm labourers were in a field in a strip of no-man’s land along Lebanon’s eastern border with Syria, foreman Rabei al-Jabali said. Casualties were taken to a hospital in Syria, because roads in Lebanon were cut off by earlier air strikes.
The broadened bombing came as Hezbollah hammered Israel with rocket fire, a day after Hezbollah’s leader offered to stop the attacks if Israel ends its air strikes.
Israel’s United Nations ambassador Dan Gillerman said that Sheik Hassan Nasrallah’s offer of a truce was “a sign of weakness … and he may be looking for a way out”.
Mr Gillerman warned against Hezbollah threats to launch rockets on Tel Aviv.
“We are ready for it, and I am sure that he [Nasrallah], as well as his sponsors, realise the consequences of doing something as unimaginable and crazy as that,” he told CNN.
The destruction of four bridges on the main north- south coastal highway linking Beirut to Syria further sealed Lebanon from the outside world, as the Israeli naval blockade — along with earlier strikes against the road to the eastern boarder and the capital’s international airport — have largely closed off other access points.
The strikes against the northern highway hindered efforts to get relief supplies into Lebanon, international aid agencies said yesterday.
“This is Lebanon’s umbilical cord,” Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Programme said. “This [road] has been the only way for us to bring in aid.”
A convoy, meant to carry supplies and emergency personnel to Beirut, is stuck, she said, and UN teams have so far been refused permission to assess the damage caused by the bombing.
She added that UN trucks might be able to take secondary roads, but this would slow down aid shipments.
Lebanese President Emile Lahoud said the strikes showed Israel was waging a “war of starvation” against Lebanon.
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