LEBANON: Israel continues war against Hizbollah with more bombing as Lebanese PM says 900 are dead and one million displaced by the conflict

Israeli jets pounded Lebanon and troops battled Hizbollah guerrillas on Thursday (August 3) while world powers struggled for a plan to end a war which Beirut said has killed 900 people and wounded 3,000. Israeli jets bombed Hizbollah-dominated suburbs of Beirut for the first time in days and hit a bridge in the northern Akkar region, as well as targets in the eastern Bekaa Valley and roads near the Syrian border, a Lebanese security source said. Planes repeatedly bombed targets around the southern town of Nabatiyeh and shelling cut a road in the southern Bekaa Valley. Heavy Israeli air strikes and shelling also hit the area around the southern village of Blat, north of Marjayoun. Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said a third of the casualties in the 23-day-old conflict were children under 12. He said a million Lebanese, a quarter of the population, had been displaced and the country's infrastructure devastated. A Reuters tally put the death toll at 683 at least. Hizbollah, showing it can still fight after 23 days of Israeli bombardment, fired at least 70 rockets into Israel on Thursday, killing seven people. A record barrage of 231 missiles the previous day killed one person and wounded scores. Sixty-three Israelis have been killed in the conflict, including 39 soldiers, two of whom died in fighting on Thursday. A Lebanese security source said that 80 Hizbollah fighters had been killed so far -- well below the Israeli estimate of 300-400. Dozens of angry residents took to the streets of the southern Lebanese city of Tyre to demand more humanitarian aid and supplies as Israel's bombardment of the south entered its fourth week. Demonstrators protesting about shortages in medicine, food and drinking water blocked Tyre's main road as a truck carrying supplies arrived in the city. International agencies say they have been forced to delay sending aid to southern Lebanon because they cannot get security guarantees, but some began flowing into the country after Israel agreed to open a corridor. Israeli warplanes and artillery have devastated Lebanon's bridges and roads, particularly in the south where tens of thousands of civilians are believed still to be trapped for fear of air strikes. Two trucks carrying food and cleaning supplies arrived at in the southern town of Tyre on Thursday. The food and supplies were distributed at the Tyre secondary school where hundreds of people, fleeing their villages from fighting, are taking refuge. The convoy arrived in Tyre from Beirut after having secured safe passage from Israel and Hizbollah. On Wednesday, the International Committee for the Red Cross and the United Nations World Food Programme resumed deliveries to help some of the estimated one million people displaced by the violence. The U.N. said problems persisted on Wednesday. It sent two convoys, including one to Tyre, but a third to the southern border town of Rmaich had been blocked. The United States, France and Britain hope for a U.N. Security Council resolution within a week that would call for a truce and maybe strengthen existing U.N. peacekeepers until a more robust force can be formed, U.N. officials said. But splits between the United States and France, a possible leader of the new force, over the timing of a ceasefire have complicated diplomatic efforts to end the fighting. The U.S.-based rights group Human Rights Watch said Israel appears to have deliberately bombed civilians and some of its strikes are war crimes. It said Israel's contention that Hizbollah fighters were hiding among civilians did not justify its failure to distinguish between civilians and combatants.

ITN Source | August 4, 2006

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