LEBANON: Hizbollah's leader vowed to turn southern Lebanon into a graveyard for Israeli troops while Israel continues shelling the country

Israeli forces pushed deeper into some parts of south Lebanon on Wednesday (August 9, 2006) despite fierce resistance from Hizbollah guerrillas, Lebanese security sources said. Al Arabiya television reported four Israeli soldiers had been killed in a rocket attack in the village of Aita al-Shaab. Al Jazeera said a total of 11 soldiers were killed in the fighting. The security sources said they believed several soldiers were killed when guerrillas blew up a booby-trapped house that an Israeli unit had entered near the village of Debel, 5 km (3 miles) from the border. The Israeli army had no immediate comment. The battles raged before Israel's inner cabinet approved an expansion of the ground offensive. Israel already has about 10,000 soldiers in the south. Meanwhile a defiant Hizbollah chief vowed on Wednesday (August 9) to turn south Lebanon into a "graveyard" for invading Israeli troops, hours after the Jewish state ordered an expanded ground offensive. You will not be able to stay in our land, and if you come in, we will force you out, we will turn our precious southern land into a graveyard for the occupying Zionists," said Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in a televised speech shown on Hizbollah's television station. Nasrallah said four weeks of Israeli bombardment had not weakened the guerrilla group's rocket capabilities and called on the Arab residents of Haifa to quit the Israeli city to avoid being hurt by its barrages. Nasrallah, whose group waged guerrilla attacks instrumental in ending Israel's 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000, said that the United States was trying to impose Israeli demands on Lebanon through the draft resolution. Lebanon has presented a seven-point plan that demands the immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops from south Lebanon, the deployment of U.N. and Lebanese forces in the south, the return of the displaced and the disarmament of Hizbollah. Nasrallah said the Shi'ite Muslim group supported a unanimous decision by the Lebanese government, which includes a Hizbollah minister, to deploy 15,000 troops to the border if that aided Lebanon's calls for the resolution to be amended. Hizbollah, which largely controls Lebanon's southern border with Israel, has long resisted international pressure on Lebanon to deploy the Lebanese army to the south instead. Nasrallah said his group had so far destroyed 60 Israeli tanks and dozens of Israeli bulldozers and armoured vehicles. There has been no immediate word on the outcome of talks between U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Welch and Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, that took place earlier on Wednesday (August 9). Welch arrived in Beirut on an unannounced visit to meet with Siniora, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh as diplomats at the United Nations continued to argue over a resolution that might end the war.

ITN Source | August 10, 2006

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