Hezballah offices in Beirut attacked

NY Times:

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A day after cross-border raids by Hezbollah fighters brought Israeli troops into Lebanon in force for the first time in six years, Israel sent punishing airstrikes deeper into the country, hitting all three runways at Rafik Hariri International Airport, two Lebanese Army bases. Early on Friday, it struck Hezbollah offices in south Beirut and the main highway between the capital and Damascus, Syria, and later, Reuters reported, a base for pro-Syrian Palestinian guerrillas a few miles from the Syrian border.

The Lebanese government said 53 Lebanese civilians had died since Wednesday, including one family of 10 and another of 7 in the southern village of Dweir. More than 103 have been wounded, the Lebanese said.

Lebanese residents hoarded canned goods and batteries as lines at gas stations stretched for blocks. Supermarkets and bakeries were flooded. It felt, many said, as if the civil war that ended 15 years ago was back.

Israel said that the Lebanese government was responsible for the actions of Hezbollah, which is a member of the governing coalition, and that the cross-border raid that captured two Israeli soldiers on Wednesday was an unprovoked act of war by a neighboring state. Senior Israeli officials said that the military had been unleashed to cut off Lebanon, permanently drive Hezbollah forces back from the border and punish the government for not upholding a United Nations directive to disarm and control the group.

Israel’s military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, warned that “nothing is safe” in Lebanon and that Beirut itself, especially Hezbollah offices and strongholds in southern Beirut, would be a target.

Hezbollah fired more than 120 Katyusha rockets and mortar shells into Israel on Thursday, Israeli officials said. The barrage killed a woman on her balcony in Nahariya and a man in Safed, and wounded more than 100 other Israelis in some 20 towns and villages, including Haifa, Safed and Carmiel. Israeli officials said it was the first time Haifa had been hit by rocket fire from Lebanon.

Hezbollah said it was using a new rocket, called Thunder 1, that is more advanced than the standard Katyusha, which does not have enough range to reach the 18 miles between the border and Haifa.

Thousands of Israelis in the north spent the night in bomb shelters as Hezbollah warned that Israeli attacks on southern Beirut would be met by rocket attacks on Haifa, a port city of 250,000 people. Thursday evening, two rockets landed near the city’s Stella Maris Church.

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The European Union on Thursday criticized Israel for “the disproportionate use of force” in Lebanon “in response to attacks by Hezbollah on Israel,” according to a statement issued by the union’s current Finnish presidency. It said that “the imposition of an air and sea blockade on Lebanon cannot be justified.”

The Israeli military said it struck the airport because it is “a central hub for the transfer of weapons and supplies to the Hezbollah terrorist organization.”

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The EU statement shows a profound ignorance of warfare and situational awareness of How Hezballah, a terrorist organization managed to get over 10,000 rockets into position to launch attacks on Israel. It is a pretty good bet they were not internally manufactured, but were instead imported from rogue state Iran and that they were brought into the country through its air or sea ports, so if you want to hinder the Hezballah war effort it only makes sense to cut off the supply lines that Lebanon failed to cut. I suspect that the Israel attack on Hezballah infrastructure in Beirut is only beginning.