OMEN
08-02-2006, 12:13 PM
http://www.news.com.au/common/imagedata/0,,5203574,00.jpg
Ghost towns ... All the able-bodied residents of Lebanon's southern towns have fled, including Australians, leaving everything they owned behind / Jeroen Lodder
AUSTRALIA is chartering a ship to evacuate its citizens who have made it to the relative safety of Beirut during a lull in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.
And it is warning any citizens who want to leave the country to get out now.
The ship is scheduled to leave Beirut tomorrow afternoon and is likely to be the last organised by the Government, as hostilities intensify in Lebanon after the expiry of a 48-hour limited reprieve on aerial bombardments by Israel.
Hezbollah guerrillas reportedly battled thousands of Israeli troops on five fronts in the south of Lebanon today, as tank-led Israeli forces closed in on Hezbollah-held territories.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) said a ship was due to leave Beirut tomorrow afternoon for Cyprus.
She urged citizens wanting to leave to take the opportunity because no further Australian evacuations were being planned.
Thirty Australians were evacuated from southern Lebanon yesterday ahead of the resumption of Israeli air strikes but officials remain concerned for the safety of an estimated 170 Australians trapped in the war zone.
The Australian embassy in Beirut took advantage of the reprieve to get more Australians out of the country's south.
"The Australian embassy has arranged for the evacuation of 30 Australians from southern Lebanon to Beirut, taking advantage of a temporary lull in activity," a DFAT spokeswoman said.
She said further evacuations from the area would be difficult once Israel resumed air strikes.
The latest Australians to escape the area are believed to have been rescued from the Lebanese towns of Tyre and Sidon.
They were taken to Beirut in cars, buses and taxis chartered by the Australian embassy.
DFAT revised down the number of Australians in southern Lebanon for whom it holds grave fears from about 200 to 170.
Meanwhile a rocket fired by Hezbollah guerrillas today has hit the Israeli town of Beit Shean, almost 70km from the border with Lebanon and the deepest a rocket has struck inside the Jewish state, Israel Radio said.
The army and police were checking the report.
Hezbollah has continued firing rockets despite an Israeli offensive aimed at stopping the attacks and recovering two captured Israeli soldiers.
Israeli forces have struck far deeper than previously into Lebanon today, while UN Security Council members struggled to overcome differences on how to end the three-week-old conflict.
Local police said helicopter-borne Israeli commandoes snatched five people in a raid on Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold close to Lebanon's eastern border with Syria.
Eleven civilians, one of them a Syrian, died in the attack, they said.
Israeli warplanes also destroyed two bridges in northern Lebanon, hours after the end of a 48-hour pause in air strikes, Lebanese police said.
They said the bridges were about 5km from the border with Syria, which Israel accuses of helping to supply the Shiite Hezbollah militia.
Israel had called a 48-hour partial halt to air attacks after a raid on the Lebanese village of Qana on Sunday which killed 52 civilians, most of them women and children.
In Tel Aviv an army spokeswoman said that, during today's raid on Baalbek, "several members of Hezbollah were hit while others have been taken prisoner and brought back to Israel".
She said all the Israeli troops involved in the raid had returned to their base. She gave no details on the numbers of Hezbollah casualties.
Hezbollah denied the claim, saying that "the citizens kidnapped in Baalbek are normal civilians".
A statement broadcast by Hezbollah's Al-Manar television said: "The Islamic Resistance announces that it has foiled an Israeli landing operation in Baalbek and denies that the enemy has captured any of its members."
A Hezbollah spokesman had earlier said that Israeli troops were surrounded after attacking Dar Al-Hikmeh hospital, which is run by the Islamic militant group, about 2km southwest of Baalbek.
The spokesman said all patients had been evacuated from the hospital on July 12, when Hezbollah fighters captured two Israeli soldiers during a deadly cross-border raid from southern Lebanon.
That operation prompted a huge Israeli offensive by air, land and sea in which more than 820 Lebanese and 50 Israelis have been killed, more than 3000 wounded and tens of thousands forced to flee their homes, according to various sources.
An Israeli government official said 400 Hezbollah fighters had been killed, in the past three weeks, a claim the militia denies.
Police in Lebanon's southern port city of Sidon said three Lebanese army soldiers were killed today in an Israeli bombardment of a nearby military base.
Ambassadors from the five permanent Security Council members appeared split over the timing of a ceasefire after holding what were described as "frank discussions" with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in New York.
The five - Britain, China, France, Russia and the US - were unable to agree on a resolution amid differences over the sequence of any ceasefire and the deployment of an international force.
White House spokesman Tony Snow said an immediate ceasefire was "something that at this point doesn't seem to be in the cards".
The US has called for a "sustainable" ceasefire, while France has submitted a draft resolution calling for an immediate end to hostilities.
The European Union also failed yesterday to reach consensus on calling for an immediate ceasefire, preferring instead to demand an "immediate cessation of hostilities".
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed not to agree to a truce until Hezbollah no longer posed a threat to the Jewish state.
"We will agree to a ceasefire when we know with certainty that the conditions on the ground are different from those that led to the outbreak of the war," Mr Olmert said.
AAP, AFP and Reuters
Ghost towns ... All the able-bodied residents of Lebanon's southern towns have fled, including Australians, leaving everything they owned behind / Jeroen Lodder
AUSTRALIA is chartering a ship to evacuate its citizens who have made it to the relative safety of Beirut during a lull in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.
And it is warning any citizens who want to leave the country to get out now.
The ship is scheduled to leave Beirut tomorrow afternoon and is likely to be the last organised by the Government, as hostilities intensify in Lebanon after the expiry of a 48-hour limited reprieve on aerial bombardments by Israel.
Hezbollah guerrillas reportedly battled thousands of Israeli troops on five fronts in the south of Lebanon today, as tank-led Israeli forces closed in on Hezbollah-held territories.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) said a ship was due to leave Beirut tomorrow afternoon for Cyprus.
She urged citizens wanting to leave to take the opportunity because no further Australian evacuations were being planned.
Thirty Australians were evacuated from southern Lebanon yesterday ahead of the resumption of Israeli air strikes but officials remain concerned for the safety of an estimated 170 Australians trapped in the war zone.
The Australian embassy in Beirut took advantage of the reprieve to get more Australians out of the country's south.
"The Australian embassy has arranged for the evacuation of 30 Australians from southern Lebanon to Beirut, taking advantage of a temporary lull in activity," a DFAT spokeswoman said.
She said further evacuations from the area would be difficult once Israel resumed air strikes.
The latest Australians to escape the area are believed to have been rescued from the Lebanese towns of Tyre and Sidon.
They were taken to Beirut in cars, buses and taxis chartered by the Australian embassy.
DFAT revised down the number of Australians in southern Lebanon for whom it holds grave fears from about 200 to 170.
Meanwhile a rocket fired by Hezbollah guerrillas today has hit the Israeli town of Beit Shean, almost 70km from the border with Lebanon and the deepest a rocket has struck inside the Jewish state, Israel Radio said.
The army and police were checking the report.
Hezbollah has continued firing rockets despite an Israeli offensive aimed at stopping the attacks and recovering two captured Israeli soldiers.
Israeli forces have struck far deeper than previously into Lebanon today, while UN Security Council members struggled to overcome differences on how to end the three-week-old conflict.
Local police said helicopter-borne Israeli commandoes snatched five people in a raid on Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold close to Lebanon's eastern border with Syria.
Eleven civilians, one of them a Syrian, died in the attack, they said.
Israeli warplanes also destroyed two bridges in northern Lebanon, hours after the end of a 48-hour pause in air strikes, Lebanese police said.
They said the bridges were about 5km from the border with Syria, which Israel accuses of helping to supply the Shiite Hezbollah militia.
Israel had called a 48-hour partial halt to air attacks after a raid on the Lebanese village of Qana on Sunday which killed 52 civilians, most of them women and children.
In Tel Aviv an army spokeswoman said that, during today's raid on Baalbek, "several members of Hezbollah were hit while others have been taken prisoner and brought back to Israel".
She said all the Israeli troops involved in the raid had returned to their base. She gave no details on the numbers of Hezbollah casualties.
Hezbollah denied the claim, saying that "the citizens kidnapped in Baalbek are normal civilians".
A statement broadcast by Hezbollah's Al-Manar television said: "The Islamic Resistance announces that it has foiled an Israeli landing operation in Baalbek and denies that the enemy has captured any of its members."
A Hezbollah spokesman had earlier said that Israeli troops were surrounded after attacking Dar Al-Hikmeh hospital, which is run by the Islamic militant group, about 2km southwest of Baalbek.
The spokesman said all patients had been evacuated from the hospital on July 12, when Hezbollah fighters captured two Israeli soldiers during a deadly cross-border raid from southern Lebanon.
That operation prompted a huge Israeli offensive by air, land and sea in which more than 820 Lebanese and 50 Israelis have been killed, more than 3000 wounded and tens of thousands forced to flee their homes, according to various sources.
An Israeli government official said 400 Hezbollah fighters had been killed, in the past three weeks, a claim the militia denies.
Police in Lebanon's southern port city of Sidon said three Lebanese army soldiers were killed today in an Israeli bombardment of a nearby military base.
Ambassadors from the five permanent Security Council members appeared split over the timing of a ceasefire after holding what were described as "frank discussions" with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in New York.
The five - Britain, China, France, Russia and the US - were unable to agree on a resolution amid differences over the sequence of any ceasefire and the deployment of an international force.
White House spokesman Tony Snow said an immediate ceasefire was "something that at this point doesn't seem to be in the cards".
The US has called for a "sustainable" ceasefire, while France has submitted a draft resolution calling for an immediate end to hostilities.
The European Union also failed yesterday to reach consensus on calling for an immediate ceasefire, preferring instead to demand an "immediate cessation of hostilities".
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed not to agree to a truce until Hezbollah no longer posed a threat to the Jewish state.
"We will agree to a ceasefire when we know with certainty that the conditions on the ground are different from those that led to the outbreak of the war," Mr Olmert said.
AAP, AFP and Reuters