Israel Navy Ship Seriously Damaged Off Beirut CoastExplosives-laden drone damages ship's steering By Amos Harel and Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondents and Agencies Last update - 01:51 15/07/2006 An explosives-laden drone, apparently launched by Hezbollah, hit an Israel Navy warship off the coast of Beirut, causing serious damage to its steering capability, Israel Defense Forces confirmed Friday night. The incident occurred at around 8:30 P.M., as the ship was some 16 kilometers from the Lebanese coast. The blast caused a fire close to the helicopter landing pad onboard. The ship's steering mechanism also sustained some damage. Several hours after the vessel was hit, an Israel Defense Forces spokeswoman said the damage was worse than originally thought. She added that the ship, still burning, was being towed back to Israel. There were some 80 people on board the ship when it was hit. Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said earlier Friday that the militant organization had sunk an Israel Navy ship off the Lebanese coast. "Now in the middle of the sea, facing Beirut, the Israeli warship that has attacked the infrastructure, people's homes and civilians - look at it burning," Nasrallah said in remarks broadcast live shortly after an Israel Air Force strike on Hezbollah's Beirut headquarters. Hezbollah has never before used a remote-controlled unmanned aircraft to attack Israel. But in a signal of its growing capabilities, the guerrilla group has twice managed to fly spy drones over northern Israel in recent years. The drones caused great concern in Israel because they evaded the country's air defenses. Earlier, Nasrallah vowed to strike Israeli targets south of Haifa, after the attack left the group's headquarters in Beirut in ruins. Hezbollah was quick to announce that Nasrallah had been unhurt in the strike. "Hezbollah's secretary-general, family and bodyguards are safe and sound," a Hezbollah statement said. Nasrallah's residence and office were destroyed in the attack. It gave no word on casualties in the latest of several raids on Hezbollah's stronghold of Haret Hreik. Nasrallah said the group would strike deeper inside Israel, which it charged with launching the operation in Lebanon to avenge its failure in preventing the abduction and killing of its soldiers by Hezbollah earlier in the week. Hezbollah would also strike "beyond Haifa and what is beyond, beyond Haifa," Nasrallah said. He made reference to a new strike on an Israeli naval boat in Lebanese waters. "You wanted an open war and we are ready for an open war," the Hezbollah leader said. "You have chosen an all-out war with a nation which... has the capability, the experience and the courage." Nasrallah said that Lebanon could either surrender or "have faith in Allah and victory," and said he was sure that most of Lebanese would want to stand side by side with Hezbollah. The Beirut attack came hours after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and security chiefs approved new targets against Hezbollah. Security officials said the army would begin hitting the targets, which were not publicly identified, overnight. "Israel is poised to take whatever steps it deems necessary to protect its citizens in the face of the ongoing barrage of rockets that have been coming over the border," said David Baker, an official in the Prime Minister's Office. Earlier Friday, IAF jets renewed attacks on a southern suburb of Beirut, targeting a radio station belonging to Hezbollah, the group said. Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV reported that the IAF fired a missile in the vicinity of the Al-Nour station, in the Haret Hreik neighborhood south of Beirut, but missed the facility and struck an apartment in a residential building instead. An Al-Jazeera reporter on the scene, however, said the building housing Al-Nour station, which is about 300 yards away from Al-Manar headquarters, was hit. He said there was damage to the Al-Nour offices but an underground station area was still operational. There was no immediate word on casualties, and the station remained on the air. An IDF spokesperson said the army attacked a Hezbollah complex that includes Hezbollah's TV station. Al-Manar aired footage of the attack, showing smoke billowing from an apartment in the area and firefighters running toward the building. The IDF said it has dropped leaflets warning civilians of the impending attack and that many of them have left the Shi'ite Dahiya quarter of south Beirut, where thousands of people live in multi-story residential buildings. "We will atack more significant targets than we have attacked until now," the officer said. "If we had chosen to bomb earlier, it would have ended with hundreds of civilians killed, and we took ethical considerations into account. On the other hand, we will not adopt a naive approach, and the model of terrorists hiding behind civilians will not be accepted." He said any civilian who chooses to remain in the area is putting his life in danger. Hezbollah head Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah has his office and residence in south Beirut. Hezbollah's Shura Council, its decision-making body, and the TV station are also located in that area, a section heavily guarded by Hezbollah. The IDF announcement came shortly after Israeli aircraft bombed the Beirut international airport for the second day in a row, as Hezbollah continued to fire rockets on northern Israel. Hezbollah official Ghaleb Abu Zaineb reiterated Friday the militant group's commitment to attacking Haifa if Israel attacks Beirut. "We are committed to what we say, but we will decide the manner and timing of our response," said Abu Zaineb, a member of the Hezbollah political bureau. "The enemy must expect an attack on Haifa at any time." Israel is attempting to put pressure on the Lebanese government and force Hezbollah to free two Israeli soldiers the group captured Wednesday. Israel has already bombed Lebanon's airports and blockaded the country from the sea, bringing trade and tourism to a halt. IAF bombs Beirut airportIsrael Air Force planes bombed Beirut's international airport Friday, a few hours after striking a Hezbollah stronghold, a bridge in the southern suburb of Beirut, and the fuel stores of the Jiyyeh power plant south of the city, witnesses and security sources said.The Lebanese Army responded with anti-aircraft fire. Three people were reported killed and 55 wounded in the Israeli strike early Friday. The death toll brought to 51 the number of Lebanese killed since Wednesday, when Israel began retaliating for the abduction. One of the fatalities was a Hezbollah militant and the remaining 50 killed were civilians. IDF spokeswoman Miri Regev said Friday that the IDF has hit "dozens of rocket storehouses and stockpiles" belonging to Hezbollah. She also said the Hezbollah stronghold is "the place where the Hezbollah leaders, including Hassan Nasrallah, are located on a regular basis." Friday's raids took place after Katyusha rockets slammed into the northern port city of Haifa on Thursday. Earlier that day, two Israelis were killed and 120 were wounded when scores of Katyusha rockets fired by Hezbollah guerillas rained down across northern Israel. "We cannot tolerate a situation where a terrorist organization is operating from a sovereign country on our northern border and threatening well over half a million Israeli civilians," said army spokesman Capt. Jacob Dallal. Also Friday, IAF jets bombed a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine base in eastern Lebanon, several kilometers west of the Syrian border, and struck the main highway linking Beirut to Damascus early Friday, security sources said. The jets struck at least five separate times along different points of the international route, one of the sources said. Witnesses said the road was clear of traffic after earlier congestion as tourists fled Lebanon to neighboring Syria. Israel has hit hundreds of targets in Lebanon since Wednesday night. GOC Northern Command Major General Udi Adam said Israel was targeting infrastructure in Lebanon that held rockets and other arsenals belong to Hezbollah. Adam said the IDF was not ruling out sending ground troops into Lebanon, but was not planning a massive call up of reserves. Israel struck the Beirut airport Thursday, blasting runways and setting fuel tanks ablaze to prevent the transport of weapons and the hostages from the area, an IDF spokesman said. The IAF also bombed the small military airport of Qulayaat in northern Lebanon on Thursday, cutting off Lebanon's civilian and military air access. Tehran has denied reports that the hostages have been transferred to Iran.
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message
is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
|
