Bush blames Hezbollah

2006-07-15 16:01

Beirut - Israeli air strikes killed at least 27 civilians on Saturday as Israel battered Lebanon for a fourth straight day to punish it for letting Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hezbollah fighters menace its northern border.

President George W Bush, who has declined to urge Israel to curb its attacks, said Syria should tell Hezbollah to stop cross-border attacks from Lebanon's mainly Shi'ite Muslim south.

An Israeli missile wrecked a van near the southern port of Tyre, killing 15 people, including at least eight children, and wounding six, police said. The van was carrying families fleeing the village of Marwaheen after Israeli loudspeaker warnings to leave their homes. Seven of the dead were from a single family.

Israeli aircraft also destroyed the main Hezbollah office in Beirut, a nine-storey building, and attacked roads, bridges and petrol stations in north, east and south Lebanon, killing at least 12 people and wounding 32, security sources said.

Israel's campaign, launched after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight on Wednesday, has killed 93 people, all but two civilians, and paralysed Lebanon's economy.

It aims not just to force Hezbollah to free the soldiers, but to destroy its ability to launch rocket attacks on northern Israel, where four civilians have been killed this week.

"The best way to stop the violence is for Hezbollah to lay down its arms and to stop attacking. And therefore I call upon Syria to exert influence over Hezbollah," Bush told a joint news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a summit in Russia.

French President Jacques Chirac and some other world leaders have sharply criticised Israel's assault on Lebanon as disproportionate. They have also condemned Hezbollah's tactics.

The Israeli army said on Saturday it had struck about 150 targets in Lebanon so far, fewer than a dozen of them linked directly to Hizbollah. Most have hit civilian installations.

- Reuters