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Israeli troops seize Lebanese town
By Taher Abu Hamdan
AFP
RASHAYA, Lebanon
Petroleumworld.com 08 10 06
Israeli tanks rolled into a Lebanese border town on Thursday and were occupying the outskirts of a Hezbollah stronghold but the government insisted its expanded ground offensive had yet to begin.
Columns of tanks swept into Marjayun, which lies eight kilometres (five miles) from the border, after only brief exchanges with Hezbollah militants that saw anti-tank missiles fired against the advancing forces, police said.
The new push came a day after 15 Israeli soldiers were killed in clashes with Shiite Muslim Hezbollah guerrillas in south Lebanon, the military's biggest single-day death toll of the month-old conflict.
Soldiers were seen driving in military vehicles inside the majority Christian border town without meeting resistance after carrying out dozens of raids at its southern entrance, police said.
However a Marjayun resident told AFP by phone that fighting had been continuing inside the almost empty town in the extreme eastern sector of the border since 8:15 am (5:15 GMT) amid the sound of exchanges of fire.
"We are hearing from time to time sporadic shots everyone is at home but we have a problem because we have 600 displaced in schools. We were supposed to deliver water for them and now we cannot do anything" town council head Fuad Hamra said on Lebanese television.
The Lebanese army maintains one of the border region's largest barracks in Marjayun, which was the headquarters of Israel's proxy South Lebanon Army militia until the the Jewish state ended its occupation of south Lebanon in May 2000.
The army dropped flyers on the town urging Lebanese soldiers -- which have so far stayed on the sidelines of the month-long conflict between Israel and Hezbollah -- to stay in their barracks.
Israeli warplanes also raided the outskirts of the villages of Debbine, Blat and Burghoz near Marjayun. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Lebanese police reported that four Israeli tanks were destroyed and burnt near Marjayun. Hezbollah claimed the destruction of eight Merkava tanks in the area.
Israeli units were also holding positions around the western and southern suburbs of Khiam, another town that was controlled by the SLA in the 1980s and also the site of a prison notorious for its interrogation methods.
The army appeared to be bidding to surround the town in a pincer movement ahead of a major assault on the Hezbollah stronghold that has been turned virtually to rubble by previous air raids, police said.
The advance on Khiam started shortly before midnight after a thousand shells fell on the town Wednesday evening.
Ground troops backed by armoured cars moved into south Lebanon late Wednesday from Metulla, at the northern point of Upper Galilee in Israel's northeastern panhandle.
However despite the advance, the Israeli government said its decision to allow an expanded ground operation in Lebanon had yet to even be enforced on the ground.
Spokesman Aviv Pazner said the broader offensive aimed at neutralising the threat of Hezbollah rockets fired into Israel approved at a six-hour crisis meeting on Wednesday "has not yet begun."
Public Security Minister Avi Dichter said the timing of the broader offensive "depends to a great extent on what is happening now in New York", at the United Nations.
The United States and France were seeking to find a compromise on the text for a UN Security Council resolution calling on Israel and Hezbollah to halt the war that has been held up by days of wrangling.
In other parts of southern Lebanon, Israeli warplanes staged more than 10 raids, killing a Lebanese civilian and destroying at least six houses, police said.
An Israeli drone fired a missile on a road south of Tyre, killing a civilian who was driving a motorcycle in the area, they said. A helicoper gunship launched a raid in Tyre itself on a building a housing a charity owned by Lebanon's Shiite spiritual leader Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah.
Israeli warplanes also hit the Zahrani road south of the southern port of Sidon and the Iqlim al-Tuffah mountains overlooking the city, they said.
AFP 10 0806 GMT 08 06
Copyright ©2006 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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