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Israeli warplanes blitz Beirut suburbs
AFP
BEIRUT
Petroleumworld.com 08 11 06
Israeli warplanes carried out 14 raids on the near-deserted southern suburbs of Beirut, a stronghold of Shiite militant group Hezbollah on Friday, Lebanese police said.
Twelve dawn raids brought down three buildings at a major crossroads, blocking all traffic on the area's main thoroughfare Hadi Nasrallah, named after the slain son of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, an AFP photographer said.
Another raid caused the collapse of a second building that also blocked the old route to the airport and hit a building belonging to the highest authority of Lebanon's Shiite community.
Unusually, two more raids struck the suburbs around midday (0900 GMT). Previous raids on the suburbs have struck in the late afternoon or or at dawn.
Television pictures showed entire blocks of buildings flattened in the raids but there were no immediate reports of casualties.
The Israeli military dropped leaflets in the already heavily bombarded area on Thursday warning the remaining residents to flee immediately.
Israel also dropped new flyers on Beirut Friday morning in a bid to undercut support for Hezbollah by saying that its losses were far greater than admitted by the Shiite militant group.
"Nasrallah is deceiving you and hides from you the great losses in the ranks of Hezbollah members," said the leaflet, copies of which fell in central Beirut.
"Below is a list of some names of those killed which have been let down by Nasrallah who denies their death," the flyer went on, printing dozens of names of Hezbollah militants it said had been killed.
Hezbollah has said that 58 of its militants have been killed in the fighting since the offensive began on July 12 but Israel has repeatedly maintained that the number runs into the hundreds.
AFP 11 1040 GMT 08 06
Copyright ©2006 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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