Israeli Commandos Attack Tyre

  

TYRE, Lebanon (AP) - August 5, 2006 -- Israeli naval commandos battled with Hezbollah in the southern port city of Tyre early Saturday, while a guerrilla rocket killed a soldier in clashes on the border and Israeli raids left at least eight people dead in multiple strikes across the country.

After days of desultory diplomacy, Washington said it was near agreement with France on a U.N. cease-fire resolution, possibly by early next week. But no cessation of fighting was in sight Saturday.

Given the determination of both Hezbollah and Israel to look victorious when the conflict finally ends, the worst of the fighting may still lie ahead with the militant Shiite guerrilla group perhaps making good on its threat to rocket the main Israeli city of Tel Aviv and Israel launching an all-out ground offensive, pushing northward to the Litani River about 20 miles from the border.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Welch arrived in Beirut late Friday and met with Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, aides to Saniora said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to make official statements.

On Saturday, Welch visited Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a prominent Shiite Muslim who has been negotiating on behalf of Hezbollah in the conflict.

In Tyre, Hezbollah said its guerrillas repelled the Israeli commandos and killed a member of the force. Israeli defense officials said eight soldiers were wounded during the fight, in the first confirmation that a naval commando had raided the coastal city. Two of the wounded were in serious condition, they said.

The army said the mission was to take out the launching sites of rockets that have plagued northern Israel for three weeks. It said several Hezbollah fighters were hit.

A Lebanese soldier and a civilian were also killed in the clash, local officials in Tyre said.

Lebanese military officials said the Israeli commandos landed near an orange grove, cut a hole through a barbed wire fence and targeted the second floor of an apartment building.

The commandos were repelled by Hezbollah guerrillas and Lebanese soldiers who clashed with the forces, the Shiite militia said.

A resident said he saw the commando force attack the building. "They all had beards. I thought maybe they were Hezbollah," said 18-year-old Qassem Aad, who lives nearby.

Aad said he saw several people walk out of the building with their hands up, and that shooting then erupted. "I saw a man screaming - he was shot."

Ambulance workers said six people were killed, including two from Hezbollah and one soldier from the Lebanese army who was at a nearby checkpoint and was shot at.

A Lebanese army officer confirmed one Lebanese soldier died and said four people in the targeted apartment were killed.

Meanwhile, explosions rattled Beirut as Israeli warplanes renewed their strikes on Hezbollah strongholds in the city's southern suburbs.

In eastern Lebanon, Hezbollah mortars hit two vehicles of an Israeli engineering corps during a sweep of a village in the Taibeh area, killing a soldier and wounding nine others, the Israeli army said.

A gutted van with the charred body of the driver was also found Saturday morning near Qaa in eastern Lebanon, the town's mayor, Saadeh Toum, said.

Travelers have been taking dirt roads to travel from one place to another because of bombardment of the main roads in the region.

While meeting fierce resistance on the ground in south Lebanon, the Israeli army said it had taken up positions in or near 11 towns and villages as part its effort to carve out a five-mile Hezbollah-free zone.

"We plan to carry out the whole mission," Defense Minister Amir Peretz said. "Hezbollah must not have illusions that we plan to give in. (Hezbollah leader Hassan) Nasrallah shouldn't doubt that he faces a force that insists on completing its mission."

As of Friday an Associated Press count showed at least 567 Lebanese have been killed, including 489 civilians confirmed dead by the Health Ministry, 28 Lebanese soldiers and at least 50 Hezbollah guerrillas.

The Lebanese government's Higher Relief Council said 907 Lebanese had been killed in the conflict.

Since the fighting started, 75 Israelis have been killed - 45 soldiers and 30 civilians. More than 300,000 Israelis have fled their homes in the north, Israeli officials said.

The State Department said on Friday that the United States and France were nearing completion of a U.N. resolution designed to halt the fighting in Lebanon and to set out principles for a lasting cease-fire.

"We are very close to a final draft with the French on a text," spokesman Sean McCormack said.

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