Hizbollah hits Haifa

Hizbollah killed eight people in the Israeli city of Haifa yesterday in its deadliest rocket attack on the Jewish state, and Israeli planes killed 36 people in Lebanon in a fifth day of strikes.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Hizbollah's attack would have far-reaching consequences for Lebanon, while the Lebanese guerilla group threatened more.

Leaders of the world's major powers meeting in Russia urged restraint but said Israel had a right to self-defence, putting the onus on Hizbollah to stop the violence by first releasing two Israeli soldiers it captured on Wednesday.

Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said the attack on Haifa, Israel's third-biggest city, was retaliation for the Jewish state's killing of civilians and promised more "surprises". "We are just at the beginning," he said.

Israel's military campaign in Lebanon, launched after Hizbollah captured the two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others, has killed 140 people, all but four of them civilians.

In Lebanon's southern city of Tyre, 16 people were killed, many of them in an attack on a building used by rescue workers.

A separate Israeli strike killed eight people including five with dual Canadian and Lebanese citizenship, a Lebanese official said. Canada's foreign minister said eight Canadians died.

Sources at Beirut's international airport said Israeli aircraft fired rockets at fuel tanks at the airport, which was closed on Thursday after Israeli planes bombed its runways. They also struck again at the main road between Beirut and Damascus in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, witnesses said.

Israel's strikes have drawn only a mild plea for restraint from the US, which blames Hizbollah and its allies, Syria and Iran.

"Our message to Israel is defend yourself but be mindful of the consequences, so we are urging restraint," US President George W. Bush said at the G8 summit in St Petersburg, Russia.

A total of 24 Israelis have been killed in the fighting since Wednesday, including 12 civilians killed in rocket attacks. Hundreds have been wounded.

Lebanon said Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi had relayed Israeli conditions for a ceasefire. A government statement quoted Prime Minister Fouad Siniora as saying Israel had demanded the return of the two soldiers and a Hizbollah pullback to behind the Litani river, 20 km north of Israel.

An Italian government source confirmed the demands and said Mr Prodi was acting as a "go-between".

A UN team sent to Lebanon said it supported the Lebanese government's call for a ceasefire but urged the release of the two Israeli soldiers. European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana arrived in Beirut yesterday and met Mr Siniora.

Bombs thudded into Beirut's Shi'ite southern suburbs in raids which set fire to Hizbollah's al-Manar television complex and nearby buildings, witnesses said. The station's signal disappeared briefly several times.

Hizbollah said it had fired Raad (Thunder) 2 and Raad 3 rockets at Haifa. A senior political source said Israel's army chief, Dan Halutz, had told a cabinet meeting that "some of the missiles were probably produced by Syria".

Syrian Information Minister Mohsen Bilal said there would be a "harsh and direct" response to any attack on Syria's territory by Israel.

Israel raised the alert level in Tel Aviv, 130 km south of Lebanon, as a precaution. Mr Halutz has said Hizbollah has rockets with a range of 70 km and possibly longer.

Israel's bombing campaign is its most destructive assault on Lebanon since a 1982 invasion to expel Palestinian guerillas.

Israel has said Lebanon must implement a UN resolution demanding the disarming of Hizbollah, a Shi'ite group formed in 1982 to fight an Israeli occupation that lasted 22 years.

But the Beirut government, led by an anti-Syrian coalition, lacks the unity and firepower to tackle Hizbollah.

The group has said it wants to swap the two captured Israeli soldiers for Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners in Israel.

Israel's campaign in Lebanon followed the launch of an offensive in the Gaza Strip on June 28 to try to retrieve another captured soldier and halt Palestinian rocket fire.

Israel widened that assault yesterday, killing a Palestinian civilian in southern Gaza and five militants in the north.

The operation has piled pressure on the Palestinian government led by the Islamist militant Hamas movement, which has demanded a prisoner swap for the Israeli corporal.