Deaths mount as Israel, Hezbollah trade attacks

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Israel and Hezbollah escalated their blood feud Sunday as dozens of Lebanese died during airstrikes across their nation and eight Israelis were killed when militants slammed rockets into the port city of Haifa.

Israeli missiles hammered the Lebanese capital this morning, killing two people in Beirut's port, bombing a gas tank in a northern neighborhood and shelling the southern suburbs.

The port was in flames, and the Israeli army said it had launched at least 60 strikes overnight, both with aircraft and artillery. The strikes today killed 15 people and wounded more than 53 by midmorning.

As explosions shook the earth and families cowered in shelters, both sides vowed to deliver even fiercer blows in days to come, and world leaders struggled to find a diplomatic path out of the bloodshed.

At least nine people were killed and dozens wounded in the coastal Lebanese city of Tyre, where Israel attacked a civil-defense building used by rescue workers. At least eight more Lebanese died in a strike on a house in the south, including a number of dual nationals who also held Canadian citizenship. The Canadian government said seven of its citizens were among those killed.

Meanwhile, the volley of rockets that crashed down on Haifa a few hours after sunrise was by far the deadliest single blow to Israeli civilians by Hezbollah since the conflict flared Wednesday.

The two sides have been trading hits ever since Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon crossed the border and captured two Israeli soldiers.

Israel has answered the abductions with grueling days of round-the-clock airstrikes on Lebanon, killing 180 people and wounding hundreds more. Over the same days, 24 Israelis have been killed, half of them soldiers, in attacks by the militant Shiite Muslim fighters.

Although Israel's clash is with Hezbollah, the attacks on this seaside country appear to have done far greater damage to Lebanese civilians and infrastructure than to the guerrillas' operations.

Hezbollah has continued to shoot rockets into Israel, in turn frequently hitting civilians, even after Israeli missiles shattered the airport and highways, struck Christian neighborhoods and drove thousands of people from their homes.

Israel has attacked Hezbollah offices and the headquarters of the group's leader. But 1,500 airstrikes have also targeted a lighthouse, grain silos, power plants, bridges, airports and a truck packed with children, targets with no apparent relationship to Hezbollah.

As the death toll jumped higher, officials from Israel and Hezbollah kept up their fiery vows of vengeance and escalation.

The rocket barrage on Haifa was only the beginning, Hezbollah chief Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech. The Shiite cleric dared Israel to send ground troops back into southern Lebanon, from which they withdrew in 2000 after 18 years of occupation, and pledged to unleash more surprise attacks on the Jewish state.

"When Israel crosses all the red lines, we have to do the same," Nasrallah said. "We will continue. We still have a lot more and we are only at the beginning."

Israel has not disrupted Hezbollah's leadership or its ability to wage guerrilla war, he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had tough words of his own, vowing that the attack on Israel's third-largest city would trigger "far-reaching consequences."

In Russia, leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized nations meeting Sunday sought common ground as they pressed for a diplomatic solution to the conflict.

Today, however, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for the deployment of international forces to stop the bombardment of Israel.

"The blunt reality is that this violence is not going to stop unless we create the conditions for the cessation of violence," Blair said after talks with Annan on the margins of the summit. "The only way is if we have a deployment of international forces that can stop bombardment coming into Israel."

The attack on Haifa was a shock to many Israelis because the city, about 25 miles south of Lebanon, had been out of range of Hezbollah rockets in previous conflicts.

Israel quickly retaliated with bombings in Beirut's southern suburbs, heavily Shiite neighborhoods that are the undisputed territory of Hezbollah.

Explosions continued throughout Lebanon on Sunday. As night fell, Israeli rockets crashed into the airport. Much of Beirut had lost electricity, and desperate families crammed themselves into schoolhouses that are being used as makeshift shelters.

With the violence rising, foreigners began to flee by the hundreds and several nations drew up plans to get their citizens out.

U.S. planners arrived to organize evacuation for any of the 25,000 Americans seeking to leave. Italian military flights rushed out some 350 people, mostly Europeans. France, which has more than 20,000 citizens in Lebanon, chartered a Greek ferry to pick up 1,200 people today.

Across the border in Israel, train and bus transport was halted across the north as rockets fell on half a dozen other towns, including the coastal communities of Akko and Nahariya and eastern cites of Afula and Upper Nazareth.

Authorities declared a state of alert, universities canceled exams and summer day camps and most government offices closed.

Israel expanded the second front of its military operation against radical Islamic groups along its northern and southern borders by pushing tanks and troops into the Gaza Strip, setting off fighting that killed at least five Palestinian gunmen.

Information from The Associated Press and The Washington Post is included in this report.