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Residents of Beirut watch from their rooftop as Israeli bombs fell on parts of the city said to be Hezbollah targets.
Photo:Kate Brooks/Polaris, for The New York Times


Apocalypse Now? Israel Attacks Lebanon and Palestine

Sunday, July 16/NYT — Expanding the reach of its airstrikes, Israel on Saturday hit coastal radar installations in northern Lebanon that it said were targeting its warships and early Sunday bombed the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Israel also struck roads in Lebanon’s north and east on Saturday, with one attack killing at least 16 civilians, most of them children. At the same time, Hezbollah forces continued their rocket barrage into northern Israel, striking the resort city of Tiberias for the first time.

The widening conflict stirred a meeting of world leaders in Russia, where President Bush called on Syria to use its influence with Hezbollah to end the fighting. At an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo, the Arab League secretary general, Amr Moussa, said the participants “all decided that the peace process has failed,” and that they would turn to the United Nations Security Council for help.

Israel carried out dozens of airstrikes on Saturday, hitting Jounieh, Tripoli and other northern ports.

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An apartment building near the Hezbollah headquarters in the suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, was damaged by Israeli airstrikes Sunday, July 16th.
Issam Kobeisi/The Associated Press

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Israeli police and medics investigated the site of a rocket attack by Hezbollah guerrillas at the train station in Haifa.
Eight people were killed in the attack, police said.
Pierre Terdjman/European Pressphoto Agency

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Buildings in southern Beirut were damaged by Israeli airstrikes. Early Sunday, July 16th, Israeli warplanes bombed Lebanon for hours.
Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

• An official of Unicef, Roberto Laurenti, told Agence France-Presse that the humanitarian situation in Lebanon is “catastrophic” and that 500,000 people have been displaced from their homes.
Tuesday.July 17th/Reuters

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Buildings in southern Beirut were damaged by airstrikes. The Israeli army said it hit more than 130 targets in Lebanon in the past 24 hours.
Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Israel Strikes Back After Rockets Kill 8 in Haifa


BEIRUT, Lebanon, July 16 - Israel unleashed a fierce bombardment on targets in southern Beirut and southern Lebanon today after eight Israelis were killed and dozens wounded in a Hezbollah rocket attack on Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city, that used a more potent missile with a large warhead and a longer range.

The missile, which Israel said was a Syrian-produced model of a Iranian Fajr-3 model, has a range of more than 30 miles and carries a warhead of about 10 pounds of high explosive, which included antipersonnel shrapnel, a significant change from the smaller Katyushas that Hezbollah has mostly been using.

Reports from Lebanon said about 45 people were killed and more than 100 wounded today in various Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon. Among the dead were eight Canadian citizens, according to the Cana
dian government, with six critically injured, largely from an air attack on the southern border town of Aitaroun, where some of the Lebanese-Canadians were vacationing.

The cost of the damage caused by the air attacks have been estimated by the Lebanese government at more than half a billion dollars, a figure that does not include loss of tourism and commerce.

The leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, promised Israel “new surprises” and said Hezbollah had “no choice” but to hit Haifa. “As long as the enemy acts without limitations or red lines, it’s our right to continue the confrontation without limits,” he said, in a taped speech shown on Hezbollah’s Al Manar television station. Mr. Nasrallah appeared from the waist up to be unhurt, despite unconfirmed reports that he had been wounded in an Israeli strike on his bunker in southern Beirut. 7/16/006 NYT

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A man surveyed the damage in southern Beirut after a wave of Israeli airstrikes on Sunday, July 16th, 2006.
Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

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EARLY SALVO An Israeli artillery unit fired into Lebanon from a position in the north.
Oded Balilty/Associated Press

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Traders at the New York Mercantile Exchange.
On Monday, July 17, 2006, Crude oil prices plunged more than $1 a barrel Monday on a rumors of moves toward peace
in the Middle East and in Iran's nuclear standoff with Western nations.

AP Photo/Mark Lennihan


Oil prices slide, settle at $75 a barrel

© 2006 The Associated Press

Crude oil prices fell more than 2 percent Monday as world powers stepped up efforts to broker a truce between Israel and militants in Lebanon.

But perhaps the bigger surprise in the energy complex was the sharp decline for natural gas futures, which plunged by almost 9 percent despite a heatwave that drove-up demand for gas-fired power plants.

"It goes to show you there's no sure things in these markets," said Man Financial broker Andrew Lebow, who attributed the selloff in natural gas to traders' focusing on longer-term forecasts calling for cooler weather.

Even if an immediate Middle East cease-fire is not reached, analysts said the fact that the Israel-Lebanon violence has not spread in the region should help contain, if not sharply reduce, oil prices. The market's biggest fear is that Iran, a financial backer of Hezbollah and OPEC's No. 2 supplier, could be drawn into the conflict.

"At some point the market is going to become immune to every little attack," said BNP Paribas Commodity Futures broker Tom Bentz.

Also pushing prices lower were somewhat conciliatory remarks by Iran over the weekend relating to its nuclear standoff with the West. Iran said Sunday that Western incentives to halt its nuclear program were an "acceptable basis" for talks, and it is ready for detailed negotiations.

Light sweet crude for August delivery slid $1.73 to settle at $75.30 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

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Marines assist in the evacuation of U.S. citizens by helicopters at the U.S. embassy in Awkar, north of Beirut.
Mohamed Azakir/Reuters

Ships and helicopters were pressed into service to evacuate hundreds of foreigners from Lebanon to safety elsewhere, mainly to Cyprus,
while thousands more awaited evacuation or tried to reach Syria overland.
The United States dispatched a group of five warships led by an amphibious assault ship, the U.S.S. Iwo Jima, to help.
Israel said it would cooperate in allowing evacuation ships through its naval blockade. 7/17/2006 NYT