Hezbollah Raid Opens 2nd Front for Israel

An Israeli artillery unit fires across the border into southern Lebanon. Three Israeli soldiers were killed in a Hezbollah raid aimed at forcing the release of Lebanese in Israeli jails. Five died in subsequent action. (By Oded Balilty -- Associated Press)

Hezbollah last captured an Israeli soldier in October 2000, when it seized three who were later executed or died of wounds suffered as they were taken. The bodies of the three soldiers, along with a civilian kidnapped separately, were returned to Israel in 2004 in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails.

The attack Wednesday was almost sure to bolster the martial reputation of Hezbollah, which probably enjoys more support in the rest of the Arab world than in Lebanon itself, where other sectarian factions have pushed for it to disarm. Nasrallah has vowed on numerous occasions to seize soldiers as a bargaining chip for the Lebanese prisoners; in one speech, he said it would happen this year.

The broadening of the Israeli response north to Beirut's airport will almost certainly put additional pressures on Hezbollah, both inside the country and abroad. Some Lebanese officials have already questioned whether Hezbollah had the right to make a decision that could potentially drag the entire country into war. But in southern Lebanon, often a battleground between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, the soldiers' capture was praised; residents said they had grown accustomed to the kind of fighting that has followed.

"Look, we're used to it. For 25 years, 26 years, it's been like this," said Hassan Qaryani, 21, a butcher from Burj Rahal. He stood with a friend, Mohammed Tahine, near a destroyed bridge, looking down at the rubble and tangled iron rods.

He called the kidnapping "like a crown on my head."

"As soon as I heard the news I was overjoyed," he said. "It was like Italy winning the World Cup."

His friend grinned as he looked at the bridge. "If you don't destroy, then you don't build," he said.

Early Thursday in the Gaza Strip, where more than 70 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier have been killed since June 28, an Israeli airstrike destroyed the building housing the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Foreign Ministry, according to the Associated Press. Palestinian medical workers said 13 people in the neighborhood, including six children, were injured. Before daybreak, a fighter from Islamic Jihad was killed and one was wounded in an Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza.

Wilson reported from Shtula and Nahariya. Special correspondents Alia Ibrahim in Beirut, Islam Abdelkareem in Gaza City and Sufian Taha in Jerusalem contributed to this report.