Deadliest Day Yet in Assault on Lebanon

Israeli soldiers advance toward Lebanon for what officials described as a short-term raid across the border. At least two soldiers and one Hezbollah militiaman were reported killed. (By Yaron Kaminsy -- Associated Press)

The Israeli attack in Ashrafiyeh, the Lebanese capital's principal Maronite Christian neighborhood, targeted a pair of well-drilling trucks and was carried out with what appeared to be precision missiles carrying small explosive charges. The blasts caused no casualties and did little damage, even to the trucks sitting in a rocky vacant lot. But for the first time they brought Israel's air campaign against Hezbollah to that wealthy quarter of Beirut, populated by Christians who were Israel's allies during its 1982 invasion aimed at Palestinian guerrillas.

The attack took place a short distance from the main Beirut port, where U.S. citizens boarded a cruise ship chartered by the U.S. government for evacuation to the nearby island of Cyprus. Boarding operations were not endangered, however, and families filed aboard throughout the day until the Orient Queen steamed out to sea with 1,059 evacuees aboard, almost all of them Americans. [The ship and two others had docked in the Cypriot port of Larnaca by Thursday, according to the Reuters news agency, which also reported that about 40 U.S. Marines landed on a beach in Beirut at dawn to help with the evacuation.]

In the suburban hills south of Beirut, at Shwaifat, Israeli airstrikes hit a dozen dump trucks and container flatbeds parked in a freight marshaling yard, witnesses reported. Surrounding trees were stripped bare and several trucks were turned into twisted wrecks, they said, but there was no sign of military equipment.

The airstrikes in Shwaifat and Ashrafiyeh suggested Israeli military planners are seeking to paralyze truck traffic across Lebanon, depriving Hezbollah of a means of transporting munitions. In particular, Israeli officials have said, the air campaign is intended to prevent resupply of the missiles that Hezbollah has been firing into northern Israel.

Civilian trucks carrying cargo of all kinds, including food, have been hit. Three trucks carrying rice and sugar were blasted Tuesday near the Christian village of Zahleh in the mountains separating Beirut from the Bekaa Valley. Wednesday's air attacks also clearly hit civilian infrastructure and vehicles: drills to dig water wells and trucks to haul dirt and containers.

Farther south, in the border hills near Israel, the continuing air attacks appeared more widely targeted, striking at cars and buildings and emptying roads and villages, according to reports from witnesses. One strike, at the village of Srifa, near the frontier, tore apart several houses, killing at least 17 Lebanese, including several children, Lebanese officials told local reporters.

More than 30 people were killed in other attacks across the southern border zone, Lebanese officials reported, raising the day's death toll above 50.

Aid officials in the southern city of Tyre said food stocks were dwindling and medicine was in short supply. For days, electricity and water have been cut. Many residents feared that roads leading out were too dangerous to travel. Others headed for Beirut, flying white flags from their car antennas or sunroofs.

"If you don't die of something from Israel, you're going to die of sickness, food or thirst," said Katya Taleb, 26.

Taleb gathered with hundreds of others at the beachfront Tyre Rest House, seeking shelter and hoping for evacuation. U.N. officials expressed hope that a ship might arrive Thursday but were reported having difficulty securing Israeli authorization for it to enter the port.

Siniora, in a televised appeal, said about 300 Lebanese had been killed by Israeli air raids over the past eight days. He called on foreign governments to come to Lebanon's aid, adding, "I hope you won't let us down."

Shortly after he spoke, Israeli jets attacked Beirut again and three blasts rang out in the downtown area of the capital, rattling glass and shaking the ground around the stately building overlooking Martyrs' Square that Siniora uses as government headquarters.