Israel responds to rockets with escalation

HAIFA, Israel -- Lebanese guerillas fired a relentless barrage of rockets into this northern Israeli city during morning rush hour Sunday, killing eight people at a train station and wounding seven in a dramatic escalation of a five-day-old conflict that has shattered hopes for Mideast peace.\nHezbollah's firing of at least 20 rockets at Haifa and 30 elsewhere came after Israel unleashed its fiercest bombardment yet of the Lebanese capital, starting after midnight Saturday. The attack reduced Beirut apartment buildings to rubble and knocked out electricity in many areas of the city.\nWithin two hours of the 8 a.m. Haifa assault, Israel warplanes retaliated with at least six airstrikes on southern Beirut, blasting the Hezbollah headquarters building and sending a thick smoke cloud over the city.\nU.S. officials were monitoring violence in Lebanon hour-by-hour to decide whether to evacuate an estimated 25,000 Americans, possibly to the neighboring Mediterranean island of Cyprus. About 350 people -- most of them Europeans -- were evacuated Saturday night and early Sunday from Lebanon to Cyprus aboard Italian military flights.\nIsraeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said there would be "far-reaching consequences" for the Haifa attack. Black smoke rose over the city. Air-raid sirens wailed as the dead and wounded were evacuated. Rockets also hit near an oil refinery, gas storage tanks and a busy street during morning rush hour.\nIsraeli authorities put residents across the north and in the central city of Tel Aviv on heightened alert, reflecting the longer range of the missile attacks. They blamed Syria and Iran for providing guerrillas with more sophisticated weaponry, raising the specter of a wider regional confrontation.\nAt the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI expressed grave concern over the escalation of fighting in Lebanon and denounced terrorism and retaliation in the Holy Land.\nSunday brought the fiercest attacks since the conflict erupted Wednesday after Hezbollah guerillas penetrated Israel in brazen raid, killing eight soldiers and capturing two.\nThe fighting opened a second front for Israel, which was already battling Hamas-linked Islamic militants in the Gaza Strip following the capture of an Israeli soldier June 25. Israel has since expanded its mission from the immediate need to free the three soldiers to a campaign to halt rocket fire from Gaza and to neutralize Hezbollah in Lebanon.\nIsraeli troops, tanks and helicopter gunships re-entered northern Gaza on Sunday, firing missiles and exchanging gunfire with armed Palestinians. The raid killed five Palestinians, including three militants.\nMasked militants in Gaza vowed Sunday to launch more rockets at Israel "to show solidarity with the twin of our resistance," referring to Hezbollah.\nThe Haifa attack raised Israel's death toll in the fighting to at least 24, half of them civilians. At least 130 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon, most of them also civilians.\nIran and Syria are prime supporters of Hamas and Hezbollah, and Syrian Information Minister Mohsen Bilal warned that any aggression against it "will be met with a firm and direct response whose timing and methods are unlimited."\nIran on Sunday again denied Israeli claims that it had troops in Lebanon and that it helped Hezbollah attack an Israeli warship Friday, saying the guerrilla group could fend for itself.\nInitially, it was believed that an unmanned drone laden with explosives had hit the Israeli warship; it later became clear that Hezbollah used what Israel described as an Iranian-made, radar-guided C-802 missile.\nThe army said Sunday that three sailors missing after the gunship attack were dead, raising the number of Israeli sailors killed in the attack to four.\nThe Islamic Republic also warned that expanding Israel's bombing raids to neighboring Syria would bring the Jewish state "unimaginable damages."\n"Iran stands by the people of Syria," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said.\nHezbollah said it hit Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, with dozens of Raad-2 and Raad-3 missiles. But Israeli officials said Hezbollah -- previously using relatively small Katyusha rockets -- also launched at least four Iranian-made Fajr missiles, its first use of the weapons. The missiles have a range of 28 miles and a far larger warhead than Katyushas.\nShaul Mofaz, an Israeli Cabinet minister and former army chief of staff, blamed Syria. "The ammunition that Hezbollah used this morning ... is Syrian ammunition," he said. He compared Hezbollah to al-Qaida, saying Israel should mount its operation accordingly.\nOne of the rockets hit the section of the Haifa station where crews perform maintenance on the trains, tearing a huge hole in the roof. About 30 people were working at the time, Ofer Litzevski, a train company official, said.\nAt the scene a body lay on a stretcher in a white bag.\nHaifa Mayor Yona Yahav warned people against holding large gatherings and canceled all cultural events. Trains and buses were halted across northern Israel.\nHezbollah said it intentionally avoided hitting petrochemical installations in Haifa, according to a statement read on Al-Manar television, the Islamic guerrillas' main voice to the world.\n"But the next time, it (Hezbollah) will not spare anything in Haifa and its surroundings," the statement said.\nIsrael had deployed a Patriot missile battery in Haifa on Saturday to protect against surface-to-surface missiles. But the Patriot was not built to combat the kind of missiles that hit on Sunday, said Brig. Gen. Ido Nehushtan, a member of the army's General Staff.\nRockets fired by Lebanese militants also struck Acco, Nahariya and several other northern towns, and residents of the region were told to head to bomb shelters. Israeli rescue teams said 20 people were wounded in Haifa and Acco, four of them seriously.\nIsrael's overnight attacks on Lebanon briefly knocked Al-Manar TV off the air. The Jiyeh power plant was in flames after being hit at about 6 a.m., cutting electricity to many areas in Beirut and south Lebanon.