U.S. & World

JERUSALEM (CBS News) ― Israel further intensified its attacks against Lebanon early Friday with an airstrike on the southern suburbs of the capital that are strongholds of Hezbollah and a raid on a large fuel storage tank at a power station, police and witnesses said.

Lebanese police officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media, confirmed the Israeli air raid.

Hezbollah's al-Manar TV and other local stations said the jets had badly damaged two bridges and a road intersection in nearby Ghobeiri. Other news reports said a playground where Hezbollah leaders hold rallies was also targeted.

Hezbollah's TV said there were several injuries from the attacks.

Israeli officials had warned that south Beirut, a densely populated neighborhood of Shiite Muslims where Hezbollah has its political headquarters, could be targeted. Leaflets dropped in the evening told people to stay away from Hezbollah offices.

Four dozen civilians have died in the violence following Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers.

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah has his office and residence in the district of Haret Hreik in south Beirut. Hezbollah's Shura Council, its decision-making body, and the TV station are also located in that area, a section heavily guarded by Hezbollah.

The targeted area lies between the Lebanese capital and the international airport, which was twice hit by Israeli warplanes on Thursday.

One Israeli plane fired a missile at a fuel storage tank for the power station at Jiye on the Mediterranean coast in central Lebanon, just north of the port city of Sidon, witnesses said.

The attack started a fire in the area, about 20 miles south of Beirut, but the power station itself was not hit.

Israel has hit hundreds of targets in Lebanon, including airports, and army bases to put pressure on the government and force Hezbollah to free two Israeli soldiers the guerrillas captured Wednesday.

The main highway linking Beirut to the Syrian capital has also been damaged, further tightening the Israeli blockade on Lebanon.

At least one Katyusha rocket fired by Lebanese guerillas hit Haifa, Israel's third largest city, 18 miles from the border, causing no injuries, Israeli authorities said. The Israeli ambassador to the United States, Daniel Ayalon, called the attack "a major, major escalation."

But Hezbollah — which had threatened earlier to target Haifa — denied launching the attack.

The Lebanese government, caught in the middle, pleaded for a cease-fire.

But Israel said it was determined to beat Hezbollah back and deny the militant fighters positions they traditionally held along the northern border.

"If the government of Lebanon fails to deploy its forces, as is expected of a sovereign government, we shall not allow Hezbollah forces to remain any further on the borders of the state of Israel," Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said.

Israel's offensive was its heaviest in Lebanon in 24 years, launched after Hezbollah guerrillas snatched two Israeli soldiers in a brazen cross-border raid Wednesday. Two days of Israeli bombings killed 45 Lebanese and two Kuwaitis and wounded 103. Two Israeli civilians and eight Israeli soldiers have also been killed, the military's highest death toll in four years.

With the airport closed, many tourists were trapped while others drove over the mountains to Syria.

The State Department says that about 25,000 Americans live in Lebanon. If the conflict gets worse, the U.S. government has a responsibility to evacuate those who want to leave, which might mean sending in the Marines, reports CBS News correspondent David Martin. But, now that the airport is bombed, the options for evacuating Americans are now a lot more complicated. Marines will have to fly helicopters from nearby Cypress to Lebanon, or from amphibious ships in nearby waters.

Beirut residents stayed indoors, leaving the streets of the capital largely empty. Others packed supermarkets to stock up on goods. Long lines formed on gas stations, with many quickly running out of gas.

Israel said its attacks were intended to prevent the movement of the captured soldiers and hamper Hezbollah's military capacity, reports CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan. The army told Logan that it believes the two abducted soldiers are still alive and they are afraid the captives will be moved to Iran.

Fears mounted among Arab and European governments that violence in Lebanon could spiral out of control in a volatile region already torn by conflicts in Iraq and in Gaza. Israel launched an offensive in Gaza against Hamas, whose fighters are holding another Israeli soldier captured two weeks ago.

The shockwaves from the fighting on two fronts began to be felt as oil prices surged Thursday to a record above $78 a barrel in world markets, also agitated by the threat of supply disruptions in the Middle East and beyond.

President Bush backed Israel's right to defend itself and denounced Hezbollah as "a group of terrorists who want to stop the advance of peace."

But he also expressed worries the Israeli assault could cause the fall of Lebanon's anti-Syrian government. "We're concerned about the fragile democracy in Lebanon," Bush said in Germany.

The European Union took a harsher tone, criticizing Israel for using what it called "disproportionate" force. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he was planning a peace mission.

The United States cast the first U.N. Security Council veto in nearly two years, blocking an Arab-backed resolution that would have demanded Israel halt its military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

The Arab League called an emergency meeting of foreign ministers in Cairo on Saturday, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned that Israel's Lebanon offensive "is raising our fears of a new regional war."

Egypt launched a diplomatic bid to resolve the crisis, amid apparent frustration among moderate Arab nations that Hezbollah — and by implication its top ally Syria — had started the fight with Israel.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters it is important that Israel exercise restraint and she demanded that Syria bring pressure on Hezbollah to stop the attacks on Israel.

But, Israel believes it is exercising restraint, says CBS News 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon. "Despite the dramatic pictures we are seeing on our television screens, the Israeli command insists it is not going full throttle in Lebanon and does not intend to. The objective, Israeli officers say, is to weaken Hezbollah on the ground in south Lebanon, and to pave the way for the government in Beirut to send the Lebanese army down to take its place."

Militants also fired rockets at four other northern Israeli towns, killing a 40-year-old woman on her balcony in Nahariya and a man in Safad.

Soon after the Haifa attack, Israeli helicopter gunships raked fuel depots at Beirut's seaside airport with machine guns and missiles. The tanks exploded, sending gigantic flames into the night sky just outside Beirut. Earlier in the day, warplanes shut down the airport with strikes that pounded craters into all three of its runways, and Israeli warships sealed Lebanon's ports.

Army chief Brig. Gen. Dan Halutz warned that "nothing is safe" in Lebanon.

The last time Israeli strikes targeted Beirut was in 2000, when warplanes hit a power station in the hills above the city after a Hezbollah attack killed Israeli soldiers. Israel has not hit Beirut's airport since its 1982 invasion of Lebanon and occupation of the capital.

Israel says it holds Lebanon responsible for Hezbollah's snatching of the two soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser, 31 and Eldad Regev, 26. The Lebanese government insisted it had no prior knowledge of the move and did not condone it — and even withdrew its ambassador to the U.S. after he made comments seemingly in support of the guerrillas.

Hezbollah fighters operate with almost total autonomy in southern Lebanon, and the government has no control over their actions. But the government has long resisted international pressure to disarm the group. Any attempt to disarm Hezbollah by force could lead to sectarian conflict.

(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)