Israeli warplanes renewed attacks on Lebanon early Saturday, targeting bridges and fuel storage tanks and gas stations in the east and south, security officials said. At least 27 Lebanese civilians were killed on Saturday by the Israeli fire.
In southern Lebanon, Israel warned residents of the Lebanese border village of Marwaheen to evacuate in two hours or else the village would be destroyed, security officials said. About 150 residents left the village Saturday morning and assembled around a U.N. peacekeeping post seeking shelter, the officials said. Later, it was reported that at least 15 of them died after Israel attacked a van near the southern port of Tyre.
Several hours later, Israeli aircraft also bombed southern Beirut's Haret Hreik district, and attacked roads, bridges and petrol stations in north, east and south Lebanon, killing at least 12 people and wounding 32, security sources said.
Hizbullah's Al-Manar television station said at least three people died in an air strike in Hermel, in the eastern Bekaa Valley. Israeli jets also destroyed two bridges in eastern and southern Lebanon, Lebanese officials said.
The jets pounded a mountainous area near the border with Syria where radio and satellite TV antennas are installed, sources in Lebanon added. Another strike targeted three bridges south of Beirut early Saturday, officials said.
Israel also hit six gas stations and fuel storage tanks were also set ablaze in attacks along the coastal highway linking Beirut to the south of the country.
Meanwhile, Israeli planes dropped leaflets on Beirut depicting Hizbullah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah as a cobra threatening to strike out at the Lebanese capital. "To the Lebanese people, beware: He appears to be a brother, but he is a snake," said the green leaflet showing a caricature of Nasrallah's face, with his black turban rolled in the shape of a snake.
