Israel imposed Thursday a general air, sea and land blockade on Lebanon as part of its large-scale offensive to retrieve two soldiers captured by Hizbullah. Israeli warplanes Thursday bombed runways at Beirut's Rafiq Hariri International Airport, which was then closed to traffic, reports said. Shells started crashing on a runway of the country's only international airport early Thursday during the ongoing Israeli air and sea assault against Lebanon, forcing diversion of two flights to Cyprus, airport employees said.
Israel's Army Radio reported that the goal of the attack was to shut down air traffic in and out of the Lebanese capital.
A senior airport official announced the facility was closed shortly after the shells landed and asked all scheduled flights to divert to Cyprus.
In southern Lebanon, at least 28 civilians were reported killed in overnight Israeli attacks, including a family of 12 in the village of Dweir, leading TV station LBC reported. 10 children were among the victims. Missiles also hit Hizbullah's Manar TV in the southern suburbs' Haret Hreik district, but the station stayed on the air.
The Jewish state's air force also struck a Shiite prayer house in the town of Bawadi in the Bekaa Valley and a transmission station belonging to al Manar TV on a hill overlooking the town of Baalbek.
On its part, Hizbullah said it fired shells and rockets at three command centres inside north Israel and attacked Israeli border posts early on Thursday. One Israeli civilian died on Thursday in a rocket attack from Lebanon on the northern Israeli city of Nahariya, medics said.
