Free Republic

A top UN peacekeeping official on Friday said he feared the war in southern Lebanon would continue until the end of August and voiced fears Israel would flatten Lebanon's southern villages and destroy the port of Tyre "neighborhood by neighborhood" if Hizbullah rockets keep slamming into the Jewish state. At UN peacekeeping headquarters in Naqaura, barely a stone's throw from Israel, political affairs officer Ryszard Morczynski said Tyre would become a target of intense Israeli attacks because Hizbullah was firing rockets from the city's suburbs into Haifa. "I have no doubt that Israel will flatten Tyre if civilian casualties continue...

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Israeli warplanes destroyed the offices of Hezbollah's south Lebanon commander in the southern port city of Tyre on Wednesday, security officials and witnesses said. The building was apparently empty, but 12 people nearby were injured. Two explosions in the center of the city raised a giant pall of smoke over Tyre, and electricity was knocked out in some areas. The target was a seven-story building housing the office of Sheik Nabil Kaouk, the Hezbollah commander in south Lebanon. The building was heavily damaged, with the top floors pancaked on top of each other. But witnesses and doctors...