BadShaH1
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BEIRUT, Lebanon - Israel intensified its attacks against Lebanon on Thursday, imposing a naval blockade, twice hitting Beirut's airport and blasting two Lebanese army air bases near Syria. Hezbollah fired more than 100 rockets into Israel, which said one also struck the port city of Haifa.
President Bush pledged to work with Israel, criticizing Hezbollah for thwarting efforts for peace in the Middle East.
"My attitude is this: there are a group of terrorists who want to stop the advance of peace," he said at a news conference in Germany. "The soldiers need to be returned."
The European Union criticized Israel for using what it called "disproportionate" force in its attacks and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he was planning a peace mission.
Moderate Arab governments reacted with relative restraint, apparently reflecting a sentiment in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia that Hezbollah — and by implication its top ally Syria — had started the fight with Israel.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned that Israel's Lebanon offensive "is raising our fears of a new regional war" and urged world powers to intervene.
The eight Israeli soldiers killed so far is the highest death toll for the army in four years. Three soldiers died in the initial Hezbollah raid, and four were killed when their tank ran over a land mine Wednesday.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said Israel had information Hezbollah was trying to transfer the two captured soldiers to Iran, which backs Hezbollah. He did not disclose the source of his information.
After hitting roads and bridges in the south all day Wednesday, Israel dramatically expanded its campaign Thursday with their biggest offensive in Lebanon since Israel's 1982 invasion.
Israeli warships imposed a naval blockade of Lebanese ports, and the Israeli military said it could also target the Beirut-to-Damascus highway, the main land link between Lebanon and the outside world.
Military jets attacked runways at the Rayak air base in the eastern Bekaa Valley and at the Qoleiat air base in the north. Rayak, four miles west of the Syrian border, is home to the country's main military air base.
• An Israeli missile hit Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV studios in southern Beirut, station official Ibrahim Farhat said. One person was hurt; broadcasts continued. An Al-Manar transmission antenna hit near Baalbek stopped transmissions in that area.
• A civic center attached to a Shiite Muslim mosque near the town of Baalbek was hit.
• A Lebanese family of 10 and another family of seven were killed in their homes in the village of Dweir, Lebanese officials said.
• Among the dead Lebanese were a soldier and a Hezbollah fighter.
• Hezbollah fired rockets at the northern Israeli towns of Safed, Nahariya, Kiryat Shmona and Carmiel, saying it was using a rocket called "Thunder 1" for the first time. The missiles appeared to be more advanced than the inaccurate Katyusha — the standard Hezbollah rocket
