Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed seven others on the border with southern Lebanon today, opening a new front in the two-week crisis over the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier in Gaza.
Israel confirmed the casualties and that the soldiers had been seized. Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, called the attack an "act of war" by Lebanon as Israel launched airstrikes, artillery fire and a tank-led ground assault into the country, the first Israeli incursions into Lebanon in six years.
The Israeli barrage damaged three bridges in southern Lebanon in an attempt to cut off the escape of Hezbollah fighters. Police said that two Lebanese civilians had been killed. Hezbollah claimed to have destroyed an Israeli tank as it crossed the border.
The latest escalation of the current Israeli-Palestinian crisis began just hours after Israel attempted to assassinate Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas's armed wing, in Gaza.
Israeli jets dropped a quarter-tonne bomb on the house of Deif, the most wanted man in the Palestinian territories, but Hamas said that its chief bombmaker escaped the blast.
Nine civilians, including two young children, were killed in the attack. Neighbours said that the force of the explosion threw bodies into nearby buildings. Soon after, dozens of Hezbollah rockets began to rain into northern Israel.
Military officials said a division of 6,000 Israeli soldiers had been ordered to the border with Lebanon. Israeli forces withdrew from the southern Lebanon in 2000 after a 20-year presence in the country.
Mr Olmert called an emergency cabinet meeting and said that he considered the Hezbollah raid was "an act of war" by Lebanon, rather than an isolated terrorist incident, and promised a "very, very, very painful" response.
Earlier, he said: "These are difficult days for Israel and its citizens... There are elements, to the north and the south, that are threatening our stability and trying to test our determination. They will fail and pay a heavy price for their actions."
As Mr Olmert spoke, Israeli military officials confirmed that "our planes, tanks and artillery are operating inside Lebanese territory".
Farmers and settlers in northern Israel were ushered into underground shelters with high fears of more rocket attacks from Hezbollah, the Shia extremist movement backed by both Syria and Iran.
Amir Peretz, the Defence Minister, said: "The Lebanese Government, which allows Hezbollah to operate freely against Israel from its sovereign territory, will bear responsibility for the consequences and ramifications (of the cross-border attack). Israel sees itself as being free to employ any means it deems fit, and the army has been instructed accordingly."
The Army Chief of Staff, Lieutenant-General Dan Halutz, said the assault would hit Hezbollah bases and Lebanon's civilian infrastructure and "turn back the clock in Lebanon by 20 years".
But the leader of Hezbollah said that no amount of Israeli force would lead to the release of the two men. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said that only "indirect negotiation" and an exchange of Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails would lead to the peaceful resolution of the crisis.
"What we did today... is the only feasible path to free detainees from Israeli jails," he told reporters in Beirut. "We do not want escalation in the south, we do not want to bring war to Lebanon... But if the enemy is thinking of escalation and that it wants Lebanon to pay a price then... we are ready and willing, more than the enemy expects."
David Walsh, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, who is on a visit to Egypt, said that Hezbollah's involvement was "a very dangerous escalation (that) puts at risk all the effort that's being put forth by many to find a solution to the current situation."
Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, also called for the immediate release of the two soldiers.
Their capture was announced by Hezbollah this morning on the group's al-Manar television station. The militants later faxed a statement to the Associated Press that read: "At 09.05 this morning, the Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers near the border with occupied Palestine, and the captives have been moved to a safe area."
As news of the capture spread, Hezbollah supporters fired guns into the air and set off firecrackers in southern Beirut, a stronghold of the movement that earlier this year won 23 of the 128 seats in the Lebanese parliament.
The violence opened a second front in the ongoing stand-off between Israel and the Hamas-led Palestinian government over the fate of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli corporal taken hostage by Palestinian militants in a raid on an Israeli border post on June 25.
The armed wing of Hamas, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, is one of three groups believed to be holding Corporal Shalit, who was the first Israeli soldier taken hostage by the Palestinians since 1994. The militants have reportedly demanded the release of up to 1,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons in exchange for the soldier.
Hours after the raid, Hezbollah said it was also seeking the release of prisoners held by Israel. The co-ordination between the two groups was confirmed in a statement released by Hamas:
"Hezbollah’s operation proves again the complimentarity of the resistance against the Zionist entity, whether it is in Palestine or in Lebanon," the statement said.
Osama Hamdan, Hamas's spokesman in Lebanon, said that the two groups would co-ordinate their demands on the Israeli Government, which in the past has agreed to prisoner exchanges. In 1985, three Israeli soldiers captured in Lebanon in 1982 were traded for 1,150 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners.
"What happened proves to the enemy that there is only one way, which is to release Palestinian, Arab and Lebanese prisoners. All prisoners without any exemptions," he told al-Jazeera. "The nature of the relation between us and Hezbollah would definitely lead to a kind of agreement and coordination."
