Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid yesterday, triggering an Israeli assault with warplanes, tanks and gunboats against southern Lebanon as Israeli troops crossed the frontier to hunt for the captives.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called Hezbollah's move "an act of war" and held the Lebanese government responsible, vowing that the Israeli response "will be restrained, but very, very, very painful."
The soldiers' capture opened up a second front in Israel's fight against Islamic militants, coming even as it waged an offensive in the Gaza Strip aimed at freeing another Israeli soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit, seized by fighters linked to the Palestinian militant group Hamas on June 25.
Israel escalated its Gaza assault yesterday, dropping a bomb on a home before dawn in an attempt to assassinate top Hamas fugitives. Instead, the blast killed nine members of a Palestinian family -- including a four-year-old boy. The head of Hamas' military wing, Mohammed Deif, was wounded but escaped, Israel said.
Yesterday's events threatened to complicated efforts to win Shalit's release. The Shiite Lebanese Hezbollah said it had kidnapped the soldiers to help win the release of prisoners held in Israel. Hamas had made identical demands in seizing the Israeli soldier.
A top Hamas leader said his movement did not coordinate with Hezbollah over the capture of the soldiers, but said it was "natural" for the two groups to work together in their demands against Israel.
"Now Israeli has to decide on its choices," Osama Hamdan, Hamas' spokesman in Lebanon, told reporters. "It is early to talk about details of the exchange, but no doubt the operation carried out by Hezbollah today will strengthen our demands to exchange the captives."
Israel, however, appeared determined to win its troops freedom with a show of force.
Army Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Dan Halutz warned the Lebanese government that the Israeli military will target infrastructure and "turn back the clock in Lebanon by 20 years," if the soldiers were not returned, Israeli TV reported.
Israeli troops crossed into a southwestern sector of Lebanon, across the border from where the soldiers were seized, trying to keep their captors from moving them deeper into Lebanon, Israeli security officials said. Hezbollah said it destroyed an Israeli tank as it tried to cross the frontier.
Olmert's Cabinet was to convene later yesterday to approve further military action in Lebanon, as the military prepared to call up thousands of reserve soldiers. Residents of Israeli towns along the northern border were ordered to seek cover in underground bomb shelters.
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