Middle Orient

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said earlier that up to 500,000 people had been forced from their homes by Israeli airstrikes that began last week after Hezbollah guerrillas seized two Israeli soldiers in cross-border raid.

Tony and Monika Esseily and their three children were winding up a vacation in Lebanon when Israeli airstrikes began July 12.

While thousands of Westerners have been bussed, flown and shipped out of Lebanon as Israel continues to bomb the country, some are struggling to get out.

Israeli troops were reportedly fighting Hezbollah militants in two locations near the border.

TYRE — Ghassan Bourji says he has run out of insulin for his two diabetic children and heart medication for his mother because Israeli bombardment has cut supplies to his village of Rmadiyeh in south Lebanon.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — The spectre of Israel sinking into the “quagmire” of Lebanon as when hundreds of troops were killed in 1982 has put an anti-Hizbollah ground offensive on hold, military officials said Wednesday.

BAGHDAD (AFP) — Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Maliki said Wednesday he was looking for ways to end the presence in his country of the Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran.

GENEVA (Reuters) — The scale of killing and maiming of civilians in Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territory points to possible war crimes, the United Nations human rights chief said on Wednesday.

GAZA (Reuters) — Israeli troops killed 12 Palestinians in clashes in the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank on Wednesday, medics said, including four fighters and two civilians as tanks pushed into a central Gaza refugee camp.

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is trying to hold off international pressure for an immediate halt to the Israeli assault in southern Lebanon, apparently to allow Israel a short window to do as much damage as possible.