-- Israeli jets hit targets in southern Lebanon as Hezbollah TV reports two Israeli soldiers captured along the border

Jets strike targets in southern Lebanon
Wednesday, July 12, 2006 Posted: 0859 GMT (1659 HKT)

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israeli Prime Minster Ehud Olmert has called a special security cabinet meeting to address "strong concerns" that two soldiers may have been abducted along the border with Lebanon.

The Cabinet will convene at 7 p.m. (noon ET) according to Israeli military sources and the prime minister's office.

Hezbollah TV reported that Hezbollah guerrillas had captured the soldiers following cross-border attacks.

If the Hezbollah claims are true, the soldiers would be the second and third taken captive in recent weeks.

Palestinian militants abducted Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit, 19, after raiding an Israeli military post in southern Israel on June 25.

Earlier on Wednesday, Hezbollah militants fired a pair of rockets into northern Israel from southern Lebanon, wounding four Israeli civilians, according to Israel Defense Forces.

Police in Lebanon described it as an exchange of fire between Israel's north and the villages of Ramieh and Aita al-Shaab in southern Lebanon.

In response, Israeli jets struck Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon and Israel's Channel 10 showed Israeli tanks firing artillery rounds across the border.

It is the latest skirmish between Israel and Lebanon, whose forces traded cross-border fire in late May following the assassination of an Islamic Jihad official in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon.

Mahmoud Majzoub, also known as Abu Hamza, was killed in a car bombing, which Islamic Jihad blamed on Israel. Israel denied any involvement in the incident.

Hezbollah is designated a terrorist group by the United States and Israel but is a significant player in Lebanon's fractious politics.

Airstrike kills seven
Earlier Wednesday, an Israeli airstrike killed at least seven Palestinians and wounded 15 others as Israeli troops moved into new areas of central Gaza, Palestinian sources said.

Two missiles were fired, according to Palestinian sources. One targeted a car, and the other killed seven and wounded 15 at a home belonging to a professor at the Islamic University, the sources said.

The Israeli army said they had targeted a house that was used as a hideout by several senior Hamas militants who were responsible for attacks, including the launching of Qassam rockets. The army said the group was planning an imminent attack.

Children were among the dead, The Associated Press and Reuters reported, quoting hospital officials.

Israel has been hammering Gaza with artillery and airstrikes in what it says is an effort to find army Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who was abducted June 25 in a cross-border raid by Palestinian militants. Israel began its assault on Gaza three days later, saying it also wanted to deter Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday that his country will keep up military operations in Gaza until the Palestinians stop firing rockets into Israel and militants free the 19-year-old Shalit.

"It will continue in places, in time, in different measures that will suit the purposes that were outlined," Olmert said at a Foreign Press Association conference in Jerusalem. (Watch Olmert explain why Israelis are in Gaza again -- 4:12)

In Damascus, Syria, Hamas political leader Khalid Meshaal said that the kidnapped soldier would not be freed until Israel begins to release some of the 10,000 Palestinians it holds in its prisons.

Israel has refused to negotiate for Shalit's release, saying a prisoner exchange would encourage more kidnappings.

Meshaal insists Shalit is a prisoner of war and is being treated humanely.

Meshaal said the international community "sees the picture only through the eye of a soldier," while ignoring the plights of thousands of Palestinian inmates in Israeli prisons, including numerous politicians.

"The human aspect of the Palestinian suffering is being ignored," he said.

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Five more women accuse Pres. Katsav of sexual harassment

Haaretz reveals further testimonies of former employees which accuse president of harassment.

Military Police unlikely to press charges in IAF teen rape case
By Yuval Azoulay, Haaretz Correspondent

There is a growing likelihood that no one will be indicted in the case of the teenage girl who was serially raped on an Israel Air Force base in the south, since the Military Police have failed to turn up any evidence that the servicemen who had sex with her knew she was under the age of consent.

The army's chief prosecutor, Brigadier General Avihai Mandelblit, will decide whether to file indictments in the upcoming weeks, after reviewing the findings of the weeks-long Military Police investigation, which ended recently.

The 15-year-old victim told investigators early on in the probe that she had lied to the soldiers, telling them she was 16.5 or 17, which is old enough for consensual sex. Lacking any evidence that the soldiers knew her true age - which would make them guilty of statutory rape - there may be no grounds for an indictment, since there is also no evidence that the sexual encounters took place against her will.

During the investigation, military policemen questioned almost 200 soldiers, officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) at the base.

Of these, 81 were suspected of having slept with the girl, and 25 admitted to having done so. However, all 25 said they were unaware of her true age.

The officers were questioned on suspicion that they knew what was happening but did nothing about it. However, the probe also failed to turn up any evidence that might constitute grounds for an indictment on this issue.

Two NCOs on the base have been suspended due to suspicions that they slept with the girl, and the base commander, Colonel Erez, resigned over the affair a few weeks ago

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