Provocation and escalation: Israel prepares for war in Lebanon against Hezbollah

Here's the latest from The Jerusalem Post:

One person was killed and twelve were wounded -- one seriously -- when four Hizbullah-fired Katyusha rockets landed in central Nahariya on Thursday morning...

Residents of the North were asked to remain in bomb shelters in anticipation of further attacks. Nahariya is the farthest city Hizbullah has managed to reach thus far.

Meanwhile, IAF fighter jets bombed runways at Beirut International Airport early Thursday morning. It was part of a military campaign which the IDF vowed would be harsh and quick against the Lebanese government and Hizbullah, which killed eight IDF soldiers and kidnapped two others along the northern border on Wednesday.

Al-Jazeera television network reported that 15 people were killed in the airstrike...

Meeting in emergency session late Wednesday, the Cabinet approved IDF plans to target the airport and other strategic infrastructures inside Lebanon including power plants.

At that cabinet meeting, "ministers approved plans to push Hizbullah back from the northern border and place pressure on the Lebanese government to dismantle the Islamist organization, as called for under UN Security Council Resolution 1559".

On the domestic front, "the Police and the Prisons Service raised the alert level to the second highest, one level below a state of emergency, as they scrambled to prevent a third front from being opened -- by Palestinian terrorists within Israel's cities".

MSNBC has more on the Beirut airport strike here. As you may know by now, "Israel bombed and shelled southern Lebanon and sent ground troops over the border for the first time in six years [yesterday]" in response to the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah. Last night, "Israeli aircraft and artillery continued attacking targets in southern Lebanon".

The Washington Post has more here. (And so will we as more is known.)