SHOULD anybody one want proof of the aims behind Israel's onslaught on Lebanon, they have only to drive the broken road through the umbrella pines to the little village of Bselim. Just past the local monastery, the French I, and Swedish packing cases for the millions of dollars of new transformers still lie next to the smouldering wreckage of the power station that had just been restored with foreign aid after its civil war damage.
Bselim was a symbol of Lebanon's rebirth - until four Israeli F-16 fighter bombers dived on it and, in less than three minutes, destroyed £13 million of equipment. They also cut Lebanon's power supply by up to a third for the next 18 months by firing 20 US made laser guided missiles into the plant.
The great 150 kilowatt transformers were still burning yesterday as Mr Mohib Itani, the director of Lebanon's generating board, the Electricite du Lihan, walked with anger through the ruins. "This is an act of sabotage," he said. "The Israelis want to bomb Lebanon back to the dark ages. No Hizbullah man has ever been here."
Mr Itani is right. Bselim lies in the Christian heartland of Lebanon, among a community which has often shown sympathy for Israel's cause and has no love for the Hizbullah. Israel claimed its attack on Monday was in retaliation for damage to "Israel's infrastructure" by Hizbullah rockets.
In fact, Israel's `infrastructure damage' consisted of a broken power line to a single house in Galilee. But the destruction of Bselim and the neighbouring substation at Jamhour has emasculated Lebanon's power supply. Mr Itani estimates total destruction, along with the bombing of electrical switching systems in the south and a third station in the Bekaa, as close to £54 million.
"Do you really think this was done because the Hizbullah have been firing Katyushas?" he asked. "This was done to attack Lebanon, to make us weak at the moment of our re birth," Mr Itani said.
A gateman at the station was wounded by shrapnel as the rockets exploded, devastating the home of the local plant director, Mr Sulieman Daher - one of the very few to realise how the Israelis knew what to hit. "In their 1982 invasion of Lebanon, their soldiers broke through the gate and stole all the plans and maps of the transformer lines and switching systems," he said. "At the time, we didn't understand why they would ever want to take them away from us."
France yesterday told Israel to end "unacceptable and unjustified" attacks on civilians in Lebanon and despatched experts to assess damage to Beirut power facilities, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.
"France insistently urges Israeli authorities to end attacks on civilian objectives which are unacceptable and unjustified. It has let it be known to Israeli authorities," the spokesman said.
Prime Minister Alain Juppe, hinting at unspecified secret diplomatic initiatives, told parliament the attacks on Lebanon, intended to silence Hizbollah guns, threw the entire Middle East peace process into question and called for peace talks to resume as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, in Tehran, Iranian leaders praised the resistance of Lebanese Hizbullah guerrillas in the face of Israel's air and artillery blitz and offered to send humanitarian aid to Lebanon.
President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani paid tribute to the Iranian backed Hizbullah as well as to Syria, which also supports the Shia Moslem group, in talks on the telephone with Syrian President Hafez al Assad.
Iran is "ready to provide help and support to the innocent people of Lebanon at any level," he said, quoted by the official media.
Jim Cusack, Security Correspondent, adds: Irish UN troops in south Lebanon yesterday rescued five people from a house in which at least three others died during an Israeli bombing.
Two Irish ambulance crews, in armoured personnel carriers (APCs), went to the people's assistance yesterday morning after the area around the house, in the village of Jumay Jimah, was hit by five bombs dropped by Israeli aircraft.
The Irish soldiers brought five people to hospital in the town of Tibnin, where the Irish Battalion HQ is situated. Two were later transferred to hospital in Tyre.
Three bodies were recovered from the house. During the afternoon another team of Irish soldiers with heavy lifting equipment went to the house after they learned another person was trapped inside. The person's condition was not known last evening.
Defence Forces Headquarters yesterday reported that troops in the Irish Battalion area of south Lebanon spent four hours in bomb shelters yesterday after a renewal of Israeli air raids and shelling in the area. A spokesman said the troops had had a quiet night prior to the bombing yesterday morning.
