[Betty Nguyen, Cnn Anchor:] Here's what we know on this busy Saturday morning. Israeli tanks are now rolling into southern Lebanon. Now it's not clear if it signals the start of a wider ground offensive into that country. We'll stay on top of this. But we'll tell you that throughout the night Israeli troops and equipment massed along the border. Israel also unleashed an overnight barrage of bombs and rockets. Also earlier Israeli missiles took out a transmission tower north of Beirut. The air strike has disrupted both television and phone service throughout northern Lebanon. From the CNN Center, this is CNN SATURDAY MORNING, July 22. What a day it's been so far. 9:00 a.m. here at CNN headquarters in Atlanta. 4:00 p.m. in the Middle East. Good morning, everybody. I'm Betty Nguyen.
[Richard Lui, Cnn Anchor:] And I'm Richard Lui from CNN Pipeline also a very good morning to you. Tony Harris is off this weekend.
[Nguyen:] He sure is. We've got a lot to tell you about. Again, just within the past hour Israeli tanks and soldiers crossed into southern Lebanon. CNN's Paula Newton is on the Israeli Lebanese border with an update. What are you seeing Paula?
[Paula Newton, Cnn Correspondent:] Well we've been here for a few hours and especially during the last two hours we have seen a heavy bombardment from Israeli guns into southern Lebanon. They were doing two things: trying to wipe out Hezbollah positions just behind me on the Lebanese border; and beyond that, those shells that we will see exploding on this mountaintop were trying to provide some cover for the tanks and the armored bulldozers going in. What is happening here is that the Israeli army is picking its targets carefully and picking its points carefully in terms of where it wants to enter Lebanon. While they continue to say that they are operating in these villages and they claim to be wiping out launchers, missiles and rockets, they say this is not a full scale ground invasion, not yet. But we have seen a heavy movement of machinery, armored personnel carriers, tanks and troops towards this border ready to be mobilized perhaps as many as 5,000 Betty.
[Nguyen:] It looks like the prelude, the beginnings of that ground assault. But let me ask you, Paula. The Israeli government is picking its targets very carefully in these villages. Tell me about that village where those tanks are right now? What's held there?
[Newton:] That's called Maroun al-Ras and it is just what you would claim it to be, pretty much a rural village. But right at that rural village because it is so close to the Israeli border, Hezbollah set up an outpost there. Just in the last couple days we've seen this kind of a fight when the Israelis first tried to go out there and wipe out infrastructure they ended up just taking on Hezbollah. We saw mortar rounds around here, even an anti-tank missile fired. In fact at least four Israeli soldiers lost their lives in that fight. But now it's quite calm. They do not see Hezbollah in there. There are some civilians left but they do not see Hezbollah. And so this is their first foot hold in southern Lebanon. They have now believed that they have cleared out a lot of the Hezbollah positions behind me and they will now hold that mountaintop and continue on from there. What they're trying to do is east to west along the border is cleanse the area for about a half mile. And they believe that will be the beginnings of a buffer zone for them Betty.
[Nguyen:] And make no mistake, this is an important point in this conflict. Paula, we will be checking in with you. In the meantime let's get the latest from the Israeli side of the conflict. Joining us by phone from Tel Aviv is Captain Erik Snider. Captain thank you for being with us today.
[Captain Erik Snider, Spokesperson, Israel Defense Forces:] Thank you.
[Nguyen:] I understand tanks have knocked down a border fence in Lebanon. Talk to us about that movement. We just spoke with our Paula Hancocks there. Tell me about the movement inside Lebanon right now.
[Snider:] Well the nature of the movement is still limited in scope. At the same time we are expanding our operations slightly in order to gain a little bit more of a foothold to take care of areas where we know that Hezbollah has been very active. The ultimate goal of our operations in the area of southern Lebanon close to the border is to eliminate the infrastructure and the posts that have been established by Hezbollah over the past six years since Israel pulled out of Lebanon.
[Nguyen:] Is this just one particular area right now where the troops are inside Lebanon or is it all across the border and we're just talking about one?
[Snider:] It's not all across the border. There are some specific areas in which they are operating. Obviously there's been a lot of attention paid to a couple of particular places including Maroun Al Ras. They are limited in scope and it's not across the entire border.
[Nguyen:] How long before a full scale ground assault in Lebanon?
[Snider:] That's not something I can answer. Obviously that's speculation at this point if we're going to engage in such an activity. Right now our focus is on pinpointed activities in certain areas along the border where Hezbollah has established posts which they've used to carry out both rocket attacks as well as historically they've used these posts as places to carry out attacks upon Israeli soldiers who are guarding the Israeli side of the border. As we saw about ten days ago when Israeli soldiers were attacked, killed and as well as kidnapped into Lebanon. This is a situation that has been going on for six years. The Lebanese government has not taken responsibility for keeping its border quiet. There are no Lebanese army forces on the border instead these are Hezbollah posts that have been established. And it's time that this changes.
[Nguyen:] Well Captain, let me ask you this, because you say you're not sure if a ground assault by troops will be the case but it is very obvious that you have staged troops along this border and you have sent some already into Lebanon. Is this the prelude for a ground assault?
[Snider:] Well again I don't want to speculate about the future. I can't for operational security reasons tell you, what we expect will happen and what action we'll take in accordance to that. Obviously it's important for us to have all the options available that we need along the northern border. We've had more than 70 Katyusha rockets and missiles fired into Israel just today. There's a lot of violence in the north. Unfortunately a lot of Israeli civilians are under fire day after day. We have to make sure that we have as an army we have everything available to try and prevent this from happening.
[Nguyen:] But if you do go in by ground, what can your troops do on the ground that can't be done by air?
[Snider:] Well, obviously the nature of a ground offensive is a little bit different than what you can do from the air. Fortunately our air attacks have been very successful so far and again I don't want to speculate too much about a major ground offensive. That's not something that we intend to do. It's not something that we're intending to do at this time. Our focus is putting pressure on the Hezbollah. Trying to get to a point where they can no longer carry out attacks on our home front, return the two soldiers that were kidnapped ten days ago.
[Nguyen:] But how would this fare in the plan to create a buffer zone? If you say you're not sure you're going to want to go in by ground of course you are still moving forward with this buffer zone, correct?
[Snider:] The best solution to this conflict and what's going on right now is for the international community and for the Lebanese to finally take responsibility for southern Lebanon. If they return the two soldiers and the Lebanese army is capable with perhaps support from the international community to be able to go down to the border and take care of what they are responsible for, their own sovereign territory, then there's no problem and we don't need to move any further.
[Nguyen:] But if this buffer zone is created, and your troops are involved in that, I mean you can't hold it forever, what next?
[Snider:] Well, again, we left Lebanon six years ago with no intention of returning. And I can tell you at this point we still have no intention of returning to Lebanon. That's not the focus of our operation. That's not the goal of our operation. What we're trying to do is we're trying to eliminate a threat that is posed to us from our northern border. What needs to happen is for the international community to support Lebanon in eliminating Hezbollah and bringing quiet to that border.
[Nguyen:] Captain Erik Snider, the spokesperson with the Israeli defense forces. We thank you for your time today.
[Lui:] OK let's get more on those Israeli air strikes targeting communications in northern Lebanon for you. CNN's Alessio Vinci joins us live from Beirut with the latest now. Alessio?
[Alessio Vinci, Cnn Correspondent:] Hello, Richard. Israeli air strikes targeting four separate television and telecommunication antennas in the northern part of the country, basically disrupting both television and the phone services up there. We understand from television pictures that provided us by Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation that there is extensive damage, firemen there trying to contain the fire. No casualties, several television networks knocked off the air including the LBC, including the Hezbollah run Al-Manar Television, which may have been obviously the target of this attack. And we understand that mobile telephone communications as well as some land lines have also been disrupted. But again, an attack against infrastructure and we have no reports of casualties at this time. Richard?
[Lui:] Alessio, so they are not making a distinction here Al Manar being targeted as well as LBC and Al Manar of course being the Hezbollah supported network?
[Vinci:] Well you know these television towers obviously carry the signal of several television stations and so I think you can't really make a difference. Once you knock one of it you knock everything down. And so while attacking Al Manar relay station, you're attacking the relay stations of every other television station that counts, and that counts on that particular antenna. So that is why I think several television stations including LBC and Future TV have been disrupted and not just the Al Manar TV station.
[Lui:] Alessio Vinci in Beirut. Thank you very much for that update.
[Nguyen:] And we do have some new developments to tell you about. Let's get straight to the international desk and CNN's Randi Kaye. Randi what do you have?
[Randi Kaye, Cnn Anchor:] Betty we can tell you that just into CNN's international desk, LBC, which is the Lebanese Broadcast Channel, we have now been told by them they are reporting that one of their employees was killed in that Israeli air strike on their transmission tower and also they are telling us that one of their employees was injured in that air strike that Alessio Vinci was just talking about. Those happened earlier today. Bombs blasted the towers there for in four different areas actually, one near Tripoli, one near Mt. Lebanon, one near, actually two just north of Juni. These were the first major air strikes in the heartland of Lebanon. Blasting the towers, phone service including some mobile phone service was affected. And now we're learning from LBC, which is the leading private network in Lebanon, that one of their employees was killed in that air strike and one injured. That is the very latest from CNN's international desk Betty.
[Nguyen:] All right Randi, thank you.
[Lui:] All right we're going to go to break right now. But stay with us right here on CNN SATURDAY MORNING. We're going to have more on the crisis in the Middle East.