ZAHLE - Israeli jets on Friday destroyed Lebanon's Mdairej bridge, the highest in the Middle East, sending a 200 metre (650 feet) section crashing to the ground, police said.
The bridge, inaugurated in 1998 by the assassinated former prime minister Rafiq Hariri and built at a cost of 44 million dollars, stood 70 metres (230 feet) high on a mountainous route on the Beirut-Damascus highway.
Already the target of Israeli air strikes on the first day of the offensive on July 12, the new bombardment caused two pillars to collapse in an immense cloud of black smoke.
07/21/2006 21:32 GMT