Israel hits hard but suffers 15 deaths
(AP)
Updated: 2006-08-07 08:55
KFAR GILADI, Israel - A defiant Hezbollah pounded northern
Israel with rockets Sunday after rejecting a U.S.-French truce proposal, killing
at least 15 people. Israel also struck hard, killing 14 in Lebanon as both sides
tried to take advantage of the days before a U.N. resolution is put to a vote.
Israeli soldiers stand
behind 155mm mobile artillery firing into southern Lebanon, from a
position on the Israeli-Lebanese border August 6, 2006. Hizbollah killed
11 Israeli soldiers on Sunday in its deadliest rocket strike yet and
Israeli bombs killed 18 Lebanese civilians as Lebanon rejected a draft
U.N. resolution to end the 26-day-old war.
[Reuters] |
In the deadliest
attack on Israelis in this war, a rocket landed Sunday among reservists near the
entrance to the communal farm of Kfar Giladi on the Lebanese border. It killed
12 soldiers heading for battle in Lebanon and wounded five, hospital officials
said.
Hezbollah rockets also hit Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, killing three
civilians and wounding dozens. Flames shot from damaged homes as firefighters
tried to rescue panicked residents.
In Lebanon, the dead included five members of one family crushed in their
home by an Israeli air strike. Warplanes attacked near Beirut and in the south,
where some villages were bombed continually for a half-hour, security officials
said.
The fighting has intensified since the U.S. and France proposed a cease-fire
resolution on Saturday which could soon be put to a vote in the U.N. Security
Council. Both sides seem intent on inflicting maximum damage on each other
before the vote.
Hezbollah and its chief allies, Iran and Syria, rejected the draft resolution
because it does not call for an immediate Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon and
does not address other Lebanese demands.
Mohammed Fneish, one of two Hezbollah members of the Lebanese Cabinet, said
Saturday the militant group would not abide by a cease-fire resolution while
Israeli troops remain on Lebanese territory.
Some 10,000 Israeli soldiers are fighting several hundred
Hezbollah gunmen in that area, trying to track and destroy rocket launchers.
Israel says it won't leave until a multinational force has been deployed.
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