Hizbollah kills 10 Israeli soldiers

By Alistair Lyon, Special Correspondent

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Hizbollah killed 10 Israeli soldiers on
Sunday in its deadliest rocket strike yet and Israeli bombs
killed 11 Lebanese civilians as Lebanon rejected a draft U.N.
resolution to end the 26-day-old war.

The soldiers were killed and nine were wounded, medics
said, when a rocket struck a group of reservists called up for
the Lebanon offensive in the north Israeli village of Kfar
Giladi.

Soldiers near the scene held their heads and one wept as a
military ambulance pulled away. Helicopters landed nearby to
fly the badly wounded to hospitals further from the war front.

Blood-stained boots stood against a wall. Stretchers lay on
the ground, covered in blood. One officer looked at the bodies,
some covered by blankets, and shook his head in disbelief.

“I don’t recall so many dead ever. This is terrible,” said
Ron Valensi, head of the upper Galilee municipal council and a
resident of Kfar Giladi, speaking on Channel 2 Television.

Lebanon’s parliament speaker Nabih Berri said his country
rejected the U.S.-French draft Security Council resolution
because it would let Israeli forces stay on Lebanese soil.

Berri, a Shi’ite politician who has been the main channel
between Hizbollah and Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, said the
draft ignored the Beirut government’s seven-point plan calling
for a ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces and the
return of all displaced civilians among other things.

“All of Lebanon rejects any resolution that is outside
these seven points,” Berri told a news conference.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it was
important to get a vote on a U.N. resolution in the next day or
two to clear the way for a halt to large-scale violence in
southern Lebanon.

Hizbollah, backed by Syria and Iran, has killed 56 Israeli
soldiers and 33 civilians in the conflict, sparked when its men
snatched two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July
12.

The Israeli army said on Sunday it had captured one of the
Hizbollah fighters who took part in the seizure of the
soldiers.

LEBANESE CIVILIANS KILLED

At least 748 people have been killed in Lebanon during the
war, including five who died in air raids on the Shi’ite
village of Ansar overnight. Three civilians were killed in a
strike near the southern village of Naqoura, security sources
said.

Two more civilians died when an Israeli air strike hit a
pickup truck driving about 40 meters (yards) ahead of a U.N.
aid convoy heading for the southern city of Tyre, U.N. sources
said. A Lebanese army soldier was killed in an air raid near
Tyre and another civilian in a strike inside it.

U.N. peacekeepers in south Lebanon said a mortar round
fired by Hizbollah wounded three Chinese members of the force.

Israel views the U.N. draft favorably, a senior government
official and Israeli media said, noting that it allowed Israel
to respond to Hizbollah attacks after a truce and did not order
Israel to withdraw its 10,000 soldiers from southern Lebanon.

Israel wants its troops to remain until an international
force can take over. Hizbollah says it will keep fighting until
Israel stops bombing Lebanon and withdraws all its forces.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told ministers at a
routine cabinet meeting not to speak about the document until
it was finalized, a political source said.

The draft was hammered out in negotiations between the
United States, Israel’s main ally, and France, touted as leader
of the anticipated international force for Lebanon.

Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon said Israel would keep
attacking Hizbollah targets in Lebanon and its soldiers would
stay there until the international force arrived.

“We must continue the fighting, continue to hit whoever we
can hit from Hizbollah,” Ramon told Army Radio.

Israel’s definition of Hizbollah targets has included more
than 70 bridges, as well as roads, ports, airports, radar
stations, television and telephone masts, factories, farms and
countless homes pummeled into ruin by bombing across Lebanon.

A second U.N. resolution is envisaged a week or two after
the first is adopted, setting conditions for a permanent
ceasefire and authorizing the international force.

Berri said the first draft resolution would “drop Lebanon
into internal strife or be impossible to implement.”

Lebanon will seek support for its position from Arab
foreign ministers due to meet in Beirut on Monday. Syrian
Foreign Minister Walid Mouallem, arriving by land a day early,
reiterated that Syria would respond if Israel attacks it.

The war coincides with an Israeli military offensive in the
southern Gaza Strip to recover another captured soldier.

An air strike killed one Palestinian in the strip on
Sunday, bringing to at least 167 the number of Palestinians
killed in the campaign, more than half of them civilians.

In the West Bank city of Ramallah, Israeli forces detained
Palestinian parliament speaker Aziz Dweik, a Hamas leader.

(Additional reporting by Beirut, Jerusalem and United
Nations bureaux)