Hizbollah rocket kills 12 Israeli soldiers

By Nadim Ladki

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Hizbollah killed 12 Israeli soldiers on
Sunday in its deadliest rocket strike yet and Israeli bombs
killed 19 Lebanese civilians as Lebanon rejected a draft U.N.
resolution to end the 26-day-old war.

A rocket struck a group of Israeli reservists, called up
for the Lebanon offensive, in the Israeli village of Kfar
Giladi. Medics said dozens were wounded.

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.

“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 that agreeing
on a resolution would not end all fighting.

“I would hope that you would see very early on an end to
large-scale violence,” she said, but did not rule out
“skirmishes for some time to come.”

U.S. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said that
once a resolution was adopted, Washington wanted a second one
establishing a peacekeeping force in days, not weeks.

Hizbollah, backed by Syria and Iran, has killed 57 Israeli
soldiers and 33 civilians in the conflict, sparked when its men
seized 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 759 people have been killed in Lebanon during the
war, including 16 overnight and on Sunday in the bombing of
five southern villages.

Two civilians died when an Israeli air strike hit a pickup
truck ahead of a U.N. aid convoy heading for the southern city
of Tyre, U.N. sources said.

A Lebanese soldier was killed in an air raid near Tyre and
another civilian in a strike inside it.

Hizbollah announced the deaths of three more of its
fighters, bringing its declared toll of deaths to 52. Lebanese
security sources estimate about 90 Hizbollah fighters have been
killed.

Beirut was rattled by an air raid in the Shi’ite-dominated
southern suburbs, witnesses said. And the Bekaa Valley was hit
by several air raids, one near a Lebanese army base.

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.

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.

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)