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Hizbollah rocket kills 11 Israeli soldiers

Posted on: Sunday, 6 August 2006, 11:51 CDT

By Alistair Lyon, Special Correspondent

BEIRUT (Reuters) - 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.

The soldiers were killed and dozens were wounded, medics said, when a rocket struck a group of reservists called up for the Lebanon offensive in the 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.

"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 in southern Lebanon.

"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, the United States wanted a second one establishing an international force for Lebanon 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 758 people have been killed in Lebanon during the war, including 15 overnight and on Sunday in bombing of four 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 deaths in the war.

Beirut was also rattled by an air raid in the Shi'ite-dominated southern suburbs, witnesses said.

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.

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)

Source: REUTERS

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