Last update - 06:45 07/08/2006
IAF air strike kills six Lebanese family members, wounds two
By Jonathan Lis, Amiram Barkat, Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondents, and Agencies
An Israeli air strike killed six civilians and wounded two, all members of the same family, in southern Lebanon on Monday, rescue workers said.
The workers said earler they had been unable to try to rescue the family in the village of Ghazzaniyeh because of Israeli planes circling in the area and the fear of further airstrikes. But they later cleared the rubble and found six dead, but pulled out two members of the family alive.
Israel Air Force warplanes attacked Beirut's southern suburbs at daybreak Monday, renewing bombardment of the Hezbollah stronghold a day after
cross-border guerrilla rockets killed 15 Israelis.
The sound of four loud explosions in a spate of 20 minutes from the southern suburbs and the roar of raiding jets shook the Lebanese capital. The missiles kicked up smoke and dust in the sky.
It was not clear what was hit in the four airstrikes. South Beirut also was targeted by IAF warplanes Sunday afternoon.
Early Monday, Israeli warplanes targeted a northeastern region that is a symbol of Hezbollah power, witnesses and the group said. At least four explosions were heard around the Bekaa city of Baalbek, 100 kilometers (63 miles) north of Israel's border, witnesses said. There was no immediate word on casualties.
Warplanes struck roads about 20 kilometers (13 miles) south of Baalbek, and in the Rashaya region farther south on the corridor linking southern regions with the Bekaa in the country's east, the witnesses said.
Hezbollah has many bases in the Baalbek region. Israeli commandos on Wednesday landed troops in the Baalbek area and fought guerrillas, kidnapped several people before withdrawing. Sixteen Lebanese were killed in that raid.
The renewed airstrikes came as Hezbollah battled Israeli forces attempting to advance deeper into southern Lebanon early Monday.
Hezbollah engaged Israeli infantrymen attempting to advance on the border villages of Aita al-Shaab, Rub Thalatheen and Dibel, the guerrillas' TV station said. At Houla, guerrillas ambushed an advancing Israeli army unit and heavy fighting ensued.
An Israel Defense Forces reservist unit from the armored corps killed six Hezbollah gunmen in the Lebanese village of Yarun late Sunday night, and in the process destroyed stockpiles of anti-tank and Sager missiles.
IDF troops operating in the south Lebanon town of Maroun Ras also uncovered an ammunitions cache, which was subsequently destroyed.
IDF special forces killed three Hezbollah fighters and placed seven rocket launchers out of commission late Sunday south of the port city of Tyre.
Israel Air Force warplanes attacked the Lebanese town of Qana on Sunday and destroyed the launchers that fired rockets on Haifa that killed three people, the IDF said.
Jetfighters also demolished a second launching site north of the Lebanese coastal city of Tyre, from which more missiles were launched toward Haifa, said IDF spokesman Captain Jacob Dallal.
Both strikes came within three hours after the rockets slammed into Israel's third largest city, in a barrage that also wounded dozens of people.
The launcher used on Haifa "was targeted by the IDF tonight and totally destroyed," he said, referring to the Israeli Defense Forces.
The air strike demolished the launchers in the same town in which an IDF attack on August 3 killed 28 civilians. Israel acknowledged that attack was a mistake but accused Hezbollah of sheilding its launching sites behind civilians.
Dallal said more than 150 rocket attacks originated in Qana, which he described as a Hezbollah stronghold.
He said the rockets launched on Haifa were long-range Fajr missiles that carried 45 kilograms of explosives and is packed with thousands of ball bearings to cause maximum injuries.
IAF kills 2 in strike on car near UN aid convoy
Earlier Sunday, IAF planes fired a rocket at a truck close to a United Nations humanitarian convoy in Lebanon on Sunday, killing two people, a UN official and witnesses said.
The strike drew a swift reaction from the UN, which has complained along with other aid groups that Israel's artillery and aerial bombardments as well as a naval blockade are preventing them from helping many of the 800,000 to 1 million people displaced by the war.
"A truck on the opposite side of the road of the UN convoy was heading to Beirut. When it was about 40 metres (yards) away from the convoy, it was hit, apparently by a rocket," said UN spokesman for Lebanon Khaled Mansour.
"We are investigating the matter. It's a cause for deep concern that it was so close to a convoy whose details were conveyed to the warring factions."
The 15 trucks carrying food, medicine, mattresses and other supplies were one of the first large convoys since Israel bombed four key bridges linking Beirut to Syria on Friday, cutting what the UN called its "umbilical cord" for aid.
A Lebanese security official said that Israel Air Force jets fired six missiles into Beirut's southern suburbs earlier Sunday . They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to make statements to the media.
Shortly afterward, another loud explosion rocked south Beirut, sending more white smoke rising over the capital.
IDF says holding one of IDF soldiers' captors
Meanwhile, Major-General Amos Yadlin, chief of Military Intelligence, told the cabinet Sunday that the Israel Defense Forces has captured one of the Hezbollah guerillas responsible for the kidnapping of soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev on July 12, which sparked the conflict in the north.
Yadlin said that the Hezbollah member is being questioned in Israel, and reiterated earlier reports by IDF officers that more than 400 Hezbollah fighters had been killed in the conflict.
Three IDF soldiers wounded in clashes in Tyre
Three IDF soldiers were wounded Sunday, one seriously, in fighting south of the Lebanese port city of Tyre.
Reservist troops exchanged fire with Hezbollah guerillas in a series of gunbattles near Ras a-Beida, part of the IDF's slow extension of the buffer zone it created with the entry of ground forces into Lebanon last week.
IDF troops have actually advanced in several places beyond the buffer zone Israel maintained until May 2000, when the IDF withdrew from southern Lebanon.
Later Sunday, an IDF soldier sustained moderate injuries when an anti-tank missile hit a bulldozer in the village of Kila, north of Metula.
IDF special forces operating in the last few days south of Tyre have destroyed three rocket launchers, a bunker, munitions warehouses and vehicles used by Hezbollah, it was reported Sunday.
Five civilians killed in IAF strike
Five civilians were killed early Sunday when IAF aircraft bombed a house in the southern Lebanese village of Ansar, Lebanese security officials and Arab media said.
Hezbollah's Al-Manar television later reported that another body had been found, raising the toll to six, but officials could not immediately confirm that.
Lebanese security officials said an army intelligence official was killed and 7 soldiers were wounded in an IAF strike on Mansouri, about 10 kilometers (6 miles) south of Tyre on the Mediterranean coast.
They said another five Lebanese soldiers were wounded in Debbin, about 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of the border with Israel. Earlier, the same officials had mistakenly reported those soldiers dead.
Al-Jazeera television reported three people dead in Naqoura, on the Mediterranean coast side of Lebanon's border with Israel. But security officials could confirm just one person killed there, when Israeli missiles slammed into a three-story house around 4 A.M.