ISRAEL: Cross border attacks continue, funeral and anti-war demonstration held

Hizbollah rocket barrages from Lebanon killed three people and wounded five in Israel on Saturday (August 5), police and medics said. The three were killed when a rocket hit a house in the Israeli Arab village of Arab al-Aramshe. Earlier, 10 rockets smashed into the northern outskirts of Haifa, Israel's third largest city, wounding five people and damaging cars and buildings. Hizbollah fired dozens more rockets that struck northern Israeli villages including Kiryat Shmona and Maalot as well as the city of Nahariya, officials said. Some of the rockets set ablaze open fields in the northern area. The guerrillas have stepped up attacks in recent days. The guerrillas have fired some 2,600 rockets into northern Israel, killing 33 civilians. Hizbollah said the latest strikes were in retaliation for Israeli attacks that had killed civilians in Lebanon. Hundreds of mourners brought to burial two Israeli Arab men who were killed by a Hizbollah rocket fired at their village of Majdal Kroum near the town of Carmiel in the Galilee region of northern Israel. in northern Israel. The two cousins were laid to rest next to each after a traditional Muslim funeral procession. Another two Israelis were killed in an earlier barrage of rockets on Friday, including a woman in a direct hit on her house in the Druze-Arab village of Maghar. Meanwhile Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon continued. Israeli artillery fired shells at southern Lebanon as ground troops crossed the border to fight against Hizbollah guerillas and infrastructure. Early on Saturday elite Israeli naval commandos fought gun and grenade battles with Hizbollah guerrillas in and around an apartment building near the southern Lebanese city of Tyre. A senior naval officer, who declined to be identified, said eight commandos were wounded, two seriously, in the operation to attack guerrillas suspected of firing long-range missiles at Israel. The commandos killed seven Hizbollah fighters in close combat, he said. Hizbollah issued a statement denying seven of its men were killed in what it called a failed raid. Lebanese security sources said four civilians and a Lebanese soldier were killed during fighting in citrus groves just north of Tyre, a city 21 km (13 miles) north of the Israeli border. Hizbollah said one Israeli soldier was killed and many wounded. The officer said the guerrillas in the apartment were responsible for firing at least two missiles on Friday that struck open areas near the Israeli city of Hadera, 80 km (50 miles) from the Lebanese border. That was the deepest Hizbollah rocket strike inside Israel since the war began on July 12. Israeli troops wounded in battles with Hizbollah in southern Lebanon were brought to a hospital in northern Israel on Saturday. Fierce fighting is ongoing in the southern Lebanese town of Aite al-Shaeeb between Israeli ground troops and Hizbollah guerillas. Israeli protesters gathered in Tel Aviv on Saturday to call on the government to halt all fire on Lebanon and to start negotiations for ceasefire as a the United States and France have completed a draft U.N Security Council resolution on an end to fighting. Hundreds took to the streets of Tel Aviv to protest Israeli military operations in Lebanon and to call on an immediate cessation of violence. 'Stop the War', called the protesters, some holding peace flags and banners. The demonstration was heavily secured, as protesters marched in central down town Tel Aviv.

ITN Source | August 6, 2006

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