LEBANON: 12 civilians killed in Lebanon, 10 Israeli soldiers dead on 26th day of conflict.

Hizbollah killed 12 Israeli soldiers on Sunday (August 6, 2006) 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. More Hizbollah rockets hit the northern Israeli city of Haifa, killing at least one person and wounding many more, medics said. A police commander told Israel Radio that a rocket slammed into two adjacent houses, causing them to partly collapse. Several people were trapped in the rubble. Hizbollah, backed by Syria and Iran, has killed 58 Israeli soldiers and 34 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. 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. Israeli air strikes on the southern Lebanese village of Ansar killed at least 11 civilians on Sunday, police and local residents said. They said Israeli aircraft had struck a residential area of Ansar during heavy bombardment. One air strike hit the area as rescue workers were trying to remove the casualties, they said, adding that the toll could rise. The bombing levelled over fourteen houses in the village. Residents said the air raids started during the night. "The bombing started after midnight, there was no one on this street when the planes started to bomb. There were around nine airstrikes, they hit a civilian house. There three girls with their father and neighbour inside. They are dead and their bodies were ripped apart by the explosion," said a witness. Bombing continues in the area around Al Ansar and the nearest town Nabatiyet. Residents in north Lebanon woke up on Sunday (August 6) again to damages and destruction on their roads and fields. The bombardment hit one more time Araka Bridge linking the coastal areas in the north to the mountainous remote zones, destroying it completely. Overnight Israeli attacks targeted road leading to Al-Bared dam in northern Lebanon. Israel's definition of Hizbollah targets has included more than 70 bridges, as well as ports, airports, radar stations, television and telephone masts, factories, farms and countless homes pummelled into ruin by 26 days of bombing across Lebanon. Israel bombed targets in Tyre and neighbouring villages as troops continued to battle Hizbollah in south Lebanon on Sunday (August 6). Smoke was seen rising from villages south of Tyre and audio of shelling could be heard in the distance. The bombardment came a day after Israeli naval commandos attacked Hizbollah guerrillas near the southern city. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that agreeing on a resolution would not end all fighting in southern Lebanon. 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.

ITN Source | August 7, 2006

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