VARIOUS: Israel threatens to expand Lebanon ground offensive

Israel threatened on Monday (August 7, 2006) to expand ground operations against Hizbollah if diplomatic efforts to end the war remained stalled while the Israeli army continued its Lebanon offensive after 15 Israelis were killed in rocket attacks. Israeli bombing has already pounded Lebanon's roads, bridges, ports, airports and other installations, though power, water and telephone systems are still more or less functioning. The Israeli army distributed footage showing rockets being launched from southern Lebanese villages and later the Israeli airstrikes on the launchers. Troops deployed along the border Israel and Lebanon continued to shell southern Lebanese villages out of which the army is trying to push Hizbollah guerillas. Early on Monday Israel detonated explosives in Hizbollah positions in southern Lebanon and pushed on with its vigourous offensive as the war entered its 27th day. The Israeli Army said it plans to attack strategic infrastructure targets and symbols of the Lebanese government, Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported Monday. Kfar Giladi residents in northern Israel assessed damage to their town on Monday morning after a barrage of rockets killed 12 Israeli army reservists and wounded scores more on Sunday. Hizbollah rockets killed 15 people in total in northern Israel on Sunday, Israel's highest death toll in a single day since the start of the Lebanon war. The Israeli army said the reservists in Kfar Giladi were preparing to join ground operations in southern Lebanon when they were killed in the attack on their communal farm. Medics put the death toll at 12, with dozens of people wounded, making it the guerrilla group's deadliest single missile strike. Later, rockets rained down on the northern city of Haifa, killing three people and wounding up to 121, medics and local media said. A police commander said a rocket slammed into two adjacent houses, causing them to partially collapse. Several people were briefly trapped in the rubble. Elsewhere on Monday, a fresh barrage of Hizbollah rockets made a direct hit into an absorption centre in the Northern Israeli town of Safed. No casualties were reported. One of Israel's leading hospitals has moved its patients underground after a barrage of rockets hit its city killing at least three residents and injuring scores more. Haifa's Rambam Hospital transferred its patients to the shelter on Monday in a bid to escape further attacks directed by Hizbollah fighters in southern Lebanon as the war entered its 27th day. Haifa has been the scene of regular rocket attacks since the start of Israel's offensive on Hizbollah. Israeli air strikes killed 14 civilians in Lebanon and Hizbollah battled Israeli ground troops on Monday as the U.N. Security Council failed to agree on a draft resolution seeking to end 27 days of fighting. The war was triggered by Hizbollah guerrillas' seizure of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12.

ITN Source | August 7, 2006

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