Hezbollah Rocket Attacks Kill 15 People In Israel
Posted August 6, 2006 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The militant group fired at least 80 rockets across the Lebanese border and one of the weapons hit a crowd near a kibbutz, killing 12 reserve soldiers.
Rockets also hit the northern city of Haifa – Israel’s third-largest city – killing three people and injuring at least 40 others.
Sunday’s casualties mark the highest death toll from Hezbollah rocket attacks yet.
Three Chinese peacekeepers were also killed in the rocket attacks, just hours after China’s Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing told United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan that measures must be taken to protect peacekeepers.
Hezbollah’s long-range missile launchers are located near the southern Lebanese port cities of Tyre and Sidon.
Israel also pressed on with its military efforts Sunday, launching dozens of strikes in southern Lebanon that killed 13 people.
In villages around Tyre rescue crews were unable to respond to calls to help people trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings because of the continued bombardment.
The Israeli army also announced that it had captured one of the Hezbollah guerrillas involved in the initial raid that sparked the fighting when two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped.
At least 591 people have been killed in Lebanon, including 507 civilians, 34 soldiers and 50 Hezbollah guerrillas. Israel claims it has killed more than 350 members of the militant group.
Ninety-four people have died in Israel, including at least 44 killed in rocket attacks and the rest soldiers killed in ground combat.
Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts to end the crisis continued a day after the United States and France announced that they’d come to an agreement on a draft U.N. resolution to end the fighting.
Hezbollah and its allies Syria and Iran have rejected the proposed framework saying it doesn’t address any of Lebanon’s demands – chiefly the release of prisoners held by Israel and steps to resolve a dispute over a piece of border territory.
The U.N. Security Council is expected to vote on the draft in the coming days.
After weeks of stalled diplomacy getting the two warring sides to sign on will prove to be another major challenge.
The proposed plan will also include a second resolution in the near future that would authorize the deployment of an international military force and the creation of a buffer zone in southern Lebanon, monitored by that force and the Lebanese army.
