40 killed in strike on Lebanese village

By SAM F. GHATTAS, Associated Press Writer 10 minutes ago

    BEIRUT, Lebanon - An Israeli attack on a Lebanese border village killed more than 40 people Monday, Lebanon's prime minister said, despite cease-fire efforts. The Israeli army said fierce fighting with Hezbollah guerrillas killed one Israeli soldier.

    Israeli warplanes repeatedly bombed Beirut's southern suburbs and pounded other areas of Lebanon, killing another 15 people to raise the day's death toll to 60, Lebanese officials said. In northern

Israel, scores of Hezbollah rockets wounded five people, rescue workers said.

    Both sides appeared to take advantage of the days before a cease-fire resolution, formulated by the U.S. and France, is put to a vote in the

U.N. Security Council.

    Prime Minister Fuad Saniora repeatedly broke into tears as he disclosed the latest attack during opening remarks at a meeting of Arab League foreign ministers in Beirut. He appealed to fellow Arab states to help a nation "stunned" by a nearly four-week Israeli onslaught that has devastated Lebanon's infrastructure and left hundreds of civilians dead.

    Saniora said the attack occurred in the southern village of Houla, where heavy ground fighting between Hezbollah guerrillas and Israel has been raging in recent days. The Israeli army said it is checking the claims about Houla but repeated that residents in villages in southern Lebanon had been warned to leave.

    There was no confirmation of the death toll from security officials, but witnesses said the airstrike flattened five homes in a tribal compound.

    U.N. peacekeepers at a post near Houla reported Hezbollah fired rockets toward Israel twice Monday from positions near the UNIFIL base.

    "An hour ago, there was a horrific massacre in the village of Houla in which more than 40 martyrs were victims of deliberate bombing," he said. Saniora had to halt his remarks several times to choke back tears and wipe his eyes, and the ministers broke into supportive applause.

    "If these horrific actions are not state terrorism, then what is state terrorism?" he asked, adding that Israel's attacks have set back Lebanon by "decades."

    Local TV stations had reported about 40 people were buried under the rubble of houses targeted by Israeli airstrikes.    Israel's attacks on Lebanon have killed at least 651 people, including 524 civilians, 29 Lebanese soldiers and at least 53 Hezbollah guerrillas.

    Hezbollah fired its deadliest rocket barrage Sunday on Israel, killing 12 Israeli reservists and three civilians. That brought the Israeli death toll to 94, including 46 soldiers, the 12 reservists and 36 civilians.

    In other Israeli air raids across southern Lebanon, seven people were killed when a missile hit a house in Qassmieh on the coast north of the port city of Tyre, civil defense official Youssef Khairallah said.

    An Israeli airstrike on an apartment complex in Tyre killed five people, witnesses and rescue workers said.

    A woman and her daughter were killed near a Lebanese army checkpoint between the villages of Harouf and Dweir, security officials said. Four other people were killed in a raid on that destroyed a house in Kfar Tebnit.

    Air raids on the town of Ghaziyeh also destroyed several buildings, killing at least one person and wounding 14, hospital officials said.

    A building collapsed in the village of Ghassaniyeh, and at least one body was pulled from the rubble. Witnesses and civil defense workers said six more people were buried, but that could not be confirmed.

    Five air raids struck the market town of Nabatiyeh, targeting two office buildings, a house and one of the offices of Shiite Muslim Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah. No casualties were reported there or in raids on the villages of Jibsheet and Toul.

    Attacks also were carried out in Naqoura on the border and Ras al-Biyada, about halfway between Naqoura and Tyre. About 30 Israeli commandos landed by helicopter on a hill overlooking Ras al-Biyada, where they battled Hezbollah militants, Lebanese security officials said. Israeli officials would not confirm the operation.

    Meanwhile, one Israeli soldier was killed and four were slightly wounded in Bint Jbail, the army said. It said five Hezbollah gunmen were killed.

    A new barrage of 83 rockets hit northern Israel on Monday morning, slightly wounding five Israelis, according to rescue services.

    Ministers have called for a meeting of Israel's Security Cabinet later Monday to discuss whether to broaden the offensive.

    One minister, speaking on condition of anonymity because he did not want to be seen as criticizing the military, said the army needed to send all available ground forces into Lebanon immediately to push Hezbollah and its rocket launchers out of the area south of the Litani River, about 18 miles from the border.

    Hezbollah claimed to have killed four Israeli soldiers in Houla. The Israeli army said only three were wounded.

    The U.N. plan would call for an immediate halt in the fighting, followed by a second resolution in a week or two to authorize an international military force and creation of a buffer zone in south Lebanon. It also says the two Israeli soldiers whose capture July 12 by Hezbollah guerrillas triggered the war should be released unconditionally.

    Saniora and the Arab foreign ministers pressed for changes in the plan. He has proposed a speeded-up deployment of Lebanese troops with the support of U.N. forces in order to ensure that thousands of Israeli soldiers leave the south with any cease-fire, a Saniora aide said.

    Washington and Paris were expected to circulate a new draft of the first resolution at the

United Nations on Monday, taking into account some of the amendments proposed by Qatar, the only Arab nation on the Security Council, and other members, diplomats said.

Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon the U.S.-French draft was good for Israel — but the country still had military goals and would continue its attacks on Hezbollah. While Hezbollah has not rejected the plan outright, its two main allies —

Iran — said it was without merit because it did not call for an immediate Israeli withdrawal, among other demands.

Lebanon's parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, also said the plan was unacceptable because it does not deal with Beirut's other key demands — a release of prisoners held by Israel and moves to resolve a dispute over a piece of border territory.

    In other violence, Israeli warplanes hit roads in the Bekaa Valley, a northeastern region of Lebanon that is a symbol of Hezbollah power. At least four explosions were heard around the city of Baalbek, about 60 miles north of Israel's border, witnesses said. The Israeli military confirmed it had hit several targets in the area.

    Warplanes also struck a large factory for construction materials just south of Baalbek.

    Jet fighters attacked the Rashaya region farther south on the corridor linking southern regions with the Bekaa Valley, witnesses said. A road near the Beirut border post at Masnaa on the Beirut-Damascus highway, a frequent target of attack, was hit again Monday.

    Israel's Haaretz daily, quoting an unidentified general, reported that attacks might be stepped up on Lebanese infrastructure and symbols of the government in response to Hezbollah's escalating rocket attacks. Israeli warplanes have repeatedly blasted Palestinian government buildings during a monthlong offensive in Gaza that began shortly before the fighting with Hezbollah.

    Hezbollah has fired more than 3,000 rockets at Israel since the fighting began, Israeli officials said.

    The 12 Israeli reservists were killed by a rocket that struck near the entrance to the communal farm of Kfar Giladi on the Lebanese border, hospital officials said. Dozens of other rockets hit Israel, including some that reached Haifa — the third-largest city — killing three civilians.

    Hezbollah militants battled Israeli forces trying to push deeper into southern Lebanon, engaging Israeli infantrymen attempting to advance on the border villages of Aita al-Shaab, Rub Thalatheen and Dibel, the guerrillas' TV station said.

    Some 10,000 Israeli soldiers are fighting several hundred Hezbollah gunmen in south Lebanon, trying to track and destroy rocket launchers and push the guerrilla group out of the area.