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Israeli soldiers are seen inside an armored vehicle during an incursion in southern Lebanon near the village of Aitrun Thursday. (AP)
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners August 3, 2006 |
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An Israeli missile slammed into a house in a Lebanese border village early Thursday, killing a family of three, Lebanese security officials said.
The attack occurred in the village of Taibeh, less than five kilometers from the Israeli border.
A missile crashed into the two-story house of Hani Abdo Marmar at 9:10 a.m., killing him instantly along with his wife and daughter, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to make statements to the media.
The three victims were still buried under the rubble of their house, which was flattened, witnesses said. More than an hour after the strike, the Lebanese Red Cross was unable to reach Taibeh to pull out the bodies, because of fierce fighting in the village, witnesses said.
Clashes between Hezbollah guerrillas and Israeli ground troops have raged in Taibeh for several days.
Israeli soldiers have taken up positions in or near 11 towns and villages across south Lebanon, the army said Thursday, as Israel tries to carve out a five-mile-wide Hezbollah-free zone ahead of what it hopes will be a speedy deployment of a multinational force there.
Most of the villages are close to the Israel-Lebanon border; the one deepest inside Lebanon, Majdel Zoun, is about four miles from the frontier. However, scores of tanks pushed even further north, controlling open areas from higher ground, security officials said.
Hezbollah television reported on clashes with Israeli troops early Thursday in Taibeh and another border village, Aita al-Shaab. It said two Israeli tanks and two bulldozers were destroyed, and that their crews were killed or wounded.
The Israeli army said a tank had been lightly hit but that there were no casualties or serious damage.
Another house was hit in the south Lebanese village of Qleia. An Associated Press reporter saw two Israeli missiles slam into the house, igniting a fire that sent a column of heavy black smoke up from the site. The frame of the house remained standing, but it was burning and gutted.
Israeli artillery shells soared into nearby hills sporadically, sometimes as many as 15 a minute.
Israeli warplanes renewed airstrikes against suspected Hezbollah targets in the battered suburbs of Beirut on Thursday, and around the southern port city of Tyre.
They also struck along Lebanon's northern border with Syria, and on roads in the eastern Bekaa Valley.
Six Israeli army brigades, or about 10,000 troops, are fighting in south Lebanon against several hundred Hezbollah guerrillas. The security officials said they believe about 25 percent of the guerrilla group's rocket launchers are hidden in the area Israel is trying to control.
However, after a day of massive rocketing on northern Israel, Israeli officials acknowledged that Hezbollah's barrages can't be stopped by force alone. Some 230 rockets slammed into Israel on Wednesday, the highest number yet.
Cabinet Secretary Yisrael Maimon said rocket fire will only be halted by a diplomatic solution to the conflict.
"I said and I will say now again that the Katyushas will continue to be fired on Israel," Maimon told Israel TV's Channel Two. "The (military operation) has to push Hezbollah north, deal with its infrastructure ... plus a diplomatic process, the point of which is to stop the Katyusha fire through a general agreement and not just in a pinpoint manner that deals with one Katyusha in south Lebanon."
Six missiles struck roads in the southern villages of Mlita and Ein Bouswar in the Iqlim al Tuffah province, a highland apple-growing region where Hezbollah is believed to have offices and bases, security officials said. Israeli warplanes returned to the province hours later for additional raids.
Witnesses said at least four missiles hit south Beirut, a Shiite Muslim sector that has been repeatedly hit by Israel since fighting began three weeks ago. Lebanese television said the attacks targeted several buildings in a Hezbollah compound in the al-Ruweis neighborhood, which was hit several times before.
It was the first air raid on the Lebanese capital in almost a week. The strikes came in the wake of Hezbollah's rocket attack on the Israeli town of Beit Shean, its deepest hit in Israel so far. Hezbollah fired a record number of more than 200 rockets into Israel on Wednesday, as fierce fighting raged on the border.
The AP contributed to this report.
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