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An Arab Israeli mourns the victim of an Hezbollah rocket attack. (AP)
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| By Associated Press August 6, 2006 |
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Some 170 Hezbollah rockets slammed into communites across northern Israel on Saturday, police said, and one salvo killed three Israeli women in a direct hit on a house in an Arab village.
The victims, members of the same family, were killed on the spot, police said. Medics identified the dead as a woman in her 60s and two of her daughters.
The deaths brought to 33 the number of Israeli civilians killed by rocket fire in 25 days of fighting. On Friday, three Israeli Arabs were killed by rocket fire. An Israeli soldier was seriously wounded by rocket fire near the border, the army said.
Forty-five Israeli soldiers have been killed in battles with Hezbollah guerrillas in south Lebanon, including one on Saturday.
Earlier Saturday, Israeli generals said air strikes and ground operations in Lebanon had knocked out more than half of Hezbollah's longer-range rockets in 25 days of Lebanon fighting, but acknowledged that the threat to Israel's heartland is far from over.
On Saturday, some 170 rockets fell across northern Israel, from the Mediterranean coast to the Galilee panhandle, police said. The heaviest hits came after 4 p.m. Saturday, with 130 falling over a period of two hours. Twelve Israelis were lightly hurt.
The renewed barrages came a day after Hezbollah fired a medium-range missile at the Israeli town of Hadera, about 75 kilometers (50 miles) from the border and the farthest point south to be hit so far.
The attack effectively extended the front line, and Hadera residents were stunned to learn they were within Hezbollah's range. "Until yesterday I didn't believe it would happen in Hadera. I thought it was only in the north," said Tsah Gertner, a 33-year-old musician.
Gertner said he herded his wife and two children into a safe room before he heard the boom of the exploding rockets. "I was sweating. I saw that the people in the north _ I understood their feelings, what it is to sit in a room like in a cage, with your kids and no air conditioning," he said.
The attack on Hadera gave substance to the threat by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah to hit Tel Aviv if the Lebanese capital of Beirut is targeted by Israeli warplanes. Israeli resumed air strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs on Thursday.
Maj. Gen. Udi Adam, chief of the army's Northern Command, said Saturday that Israel has made headway in destroying Hezbollah's arsenal.
"I think we hit in a number of places, the launching sites of long range missiles," he told Israel Radio. "We hit more than 50 percent of their arsenal. We hit less 50 percent of the arsenal of shorter range missiles arsenal." Adam said he was providing estimates.
Experts say Israel has no defense against the medium-range missiles of the type being fired at Hadera. The missiles fly too low and are in the air for too short a period to be intercepted by Patriot anti-missile defense systems in Israel.
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