 |
 |
 |
|
|
A hit building burns in Haifa
|
|
|
|
|
|
| By israelinsider staff and partners August 6, 2006 |
|
| |
Around 8 pm Sunday, as the sun was setting, the central Haifa area was hit with a massive barrage of high powered medium range rockets with large warheads.
Two adjacent building partially collapsed, and six other sites in populated areas reportedly suffered hits.
Private citizens are trying to rescue those trapped under the rubble, as rescue services are overwhelmed by the immensity of the multi-site attack. Several houses caught fire after being directly hit by rockets.
Three people are reported dead, two Israeli Arabs and one Jew.
Most of the areas hit in this ethnically mixed city were Arab neighborhoods, and Haifa's Jewish mayor, Yona Yahav, said Arab and Jewish residents had a shared destiny.
"The deadly rocket doesn't differentiate blood from blood, and this we saw tonight," he said.
Eli Bein, director of the Magen David Adom rescue service, said one person was killed instantly and two others died in the hospital from their wounds.
At least two people were critically wounded, while several other were listed in serious condition. All of the wounded were evacuated to local hospitals within some 30 minutes.
But many are feared trapped under collapsed structures.
One rocket fell between two buildings in a residential area on Mt. Carmel near the landmark Bahai Temple and several major tourist hotels, injuring six Israelis and knocking down electricity lines. Glass littered the road, and a score of cars were damaged.
"I heard a huge boom and all the windows in my apartment were shattered. It's the first time it happened in this area of the city, but I knew anything is possible," said Yossef Yikutieli, 78, who lives across the street from the worst hit buildings.
One rocket flattened a two-family house in the Wadi Nisnas neighborhood, trapping three people inside.
From the house next door, Ousama Hanna, 33, saw a fire in the damaged building. "We were in a dilemma because very soon there was a second alarm. We were afraid of another attack and we wanted to run away, but even though we were afraid we ran to try to help our neighbors."
Firefighters quickly arrived and pulled people from the debris, he said. Five residents of the building were injured.
Hanna spoke bitterly about Hezbollah's attacks. "The rockets have no eyes," he said, adding that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah gave no thought to Israel's Arab citizens. "The only thing he wants is to kill Israelis, meaning Jews and Arab Israelis alike," he said.
The incident was defined a high-casualty event, the first time such a definition was applied to an attack on Israel since rockets started landing in Israel almost four weeks ago.
"What we saw in Haifa tonight explains the essence of Israel's battle against Hezbollah, which continues to hide behind Lebanese civilians," David Baker, an official in the Prime Minister's Office told Haaretz on Sunday night. "Israel is determined to bring this Hezbollah terror to an end."
CNN screened video of a half-dozen large rockets being fired from the outskirts of Tyre. After 10:30, the IDF announced that the launchers of those rockets had been destroyed. There are also reports of an Air Force attack on the village of Qana, due to the continuing use of that village to fire rockets at Israel.
While a majority in the Israeli government reportedly does not favor expanding north to the Litani or beyond it to distance most of northern Israel from short and medium range rocket fire, Channel One is reporting that senior military officials are calling for "new thinking" concerning military strategy after actions until now have not stopped the rocket attacks.
Israel Television Channel Two defense affair correspondent Ronnie Daniel noted this evening that none of the rockets that rained on Israel were fired from within the areas now IDF control in Lebanon. The overwhelming majority of the rockets (the short range rockets) were fired from the area south of the Litani River that the Olmert Administration has hesitated to order the IDF to take. Last week Defense Minister Peretz wanted to act but was overruled by Olmert and the Cabinet majority.
Daniel predicted that the Olmert Administration would find itself shortly having no choice but to order the move. However, an unnamed cabinet minister told ynet: "Nobody know what will happen know." The minister suspected that "Olmert with try to achieve a political agreement," but added "we really don't know what will happen, because everything we have tried has not help and the fire continues."
More than 180 rockets hit northern Israel on Monday. Nearly 3000 have hit after 26 days of fighting, an average of more than 100 per day.
The AP contributed to this report.
|
|
 
|
|
|
|
Click on the blue headline to read a Talkback comment and respond to it. Click on the  icon to send a private email to the talkback writer. The icon appears only if the writer has decided to be contacted. If no popup window appears, please make sure your popup blocker allows israelinsider.com.
|
|
| |
|
|
