WORLD / Middle East

Mideast fight ramps up despite UN deal
(AP)
Updated: 2006-08-06 08:34

That language may prove the fundamental deal-breaker for Hezbollah, whose leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah vowed eight days into the conflict never to release the two Israeli soldiers without a prisoner exchange even "if the whole universe comes (against us)."

In the past two days, Hezbollah fired 365 rockets into Israel, including the deepest strike of the conflict ! on Hadera, some 50 miles south of the border. Six civilians were killed in the attacks.

Over the same period, Israel conducted as many as 170 airstrikes on targets in Lebanon, killing at least 45 people.

The Israeli army also said Hezbollah has fired some 3,000 rockets into northern Israel since fighting broke out July 12.

The U.N. peacekeeping force in the south of the country, known as UNIFIL, reported what it called "intense shelling and exchanges on the ground" along the common border. Israel has taken control of a band of territory a few miles deep right across the frontier.

Israel has resumed nightly airstrikes on Hezbollah strongholds in south Beirut, and on Friday struck in the Christian heartland north of the capital, rocketing bridges and severing the last major road link to Syria and the outside world.

In the most dramatic operation, Israeli commandos battled Hezbollah guerrillas in a pre-dawn raid on an apartment building in the southern Lebanese port city of Tyre. The raid was the latest Israeli commando operation deep inside Lebanese territory aimed at taking out Hezbollah positions.

Both Israel and Hezbollah claimed victory in the Tyre battle ! with Israel claiming it was "very successful" in taking out a key guerrilla unit involved in firing long-range rockets into Israel ! including one that hit Hadera.

Lebanese military and rescue workers said at least five Lebanese ! including a soldier at a nearby checkpoint ! were killed in the raid. The Israeli military reported eight soldiers wounded, two seriously.

Israeli jets continued pounding targets late Saturday and early Sunday with strikes near Tyre, southern market town of Nabatiyeh and two separate roads in the north of the country, both of them leading to Syria.

So far, at least 575 people have died in the fighting in Lebanon including 497 civilians, 28 members of the army and 50 Hezbollah guerrillas. Added to the total deaths were five Syrian farm workers killed in an Israel airstrike just inside the Lebanese border in the Bekaa Valley whose deaths were not counted when the attack occurred Friday. A total of seven civilians and one soldier were killed Saturday. Three Syrian farm workers wounded in the Israeli airstrike also died.

The Israeli military said late Saturday it had killed more than 400 Hezbollah guerrillas since the fighting began.

Seventy-nine Israelis have died, including 46 soldiers and 33 civilians killed by Hezbollah rockets. The latest deaths were three Israeli women in a direct hit on a house in an Arab village and one Israeli soldier killed in fighting with Hezbollah.


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