LEBANON: Explosions echoed throughout Beirut as smoke was seen billowing in the distance.

Record ID: 356683

  • Title: LEBANON: Explosions echoed throughout Beirut as smoke was seen billowing in the distance.
  • Date: 7th August 2006
  • Summary: (EU) BEIRUT, LEBANON (AUGUST 6, 2006)(REUTERS) WIDE SHOT SMOKE BILLOWING TWO EXPLOSIONS HEARD IN DISTANCE MORE SMOKE RISING FROM EXPLOSIONS
  • Embargoed: 22nd August 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Lebanon
  • Country: Lebanon
  • Reuters ID: LVA4G4PASTOIOFHR6MUKHMQ1JFUL
  • Story Text: A fresh wave of explosions rocked Beirut on Sunday (August 6, 2006) on the 26th day of the Israeli-Lebanese conflict.
    Smoke was seen rising from apartment complexes and buildings as the sounds of bombs echoed throughout the Lebanese capital.
    Hizbollah killed 11 Israeli soldiers in its deadliest rocket strike yet and Israeli bombs killed 18 Lebanese civilians as Lebanon rejected a draft U.N. resolution.
    The soldiers were killed and dozens were wounded, medics said, when a rocket struck a group of reservists called up for the Lebanon offensive in the village of Kfar Giladi.
    Soldiers near the scene held their heads and one wept as a military ambulance pulled away. Helicopters landed nearby to fly the badly wounded to hospitals further from the war front.
    Lebanon's parliament speaker Nabih Berri said his country rejected the U.S.-French draft Security Council resolution because it would let Israeli forces stay on Lebanese soil.
    Berri, a Shi'ite politician who has been the main channel between Hizbollah and Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, said the draft ignored the Beirut government's seven-point plan calling for a ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces and the return of all displaced civilians among other things.
    U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that agreeing on a resolution would not end all fighting in southern Lebanon.
    U.S. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said that, once a resolution was adopted, the United States wanted a second one establishing an international force for Lebanon in days, not weeks.
    Hizbollah, backed by Syria and Iran, has killed 57 Israeli soldiers and 33 civilians in the conflict, sparked when its men seized two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12.
    The Israeli army said on Sunday it had captured one of the Hizbollah fighters who took part in the seizure of the soldiers.
    At least 758 people have been killed in Lebanon during the war, including 15 overnight and on Sunday in bombing of four southern villages.
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