ISRAEL: Eight Israeli civilians and four soldiers are killed as Israel's battle with Hizbollah continues

Record ID: 397011

  • Title: ISRAEL: Eight Israeli civilians and four soldiers are killed as Israel's battle with Hizbollah continues
  • Date: 4th August 2006
  • Summary: (W4) JERUSALEM (AUGUST 3, 2006) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF SOLDIERS CARRYING COFFIN OF AMERICAN BORN SOLDIER KILLED IN CLASHES WITH HIZBOLLAH IN SOUTHERN LEBANON MILITARY RABBI FOLDING UP ISRAELI FLAG OVER THE COFFIN VARIOUS OF MOURNERS CRYING SOLDIER AT COFFIN WOMAN CRYING PAN ACROSS MOURNERS IN FUNERAL SOLDIER CRYING (SOUNDBITE) (English) RELATIVE EULOGISING SOLDIER: "Michael
  • Embargoed: 19th August 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Reuters ID: LVA5X5B8TB849WFJLZO39S9NOEJK
  • Story Text: Hizbollah guerrillas killed eight people in a rocket barrage on Israel and four Israeli soldiers in clashes in Lebanon on Thursday (August 4), the deadliest day of the war for Israel in 23 days of fighting.
    Despite an intensive air and ground campaign to wipe them out, Hizbollah guerrillas continue to unleash rockets and battle Israeli troops on the ground in Lebanon.
    Some of the wounded were brought to a hospital in Nahariya. The hospital has treated many Israelis wounded in rocket attacks in recent weeks, but according to the hospital Deputy Director, Thursday was one of the hospital's busiest days.
    "This is the first time that we have admitted such heavy disaster that we have so many dead and so many people injured so badly," Dr. Moshe Daniel, Deputy Director Of Nahariya Hospital said.
    Sixty-eight Israelis have been killed in the war including 41 soldiers. The military said the four soldiers killed on Thursday died in two attacks with anti-tank missiles.
    The Israeli army has carved out a "security zone" of 20 villages in south Lebanon up to six km (four miles) from the border and will stay until an international force arrives, Israeli television said.
    Israel is expanding the ground war in southern Lebanon. Seven brigades, or up to 10,000 troops, were fighting Hizbollah on Thursday, Israeli army radio said. Israel's Channel Two television said Defence Minister Amir Peretz asked the army to prepare for a possible push north to Lebanon's Litani river.
    U.N. peacekeepers of the UNIFIL force said the Israelis had made two new incursions into Lebanon in the past 24 hours and kept hold of five other areas previously seized.
    "We have no limits when it comes to exercising our powers. Every time we find seniors (of Hizbollah), launchers, weaponry and other targets that we think should be attacked, taking into consideration the risks involved - we will attack," Israeli Army Major General Benny Gantz, Commander of Ground Forces, said.
    In Jerusalem hundreds of mourners brought to burial an American born soldier who was killed in fighting with Hizbollah earlier this week.
    Michael Levin moved from Pennsylvania to Israel four years ago, determined to be a trooper in the Israeli army. He was trained to become a sharpshooter with the paratroopers unit.
    "Michael had the ambition, the relentless determination come what may to make 'Aliya' (immigration to the Jewish state), to join the Israeli defence force, to learn hebrew, to serve as a 'Tzankhan' (paratrooper), to become a sergeant and to seek ever higher ranks," one relative said at his funeral.
    Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said the war had killed 900 people in Lebanon and wounded 3,000, with a third of the casualties children under 12. He said a million Lebanese, a quarter of the population, had been displaced and infrastructure devastated. The Reuters tally of Lebanon deaths is at least 686.
    The Lebanon war, which erupted after Hizbollah snatched two Israeli soldiers in a raid across the border on July 12, has coincided with an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip to recover another captured soldier and halt Palestinian rocket fire.
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