[Washington Post] Jonathan Finer and Edward Cody - Hizballah shattered two days of relative calm in northern Israel on Wednesday, spraying the region with more than 230 rockets that set buildings and forests ablaze, and wounded at least 33 civilians, as several thousand Israeli ground troops continued their sweep through southern Lebanon. Israeli officials say between 300 and 400 Hizballah fighters have been killed. Lt. Col. Ishai Efroni said his forces found a bunker complex with a one-square-yard opening and a vast cavern 35 feet underground, rigged with a camera mounted at the top and a monitor below to observe advancing forces. "Most of the towns we pass through, there is not even a shot," he said. The Hizballah fighter "wakes up in the morning, drinks his coffee, takes a rocket out of his closet, goes to his neighbor's yard, sticks a clock timer on it, goes back home, and then watches CNN to see where it lands," said Efroni. Israel had reduced airstrikes in the south in the wake of a Sunday airstrike on the Lebanese village of Qana. The Lebanese government said that 57 people died there, but a Human Rights Watch report published Wednesday put the death toll at 28.
2006-08-03 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive