Israel reels under rockets

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Written by simon

ISRAEL reeled under an unprecedented hail of Hezbollah rockets today, a day after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert assured the nation that its three week war in Lebanon had crippled the Shiite militia.

In the most intensive one day barrage since the start of the offensive on July 12, more than 190 rockets rained down across Israel's north, killing at least one person and wounding another 19, two of them seriously.

A 60-year-old man riding his bicycle was killed at a kibbutz near Nahariya, six kilometers south of the border, rescue services said.

Other rockets fell elsewhere across the north of the country on Nahariya and other nearby towns including Kiryat Shmona, Safed, Maalot, Carmiel and Acre.

Previously, the largest number of rockets fired in a single day was 156.

"I get a lot of mothers on the phone crying. They want to get out," said Choen Simcha, who works the emergency hotline in Kiryat Shmona, where 1000 residents fled today for Israel's southernmost town of Eilat.

Kiryat Shmona lies less than three kilometres from Israel's border with Lebanon and has been pounded by rockets for much of the 22 day war on Hezbollah.

Of the town's 25,000 residents, 60 per cent have fled the shelling and the rest are cowering in safe rooms and bomb shelters.

Today's rocket barrage came a day after Mr Olmert said the 22 day old offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon had significantly weakened the group, which Israel says has been armed and trained by Syria and Iran.

Damascus and Tehran say they provide Hezbollah only with moral support.

"Today, the threat posed by Hezbollah is not what it was. It can no longer threaten this people, as this people have stood up to it and have come out victorious," Mr Olmert told graduates at a military academy yesterday.

"Each day that passes damages the capacities of this cruel enemy and allows our soldiers to reduce its ability to fire and attack us in the future," he said.

Mr Olmert repeated the assertion in an interview aired today on Sky News and BBC.

"I think Hezbollah has been disarmed by the military operation of Israel to a large degree," Mr Olmert said.

"That can't be measured only by the number of missiles they shoot. More than 700 different ground positions, command positions of Hezbollah, were entirely wiped out by the Israeli army," he said.

A member of Mr Olmert's cabinet, Housing Minister Meir Sheetrit, warned yesterday that the Middle East's most powerful army would not be able to completely wipe out the rocket capabilities of Hezbollah, which relies mostly on guerrilla-style tactics.

"This option does not exist. Neither by air strikes, nor by a military ground operation," he said.

"We can't entirely destroy their capability to fire rockets."

Israeli intelligence estimates Hezbollah has between 10,000 and 15,000 missiles while the group's chief Hassan Nasrallah has said it has 12,000, the authoritative Jane's Defence Weekly magazine reported in July.

Since the start of the Lebanon offensive on July 12, Hezbollah has fired more than 2000 rockets at Israel, killing 19 civilians.

Hezbollah unleashed a hailstorm of rockets at the Jewish state this morning and managed to score its deepest hit yet into Israel.

A rocket landed near the town of Beit Shean, 60km south of the border, an attack that reached 10km deeper into Israel than any previous hit.

Today's barrage came after a two day lull in the salvoes - just two rounds were fired on Monday and 13 yesterday - that coincided with a 48 hour lull in air strikes agreed to by the Jewish state after its raid on the Lebanese village of Qana killed 52 civilians, most of them children.

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