Israeli airstrike kills scores
BEIRUT, Lebanon — An Israeli attack on a Lebanese border village killed more than 40 people today, the prime minister said, raising the day's death toll to 55 in heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas despite efforts toward a cease-fire.
Prime Minister Fuad Saniora repeatedly broke into tears as he disclosed the attack during opening remarks at a meeting of Arab League foreign ministers in Beirut. He appealed to fellow Arab states to help a nation "stunned" by a nearly four-week Israeli onslaught that has devastated Lebanon's infrastructure and left hundreds of civilians dead.
Saniora said the attack occurred in the village of Houla, where heavy ground fighting between Hezbollah guerrillas and Israeli has been raging in recent days. The Israel army said it is checking the claims about Houla but repeated that residents in villages in southern Lebanon had been warned to leave.
Local TV stations also had reported that about 40 people were buried under the rubble of houses that collapsed after being targeted by Israeli airstrikes.
"An hour ago, there was a horrific massacre in the village of Houla in which more than 40 martyrs were victims of deliberate bombing," he said.
Saniora had to interrupt his remarks several times to choke back tears and wipe his eyes. The ministers broke into applause.
Saniora ripped Israel's attacks, saying: "If these horrific actions are not state terrorism then what is state terrorism?"
He said Israel's attacks took "our country back decades. We are still in the middle of the shock."
The announcement came as Israeli warplanes repeatedly bombed Beirut's southern suburbs and pounded other areas of Lebanon, killing at least 15 people earlier today. Fierce fighting between Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah guerrillas in south Lebanon also killed one soldier, the Israeli army said.
Both sides appeared to take advantage of the days before a cease-fire resolution, formulated by the U.S. and France, is expected to be put to a vote in the U.N. Security Council. Hezbollah rocket launched its deadliest rocket barrage on Israel on Sunday, killing 12 Israeli soldiers and three civilians.
The Arab foreign ministers were meeting in Beirut to show solidarity with Lebanon's government and its people.
Seven people were killed when a missile hit a house in Qassmieh on the coast north of the port city of Tyre, civil defense official Youssef Khairallah said. A woman and her daughter were killed in an attack near a Lebanese army checkpoint between the villages of Harouf and Dweir, security officials said. Four other people were killed in a raid on that destroyed a house in Kfar Tebnit.
Air raids on the town of Ghaziyeh also destroyed several buildings, killing at least one person and wounding 14, hospital officials said.
A building collapsed on its residents in the village of Ghassaniyeh, and at least one body was retrieved from under the rubble. Witnesses said six more people were buried under the rubble.
Five air raids struck the market town of Nabatiyeh, targeting two office buildings, a house and one of the offices of Shiite Muslim Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah. No casualties were reported there or in raids on the villages of Jibsheet and Toul.
Meanwhile, one Israeli soldier was killed and four were lightly wounded in fighting in Bint Jbail, the army said. It said five Hezbollah gunmen were killed in the battle.
The U.N. plan would call for an immediate halt in the fighting, followed by a second resolution in a week or two that would authorize an international military force and creation of a buffer zone in south Lebanon. It also says the two Israeli soldiers held by Hezbollah should be released unconditionally. The soldiers' capture July 12 triggered the war.
