Israeli missile hits south Lebanon house; 7 die

Grim tolls
Israel’s overall death toll stands at 40, with 17 people killed by Hezbollah rockets and 23 soldiers killed in the fighting. Sixty-eight soldiers have been wounded, and 255 civilians injured by rocket fire, officials said.

On the Lebanese side, security officials said 384 people had been killed, including 20 soldiers and 11 Hezbollah guerrillas.

Israeli military officials say several thousand troops are moving in and out of southern Lebanon, but there are fewer there at any one time.

At the front, Israeli ground forces waged a fierce battle Monday with guerrillas dug in at the closest large town to the border, Bint Jbail, known as “the capital of the resistance” for its vehement support of Hezbollah during Israel’s 1982-2000 occupation of the south.

Four Israeli soldiers were killed — two in fighting and two in a helicopter crash — and 20 were wounded, military officials said.

Four U.N. peacekeepers were wounded, one of them seriously, when they were caught in the crossfire between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas in south Lebanon, the U.N. said.

The army said it captured two Hezbollah guerrillas, the first time it has taken any into custody during the fighting. “When the enemy surrenders, we take them prisoner. The two prisoners are located in Israel and will be held here with the aim of interrogating them,” said Brig. Gen. Alon Friedman.

Battle for Bint Jbail
Nearly constant gunfire and explosions could be heard, and large plumes of gray smoke rose over the area. Israeli tanks and armored bulldozers entered the fray as guerrillas fought back with anti-tank missiles and mortars. Two tanks sped across the rocky hills back into Israel to ferry out wounded soldiers.

Backed by an intense artillery barrage, troops seized a hilltop inside the town, but the rest of Bint Jbail remained in the hands of up to 200 Hezbollah guerrillas, military officials said.

An Israeli tank was hit by Hezbollah fire, they said. Hezbollah released no casualty figures. It has claimed 11 dead in the entire campaign, though Israel says it has killed more than 100 of its fighters.

A day earlier, a Red Cross doctor visited Bint Jbail and reported an unknown number of families hunkered down in schools and mosques for protection, though much of the population of about 30,000 had fled.

Bint Jbail holds a legendary reputation with Hezbollah, because it was one of three large towns inside Israel’s buffer zone and backing for the guerrillas remained strong throughout the occupation. Signs in the town tout its nickname. When Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah held a large celebration in Bint Jbail, proclaiming that the guerrillas now stood on Israel’s border.

The move into Bint Jbail, about 2.5 miles from the border, represents the spear point of Israel’s advance, moving forward from Maroun al-Ras, a frontier village captured in more heavy fighting over the weekend.

Tyre, Nabatiyeh targeted
At the same time, Israeli forces were working to destroy every Hezbollah post within a half mile of the 40-mile Israeli-Lebanese border, Israeli Maj. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot said.

The Israeli bombardment hit the southern cities of Tyre and Nabatiyeh. An Israeli shell crashed into a house near the Lebanese town of Marjayoun late Monday, wounding two children, witnesses said.

President Bush ordered U.S. Navy ships that have ferried nearly 12,000 Americans out of the country the past week to start on Tuesday taking in humanitarian aid for Lebanon. Tens of thousands of refugees are in temporary shelters, supplies of medicine are tight at many hospitals and fuel is slowly running out.

“We are working with Israel and Lebanon to open up humanitarian corridors,” White House spokesman Tony Snow said. So far Israel has loosened its blockade of Lebanese ports to let aid ships into Beirut, but has not defined any safe land routes for convoys to the south.

‘All I could hear in my sleep were planes’
At a hospital in Tyre, where Israeli rockets frequently hit nearby, dirty bandages hid the worst of 8-year-old Zainab Jawad’s swollen, bloodied nose. Her arm was strapped to her chest and fractured in two places.

Stretched out on a bed at Najem Hospital, Zainab squeezed shut her brown eyes as memories of the attack flooded back, some of her words muffled as she fought sobs.

A day earlier, Israeli bombs destroyed her family’s home in the southern village of Ayta Chaeb. Then rockets slammed into the car as they fled.

“I don’t want to remember, but I can’t help it. What I remember most is the sound, the sound of the planes and I was scared because I thought there were so many,” she said. “I fell asleep last night, but all I could hear in my sleep were planes.”

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