10 Hurt in Rocket Attack in Israel

KIRYAT SHEMONA, Israel (AP) -- Dozens of Katyusha rockets rained down on
northern Israel early Wednesday, injuring at least ten people, Israeli media
and officials said.

Hezbollah guerillas operating from south Lebanon claimed responsibility for
the attack. Israel's army confirmed the injury figure and said its forces were
returning fire.

At least five people were slightly injured and one was in stable condition
from the rockets that fell in and around the border town of Kiryat Shemona, in
northeastern Israel. Paramedics said most of the injuries were from shock.

Another four people were slightly injured in the western Galilee region from
about ten rockets that fell there, the paramedics said.

Northern Israel had been braced for an attack in the wake of an Israeli air
strike Tuesday against Lebanon, which killed a woman and her six children.
That was the highest civilian casualty toll this year in the war between
Israel and Lebanese guerrillas.

Hezbollah guerillas last fired rockets on Kiryat Shemona in August, after
Israel killed a leading southern Lebanese guerilla.

The rockets fell with a tremendous boom that could be heard for miles. Some of
the rockets fired into the western Galilee landed in the Mediterranean sea,
but others collapsed roofs of houses in villages and collective farms.

In the western Galilee, eyewitnesses said one of the rockets heavily damaged a
house where workers from Thailand live, just minutes after the workers left
the building. There were no injuries.

Residents of northern Israel had been told to spend the night in bomb shelters
in anticipation of retaliatory rocket attacks by the guerrilla group
Hezbollah. Israeli warplanes flew over southern Lebanon Tuesday night and
dropped flares, apparently to thwart guerrilla movements.

Israel and Hezbollah have been engaged in a guerrilla war in Lebanon since
1985. Hezbollah, along with the Lebanese government and its Syrian allies,
demands that Israel pull about 2,000 soldiers out of its self-declared ``safe
zone'' in southern Lebanon.


Reply via email to