Rocket attacks kill two Israeli Arab children

NAZARETH, Israel, July 19 (Reuters) Rockets fired by Hizbollah guerrillas in Lebanon today killed two Israeli Arab children playing outside a house in the northern city of Nazareth, home to the country's largest Arab community.

Israeli Arab officials in Nazareth said they were trying to calm tensions after the attacks and urged both sides to stop fighting.

Medics said 14 people were wounded.

''Children were playing outside of the house. The children were hit,'' police commander Yaakov Zigdon told Israel Radio.

Police said four rockets were fired on Nazareth, 45 km south of the Lebanese border. One slammed into a house.

''After the rockets killed the two children, the situation is tense and people are tense. We are trying to calm them down,'' an emotional Ali Salaam, deputy mayor of Nazareth, told Reuters.

''We appeal to the entire world to intervene to stop this war. We call on all sides, not only Hizbollah, to stop firing and to stop the war, which causes nothing but destruction.'' The Zaka rescue service initially said two children and one adult were killed, but later said two had died.

Local resident Micah Barshai said he was in his house in a mixed Muslim-Christian neighbourhood in Nazareth when he heard three explosions.

''Luckily they did not fall on my head,'' he told Israel Radio.

The two deaths in Nazareth raised the civilian death toll in Israel from Hizbollah rocket attacks to 15. At least 14 Israeli troops have also been killed since Hizbollah launched a cross-border raid a week ago.

Israeli military strikes against Hizbollah and Lebanese targets have killed 290 people in Lebanon.

Nazareth is home to the Church of the Annunciation, built above a sunken grotto where, according to Roman Catholic tradition, the angel Gabriel told the Virgin Mary she was to bear Jesus.

It is also one of the farthest points hit by Hizbollah.

About 20 per cent of Israel's population are Arab.

Many Arabs live in northern communities being bombarded by rockets, underlining the dilemma for a community caught under fire from fellow Arabs and Muslims but living in a Jewish state.

Reuters PKS DB2321