Hizbollah bombards northern Israel, dozens wounded

HAIFA, Israel, July 26: More than 125 rockets fired by Hizbollah guerrillas slammed into the city of Haifa and other parts of northern Israel today, wounding dozens of people, security sources and medics said.

One rocket landed near a car in Haifa, seriously wounding a driver, medics said. Thirty people were moderately wounded elsewhere.

Rockets also landed in the towns of Acre, Carmiel and Safed.

One struck an empty apartment while another hit an electric appliance warehouse, wounding several people lightly.

The fresh salvoes from Lebanon came as the United Nations chief aid official, Jan Egeland, was visiting the coastal city, a favoured Hizbollah target.

''I've come here like I have visited Lebanon and I visited Gaza to see for myself how indiscriminately the civilian population is suffering, how rockets are hitting homes, families,'' he told reporters.

''This is totally condemnable. I have condemned it when I was in Lebanon, when I was in Hizbollah heartland. It has to stop.'' Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has vowed to take the war deeper into Israel, suggesting there could be strikes at cities south of Haifa. Such use of longer-range missiles would likely trigger massive Israeli retaliation.

Hizbollah rockets have killed 18 civilians across northern Israel since the conflict erupted when the militia seized two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others in a cross-border raid on July 12.

It has fired more than 1,400 rockets into Israel.

Israel's offensive against the Shi'ite group has killed 418 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians.

REUTERS