Memories of Israeli air strike

QANA, Lebanon, July 31: For Fatima Balhas, the Israeli air strike on her village which killed at least 54 civilians has revived painful memories.

She lost five children and her husband in 1996 when Qana was hit in the Jewish state's ''Grapes of Wrath'' campaign. Then, as now, the dead were civilians seeking shelter from Israeli bombardment.

''I am today reliving the Qana massacre,'' she said. At least 37 children were killed in yesterday's raid.

Israel's military chief said the air force was unaware civilians were in the buildings it bombed. A senior air force commander said a bomb was dropped on the assumption Hizbollah crews that had fired missiles into Israel were hiding there.

Lebanese remember the April 1996 ''Qana massacre'' as one of the bloodiest Israeli attacks on their country since the Israeli invasion of 1982.

More than 100 civilians were killed. Then, as now, the attack was launched during an Israeli war against Hizbollah.

''This enemy does not know either mercy or human rights or democracy -- this enemy, which is supported by America,'' said Balhas, who has never fully recovered from her wounds.

Her family are buried in a mass grave with the other victims of 1996 just a few hundred metres from the building destroyed by yesterday's air strike. Rescue workers pulled the bodies of men, women and children from the rubble.

The 1996 victims had been sheltering in a UN peacekeepers' base in the village, which nestles in rolling hills dotted with olive trees in southern Lebanon and claims to be the place where Jesus turned water into wine.

''MASSACRE AMONG OLIVE TREES''

The Israeli gunners who hit the compound said they had been targeting Hizbollah guerrillas.

''The first massacre was committed under the UN flag. This massacre was committed in the shadow of olive trees,'' said parliamentarian Abdel Majid Saleh, surveying the devastation.

''The land on which Jesus set foot has been turned into a symbol for martyrdom.'' The international outcry over the 1996 attack on Qana helped force Israel to end its 17-day-long campaign which killed more than 200 Lebanese.

The current bombardment, triggered by Hizbollah's capture of two Israelis on July 12, has killed at least 545 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians. Hizbollah has killed 51 Israelis.

Israel vowed to continue the war. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she was saddened by the raid but stopped well short of calling for an immediate halt to the war.

''Ten years on, it appears that the Zionist Dracula's thirst has yet to be quenched,'' Lebanon's parliament speaker Nabih Berri said.

Qana deputy governor Essam Touni said: ''There can be no peace in this way and no reconciliation with this enemy.''

REUTERS