Hizbollah rocket barrage kill one; West Bank hit

JENIN, West Bank, Aug 2 (Reuters) Hizbollah guerrillas fired more than 150 rockets into Israel today, killing one person and wounding more than a dozen, medics said.

One round even struck the occupied West Bank, marking the furthest distance Hizbollah rockets have ever reached south of the Lebanese border.

In all, police said 155 rockets had been fired from Lebanon towards Israel on Wednesday, making it one of the busiest days of rocket fire so far in the three-week-old conflict.

One rocket slammed into a house on a kibbutz near the Israeli city of Nahariya, close to the Lebanese border, killing a 52-year-old man as he was riding his bike.

''Today is the most intensive rocket attack we have seen since the beginning of the war,'' said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.

Hizbollah has fired around 1,700 rockets into Israel since the conflict broke out on July 12, killing at least 19 civilians and wounding hundreds.

In a statement issued in Lebanon, Hizbollah said it had stepped up attacks on Wednesday ''after the enemy went too far in targeting civilians''.

Around 650 Lebanese, most of them civilians, have been killed by Israel air strikes and bombardments since Hizbollah seized two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid, sparking the conflict.

In the West Bank, witnesses in Faquah said at least one rocket landed between their village and neighbouring Jalboun, located about 70 km from the border with Lebanon.

They said they heard explosions and saw plumes of smoke immediately after the strike, but no injuries were reported. A crater around four metres wide was punched into the ground.

Palestinians living nearby chanted ''God is greatest'' after the rocket struck, in apparent respect to Hizbollah.

''It makes no difference that it landed in the Palestinian area. We would like to see Hizbollah rockets landing in Israel,'' said a witness, who would only gave his name as Hakim, said.

Israeli police said some rockets also landed just north of the West Bank, near the Israel city of Afula, located 50 km from Lebanon. Rockets have hit Afula before.

So many rockets fell on the tourist town of Tiberias, near the Sea of Galilee, that emergency workers said they were unable to reach the scene. Other towns struck included Kiryat Shmona, Nahariya and Safed.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said today that Israel's offensive in Lebanon had ''entirely destroyed'' the infrastructure of the Hizbollah guerrilla group.

''I think Hizbollah has been disarmed by the military operation of Israel to a large degree,'' he told Reuters.

Olmert cited a reduction in the number of rocket attacks on Israel as proof of how badly Hizbollah had been damaged.

REUTERS LL VA KP1804