Family killed as Israeli planes hit house in border village

An Israeli missile hit a house in a Lebanese border village early today, killing a family of three, Lebanese security officials said.

The attack occurred in the village of Taibeh, less than four miles from the Israeli border.

A missile crashed into the two-storey house of Hani Abdo Marmar at 9.10am (7.10 Irish time), killing him instantly along with his wife and daughter, the officials said.

The three victims were still buried under the rubble of their house, which was flattened, witnesses said. More than an hour after the strike, the Lebanese Red Cross was unable to reach Taibeh to pull out the bodies, because of fierce fighting in the village, witnesses said.

Clashes between Hezbollah guerrillas and Israeli ground troops have raged in Taibeh for several days.

Israel has some 8,000 soldiers massed along the border in south Lebanon.

The Israeli military said today that troops are operating in 11 towns and villages in south Lebanon.

Most of the villages are near the Israel-Lebanon border, but security officials said scores of tanks have pushed further forward.

The officials said Israeli forces are trying to establish a “security zone” across a four- to five-mile-wide stretch from the border, but acknowledged several hundred Hezbollah guerrillas remain in that area.

About 25% of Hezbollah’s rocket launchers are in the zone Israel is trying to control, the officials said.

Hezbollah television reported on clashes with Israeli troops early today in Taibeh and another border village, Aita al-Shaab. It said one Israeli tank and two bulldozers were destroyed, and that their crews were killed or wounded.

The Israeli army said a tank had been lightly hit but that there were no casualties or serious damage.

Israeli warplanes earlier renewed airstrikes against suspected Hezbollah targets in the battered suburbs of Beirut, and around the southern port city of Tyre.

The also struck along Lebanon’s northern border with Syria, and on roads in the eastern Bekaa Valley.

In the southern Lebanese town of Nabatiyeh, fighter jets struck an ambulance working for a local Muslim group, Lebanese security officials said.

Witnesses said at least four missiles hit south Beirut, a Shiite Muslim sector that has been repeatedly hit by Israel since fighting began three weeks ago. Lebanese television said the attacks targeted several buildings in a Hezbollah compound in the al-Ruweis neighbourhood, which was hit several times before.

It was the first air raid on the Lebanese capital in almost a week. The strikes came in the wake of Hezbollah’s rocket attack on the Israeli town of Beit Shean, its deepest hit in Israel so far. Hezbollah fired a record number of more than 200 rockets into Israel yesterday, as fierce fighting raged on the border.

Israeli jets fired missiles for the second time in 24 hours against a bridge on the Syrian border in the remote Akkar region, the officials said.