29 die in hours before ceasefire

From correspondents in Tyre
August 14, 2006 05:57am

AT least 25 civilians and four Lebanese soldiers have died in the latest day of fighting as Israel continues to bombard the country despite an impending ceasefire.

Police and rescue workers gave the total early today - just hours ahead of the planned truce at 3pm (AEST).

Israeli troops also battled Hezbollah militants near the southern port city of Tyre, after the Jewish state suffered its biggest single-day death toll of the month-old war on Saturday, losing 24 of its soldiers.

Israel said five of its soldiers were killed overnight.

The bloodshed went on even after UN Secretary General Kofi Annan announced that the governments of Israel and Lebanon had agreed to halt the fighting this afternoon.

At least 10 people were killed and 20 wounded by Israeli air strikes that hit eight buildings and a mosque in Beirut's southern suburbs, rescue workers said.

Rescuers continued to search under the rubble of a block of eight buildings and the Imam Hassan mosque which collapsed in the Rweiss neighborhood in the Shiite-dominated suburbs, an AFP correspondent on the scene said.

Ten bodies had been retrieved from the ruins, a rescue worker said, adding that about 30 people were still unaccounted for after being reported missing by residents of the area.

Police said a mother, her three young children and their Sri Lankan maid were killed yesterday when Israeli bombs flattened their home in the southern village of Burj el-Shemali.

Neighbours tried in vain to dig them out and rescue services had still not arrived at the site two hours later because Tyre was under continued bombardment.

Patients in a hospital in Tyre were in danger of suffering from smoke inhalation after Israeli warplanes bombed a nearby filling station and sparked a huge fire, hospital director Jawad Najm said.

Two rescue workers, including the chief of the Lebanese Red Cross in Tyre, Salam Daher, were wounded by shrapnel during raids near the hospital where they had rushed to help extinguish the fire, police said.

Two civilians were killed in bombardments on the village of Jebshit, in the central sector of southern Lebanon, police said.

Israeli raids killed two Palestinians and wounded seven others in the Tyre area as well as in the Ain el-Helweh refugee camp near the southern port city of Sidon, police said.

Three civilians were killed and 15 others wounded when Israeli warplanes destroyed a house and a prayer building in the village of Ali an-Nahri east of the ancient city of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon.

Two civilians were killed and six others wounded when a pick-up carrying gas canisters was hit at the entrance to Baalbek.

In the Akkar plains in northern Lebanon, Israeli fighter-bombers destroyed two bridges linking Tripoli, the main city in the north of the country, with the Syrian border, wounding six people.

The air strike on the bridge at Halba destroyed a large number of homes, causing the civilian casualties, a hospital worker said.

A bridge in the adjoining village was also destroyed. Eight other bridges in the area have already been knocked out.

The Lebanese army said four of its soldiers were killed in Israeli bombardments on southern and eastern Lebanon.

Three buildings near a Lebanese army barracks at the southern entrance of Tyre were struck, killing one civilian and wounding four. Two people are still missing, thought to be buried under the rubble.

Israeli fighter-bombers also carried out more than three dozen raids in the eastern Nabatiyeh region, destroying a three-story building and two structures used by Hezbollah's rescue service.

Police were unable to provide any information about casualties there.

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