IDF: 150 rockets fired from Qana at Israeli cities
In the deadliest attack since Israel started its offensive against Hizbullah 19 days ago, 57 civilians - most of them children - were killed on Sunday in a building in the southern Lebanese village of Kafr Kana, apparently as a result of an IAF missile strike. While the entire Israeli political echelon expressed regret for the results of the strike, Air Force Chief of Staff Brig.-Gen. Amir Eshel said Sunday night that the three-story building had been struck by the missiles a little after midnight and that it only collapsed seven hours later, at close to 7 a.m.
| Eshel refrained from specifying what had caused the structure to collapse seven hours after it was hit | Eshel refrained from specifying what had caused the structure to collapse seven hours after it was hit, but senior IAF officers said Sunday night that the explosion could have been caused by an unexploded missile or by a Hizbullah-planted explosive device. "It could be that there was something in the building that caused the explosion," Eshel said.
Eshel said that close to 150 Katyusha rockets had been fired from the Lebanese village over the past 20 days. Hizbullah had hidden rocket launchers, Eshel said, in civilian buildings in the village. Video footage he presented at a press conference in Tel Aviv Sunday night showed rocket launchers being driven into the village following attacks on northern Israel. The dead were old people, women and children from four families whom residents said had gathered to spend the night on the ground floor, where they felt they were safe from Israeli attacks. The bodies of at least 27 children were found in the rubble, said Abu Shadi Jradi, a civil defense official at the scene.
Posted by: Fred 2006-07-31 |