Lebanon says up to 600 killed in Israel's assault

Reuters

Israeli warplanes and artillery hammered Lebanon again on Thursday and the Beirut government said up to 600 people may have been killed in Israel's 16-day-old campaign against Hizbollah guerrillas.

Lebanese Health Minister Mohammad Khalifeh said hospitals had received 401 bodies of people killed during the war launched by Israel after the Shi'ite guerrillas captured two of its soldiers and killed eight in a cross-border raid on July 12.

"On top of those victims, there are 150 to 200 bodies still under the rubble. We have not been able to pull them out because the areas they died in are still under fire," he told Reuters.

At least 445 people, most of them civilians, have been confirmed killed in Lebanon, according to a Reuters tally. Fifty-one Israelis, including 18 civilians, have been killed.

Bodies still lie in the streets in some isolated Lebanese border villages, where fighting has trapped terrified civilians, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said.

"In every fight, we are sheep for the slaughter," said Hafez Ebeid, 65, who had fled his border village of Marwaheen to the relative safety of Sidon, the biggest city in the south. Link