By Stan Goodenough
Aug 06, 2006
Israel reeled in pain Sunday as the tens of thousands of metal balls inside a Katyusha rocket warhead pulverized 12 IDF soldiers to death in the Upper Galilee, and wounded another 12.
Later in the day a rocket barrage brought a Haifa apartment block crashing down, killing three civilians and wounding 100 others.
It was the bloodiest single day for Israel since the war to crush Hizb?allah and send a message to its terrorist state supporters began on July 12.
Nearly 100 Israelis have now been killed in this war. Hizb?allah has fired 3,000 rockets towards populations in the Jewish state.
Emergency services workers expressed their horror, and television cameras caught soldiers staggering around, their faces contorted in shock and anguish at the violent death they had just witnessed wreaked on their comrades,
For some as yet unexplained reason the men, who had been sitting in a Kfar Giladi parking lot when the rocket ripped into them, had not taken cover despite the fact that an alarm had been sounded more than a minute before impact, according to someone at the scene.
Ten men were killed outright. Two more died in hospital of their wounds.
As shaking Israeli presenters commentators reported the carnage to their viewers, Palestinian Arabs in Samaria were seen rejoicing at the news and singing the praises of Hizb?allah chief Hassan Nasrallah.
In line with their belief that Allah will vanquish Israel, Muslim Arabs in the Middle East habitually celebrate successful ?suicide? bombings and other attacks.
Later, as dusk descended on the Israeli port city of Haifa, six rockets came barreling in. One struck a residential building, bringing two apartments crashing down, killing one woman instantly and leaving others trapped under the rubble.
Two more victims of this shelling died shortly after the attack.
In total close on 200 rockets are believed to have hit northern Israel throughout the day Sunday.
Shortly after the attack on Haifa, reporters in Lebanon said the people in that country were bracing for a painful Israeli response.