In the single deadliest strike so far by Hizbullah, eight Israelis were killed in a rocket attack in the northern port city of Haifa yesterday while in Lebanon, Israeli air strikes killed 40 civilians, including at least 16 who died when a building in the southern port city of Tyre was hit, writes Peter Hirschberg in Jerusalem.
Eight Lebanese-Canadian civilians were among those killed in the Israeli attacks.
Late last night Hizbullah fired rockets at the towns of Afula, Upper Nazareth, and Migdal Ha'anek, the southernmost points it has struck since fighting began. And Israel continued its attacks on south Beirut.
While Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert vowed "far-reaching consequences" for the Haifa attack, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah promised to hit anywhere in Israel.
The attack in Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, was the first time Hizbullah has employed its long-range missiles since the fighting erupted last week - and with devastating consequences. The missile ripped through the metal roof of a train depot in Haifa and ploughed into a group of 30 maintenance workers, killing eight of them and wounding six of them seriously.
"I saw the direct hit right in front of my eyes," said Igor Shmerlik, an Israel Railways employee. "Everyone working with diesel was wounded. People were screaming, people were having convulsions and people were crying."
Touring Haifa after the bombing, Defence Minister Amir Peretz said the "city of Haifa is licking its wounds, eight dead, workers who came to do their work, innocent people."
In Tyre, the Israeli air strike on a civil defence building, located next to a hospital, destroyed the top three storeys of the 12-storey building. The eight Lebanese-Canadian civilians were killed yesterday when their house was hit by a missile fired by an Israeli aircraft in a village in south Lebanon.
The attack on Haifa, which appared to catch the residents of the city as well as Israel's military off guard, brought the total number of civilians killed in Israel since the conflict began to 12. Israel began its assault after Hizbullah militants killed three Israeli soldiers and snatched two more in an attack last week on a border patrol. Five more Israeli soldiers were killed when they moved into Lebanon to give chase.
Haifa, with 270,000 residents, contains Israel's main port as well as its oil refineries and several large petro-chemical plants. Hizbullah said yesterday's strike was a "warning" and threatened to hit the refineries and the chemical plants.
After the Haifa attack, the Israeli military advised residents from Tel Aviv northward to be on alert.
Military officials believe that Hizbullah has rockets with a range that can reach Israel's largest city and they fear that they will use them.
Appearing on Hizbullah's Al Manar TV station a few hours after the Haifa attack, the Shia organisation's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said the Israeli offensive had not depleted his large stockpile of rockets. "We will continue," he said in the taped address. "We still have a lot more and we are just at the beginning. We promise them surprises in (any) confrontation."
Israeli planes again targeted fuel tanks at Beirut airport yesterday as well as what Israel said were rocket-launching sites in south Lebanon. The military also said it had knocked out radar positions of the Lebanese army on the coast because information was being passed on to Hizbullah.
In Gaza, meanwhile, six Palestinians were killed yesterday in Israeli strikes.