Israel suffers barrage of rockets

KFAR GILADI, Israel — The deadliest barrage of Hezbollah rocket attacks in nearly a month of fighting hit northern Israel on Sunday, killing 12 army reservists resting near the Lebanon border and three civilians in a dusk attack on the port of Haifa.

In Lebanon, Israeli airstrikes killed at least 16 people, according to Lebanese officials, and the damage from Israeli bombs on Lebanon's already shattered road network increasingly cut off sections of the country from each other.

The damage inflicted by both sides came as diplomatic efforts at the United Nations to reach a cease-fire proposal and arrange for an international force to move into southern Lebanon appeared to falter.

Its terms were rejected outright by Lebanon's parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, and Hezbollah's principal foreign backers, Syria and Iran.

Berri, authorized by Hezbollah to act as an intermediary, criticized the proposal because it did not call for the immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon or an exchange of prisoners.

There were signs that Israel's government was receptive to the proposal, but a Security Council vote was delayed by at least one day.

Israel's justice minister, Haim Ramon, said Israel would press ahead with its attacks regardless of any diplomatic progress and its forces would stay in southern Lebanon until an international force arrives. "We must continue the fighting, continue to hit whoever we can hit from Hezbollah," he told army radio.

Despite days of aerial bombardment by Israel and a force of an estimated 10,000 Israeli troops now deployed in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah militants have intensified their daily barrage of rocket attacks into northern Israel and in recent days have launched roughly 200 a day. At least 160 had hit northern Israel by nightfall on Sunday, the Israeli military said.

The most destructive was a single rocket packed with ball bearings that slammed into a parking lot at Kfar Giladi, a kibbutz in the northeastern panhandle, scoring a direct hit on Israeli reservists who were staying there.

The rocket sprayed the bearings in a deadly cloud up to 60 yards in diameter, leaving a scene that witnesses, including a war-weary ambulance driver, described as the most horrific carnage they had ever seen.