Hizbollah leader speaks of more 'surprises' for Israel

MAJD EL KRUM - Hizbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah has spoken of more "surprises' for Israel after a deluge of rockets. But few residents of northern Israel can have been as "surprised" as those in the Arab village of Majd el Krum when it was hit by six Katyushas.

"We never saw anything like this," said Inas Ayub, 25. "There was no warning and we never expected anything like it."

Ayub lives next door to the fortunately empty house her brother-in-law Mahmoud is building for his son, part of whose roof and top floor was blown away by a direct hit from a Hizbollah rocket.

She described how she was sitting inside her house with her sons, 1-year-old Mohammed and Liaan, 3, when "I heard a very loud explosion. I took my sons downstairs. I started to scream because I saw all the windows broken and the yard full of rubble. Then I fainted."

This experience - though traumatic for the Ayub family - is trifling compared to the destruction in Lebanon.

But it is especially vexing for the Muslims here who mainly proclaim neutrality in a war in which they have no part.

Ayub said that Hizbollah appeared not "to make a difference between Jews and Arabs. But we all eat from the same plate."

Najib Sjeer, 63, said there there were no warning sirens in the village and no shelters. "We are a part of Israel but Israel does not see us as part of the country," he said. "Israel has planned to destroy Hizbollah for a long time and they have found an excuse. This is not about the two soldiers who were kidnapped."

- INDEPENDENT