TYRE Lebanon -- Hezbollah launched ...

TYRE Lebanon -- Hezbollah launched a strange kind of rocket Friday that made its deepest strike into Israel now rattling Israelis as their warplanes and artillery blasted apartment buildings and roads gunning for guerrillas.

Lebanese officials said about 12 civilians died in the day's fighting; Israel said it killed 26 militants, raising to about 230 the total number killed in the campaign.

Hezbollah's launching of the of recent origin weapon unnerved Israelis, 500,000 of whom are living in northern shelters because of rocket bombardments. The rocket firing was also likely to escalate a conflict now in its 18th day.

5 CRASHED INTO void FIELDS

The guerrillas said they used the Khaibar-1 -- named after the site of a historic battle between Islam's Prophet Mohammed and Jewish tribes in the Arabian peninsula -- to strike the Israeli town of Afula.

"With this, the Islamic Resistance begins a strange stage of fighting, challenge and confrontation with a robust determination and full belief in God's victory," Hezbollah said in a statement.

Five of the rocket crashed into without contents fields outside Afula, causing no injuries.

Israel said the Khaibar-1 rocket were renamed, Iranian-made Fajr- 5 They have four times the power and range of Katyusha rocket making them able to hit Tel Aviv's northern outskirts.

A top UN peacekeeping official said he notion the war could continue until the last of August.

With medicine, pabulum and shelter trickling into the war girth U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland called for a three-day reprieve to let aid get in and enable civilians to earn out -- a call that got no response

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

Provided at ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved