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Latest Victims
In attacks on August 4, Hezbollah reportedly fired more than 200 rockets, killing three people. According to media reports, two men, aged 24 and 32, died and several were wounded when a rocket hit a restaurant in the Druze village of Majdal Krum. In another strike, a 27-year-old mother of two, Manal Azem, died around 2:15 p.m. when a rocket struck in the Druze village of Mrar. One and a half weeks ago, a 15-year-old girl, Daa Abbas, also died in Mrar when a rocket hit her home. 
On August 3, eight people died in two rocket attacks. In one attack in Acre, five people died: Shimon Zaribi, 44; his 15-year-old daughter Mazal; Albert Ben-Abu, 41; Ariyeh Tamam, 50; and Ariyeh’s brother Tiran, 39.
Human Rights Watch interviewed Ariyeh Tamam’s wife, Tzvia, who was wounded in the attack. She told Human Rights Watch how the rocket killed her husband and brother-in-law, and wounded her sister-in-law, Simcha, and her eight-year-old daughter, Noa:
It destroyed our entire family. My husband is dead; his brother is dead; their sister is in a lot of pain. My disabled mother-in-law is devastated – Simcha also used to be her main caregiver. The kids are traumatized forever.
We don’t have a bomb shelter in our building, so when the sirens started, we went to the shelter in my aunt’s building on Ben Shushan Street. After the first rocket fell, and the siren stopped, we went out of the shelter to have a look. My daughter was standing near me, at the entrance, but Ariyeh went closer to the street. Suddenly, there was another loud boom and pieces of metal flew everywhere. I didn’t realize what had happened to me, but I rushed to the place where my husband was standing – all five people who were standing near the fence there were killed. There was blood everywhere; I tried to drag him away, and was screaming, ‘Don’t die; please don’t die!’ My son threw himself over his body, and was also screaming, ‘Daddy, daddy, don’t die!’ Then the police and the ambulances came, and took us all to the hospital.
In another attack that day, three Palestinian-Arab Israeli youths from the village of Tarshiha lost their lives: Shnati Shnati, 21; Amir Naeem, 18; and Muhammad Faour, 17. During the attack, another rocket hit a house in the nearby village of Meila. A woman, Maha Morani, whose 2-year-old daughter Nura was wounded in the attack, told Human Rights Watch:
It was around 3.30 pm yesterday. It was the first time the rocket fell on our village. We live on the third floor in a three-floor apartment building. We left kids at home and went out just for a few minutes to buy some food. My daughter was sleeping in her room in a cradle, and our son was in the living room. Suddenly, the siren went off, and my husband – I don’t know how he felt it – tore at full speed to the house, and just flew up the stairs to the room where Nura was sleeping. He grabbed her and rushed down, and just a minute after they left the house, the rocket hit straight into the room where Nura had been sleeping. She was injured in the eye by pieces of concrete that flew all around. Thank God, our son was in another room, so he was not injured physically, but he was in shock. Since the attack he has not talked at all, not a single word. Hits on Hospitals
Several medical and educational institutes have sustained damage from Katyusha attacks. Human Rights Watch researchers visited hospitals in Nahariya and Safed after they were hit.
At Nahariya Hospital, rockets had been landing near the hospital since July 12, the hospital spokesperson said. On July 28, a rocket landed directly on the fourth floor, where the ophthalmology department is located, leaving a gaping hole in the wall and destroying eight rooms with beds and medical equipment. According to the spokesperson, the department usually held 20 to 30 patients, but officials had moved patients from the top floors to basement rooms since the start of the conflict. “Otherwise it’s hard to believe anyone would have survived the attack,” the spokesperson said. He estimated the damage to the hospital at about $200,000.
“There are no military bases around here; nothing military at all,” he said. “I believe they know perfectly well they are firing at a hospital.”
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