REPORTER: Thom Cookes
Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, its major port, and home to about 1 million people. Despite the trouble to the south, in the Gaza Strip, it has been relatively peaceful here for the last few weeks. That was until last week.
Lebanon's Shi'ite militia, Hezbollah, captured two Israeli soldiers and sent rockets flying over the border into townships across northern Israel. This is a provocation that Israel was never going to ignore.
EHUD OLMERT, ISREALI PRIME MINISTER: This mornings events are not a terrorist attack. They are the actions of a sovereign country attacking Israel for no reason and with no provocation.
SHEIKH HASSAN NASRALLAH, HEZBOLLAH SECRETARY GENERAL: You wanted an open war, and we are going into an open war. And we are ready for it. We are ready for it. War at every level.
Overnight and throughout Thursday, Israel responded by unleashing the full force of its military might upon Lebanon. Hezbollah continued to fire their rockets into Israel.
This is Nahariyah, just south of Israel's border with Lebanon. A Katyusha rocket hit the main street here just two hours before I arrived. Katyusha rockets are fairly inaccurate and cause little damage. Here they've shattered the windows of a bookstore, but it's enough to unnerve the owner's son.
BOOKSTORE OWNERS SON: When you hear the bombs, you start getting scared because it could fall on your house or something. It is just broken windows and stuff, but it is very dangerous.
REPORTER: How many in Nahariyah so far? How many rockets?
BOOKSTORE OWNERS SON: Rockets? From yesterday, maybe 20.
Friday, and Israel continues to pound Lebanese infrastructure and Hezbollah buildings in Beirut. Civilian casualties continue to escalate. In one case, 18 civilians, including children, are burnt to death as a convoy of cars try to escape the fighting. In what Israel saw as a worrying development, Hezbollah responded with increasingly sophisticated weapons with longer ranges and bigger payloads. An Israeli warship blockading Beirut's port is hit by a C-802 - a long-range anti-shipping missile supplied by Iran. Four sailors die.
Now it is no longer just the northern border region that is under bombardment - Haifa has come into range. A Hezbollah rocket landed on the grounds below this Carmelite monastery. The staff of the restaurant next door saw the impact.
MAN: It was a big fire, like a fire. That's what we saw.
The frightened reaction of visiting tourists was captured on the restaurant's security cameras.
REPORTER: Are you frightened here now? Are you worried?
MAN: No, we're not frightened. We don't look like frightened.
REPORTER: Why not?
MAN: We have a great army.
The reasonably relaxed attitude here would change over the next two days. A more powerful rocket has scored a direct hit on a railway maintenance shed. Eight men die, and dozens more are injured. The warhead of the rocket was packed with shrapnel to maximise casualties.
TONY: I'm scared to stay at home.
Tony, a nearby resident, tells me what he saw just two hours ago.
TONY: I came through that door, the red door there, I go inside the garage and I see terrible things inside the garage - eight bodies, eight or nine bodies. A lot of people are injured. Straight away the ambulances arrive - well, when I arrived here there was already ambulances here - they took the injured people and they were checking if they were dead or alive. Some of them were moving, I think some of them died, I don't know. But all young people, young workers here, you know? Terrible. I think it's very bad. The people are living in fear in Israel now.
REPORTER: Are you frightened?
TONY: Of course I am frightened. This evening I will leave for Elat, safer there.
As I film at the scene, the air raid sirens go off again, followed by several loud explosions.
SOLDIER: Now we have a new rocket attack on Haifa. There are about four hits. All of them are in the water of the bay. As we know by now, on this last attack of four rockets, nothing was hit in Haifa.
Miri Eisin, a spokeswoman for the Israeli Prime Minister, is inspecting the damage.
MIRI EISIN, SPOKESWOMAN FOR ISRAELI PM: Israel is determined that Hezbollah will not be the one to define the outcome. They initiated an act of war against Israel last week, they are continuing with it, and Israel is not backing down. We will not return to the state that we were before Hezbollah initiated these attacks on Tuesday. We are going to be sure at the end and we are determined that Hezbollah will not be on Israel's northern border, will not be in south Lebanon, that they will be disarmed, that a terrorist organisation will not keep the Lebanese Government and the Lebanese people hostage, let alone the Israeli people.
The acts of Hezbollah in the north have and don't have anything to do with what happened in Gaza before. Hezbollah, from southern Lebanon territory, crossed into Israeli territory, kidnapped two servicemen, but what we tend to forget is that at the exact same time they fired on dozens of Israeli villages with Katyusha rockets all along Israeli northern border. We have lived with this for the last six years. Israel is not willing to live with this any more.
Many of the injured are taken to the nearby Ramban Hospital. Relatives are waiting for news, and it's not good. The current crisis began on June 25 when Gilad Shalit, a 19-year-old corporal in the Israeli Defence Force, was captured and taken, not into Lebanon, but into Palestinian-controlled Gaza.
Within 48 hours, along with a deadly incursion into Gaza, Israel had rounded up more than 60 Palestinians, including the vast majority of the Hamas Government on the West Bank, and throwing them into jail. Fahdi Kawasmi, a Palestinian lawyer, is taking me to see the family of Ahmed Attun, one of the MPs detained by Israel.
FAHDI KAWASMI, PALESTINIAN LAWYER: The accusation is that there are members in the Palestinian Legislative Council in the name of Hamas. And because their membership is in the name of Hamas, it is illegal.
REPORTER: So this is the only charge, membership of..
FAHDI KAWASMI: Yes, yes. And there is something funny about this guy. One of the charges is that they found in his house a scarf.
REPORTER: What was on the scarf?
FAHDI KAWASMI: "No God but Allah" was written on the scarf. And this is one of the charges!
Ahmed's wife tells me how the Israeli secret police, the Shin Bet, came for her husband.
AHMEDS WIFE (Translation): They came for us at 1:00 in the morning and they started to search the house. There were about 10 or 12 of them. They searched the whole house. They searched his personal belongings, papers, everything. They searched the whole house. They spared nothing. Then they took him away. They arrested him.
FAHDI KAWASMI: All of it, they say that its because of kidnapping the soldiers, and they say also that if they release them, everything will stop, but I don't think everything will stop if the Israelis release them. I think this is an opportunity for Israel to really finish Hamas and Hezbollah forever.
REPORTER/CAMERA: Thom Cookes
EDITOR: Rowan Tucker-Evans
FIELD PRODUCER: Mariam Shahin
SUBTITLING: Joseph Abdo, Yehuda Kaplan
PRODUCER: Ashley Smith
Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, its major port, and home to about 1 million people. Despite the trouble to the south, in the Gaza Strip, it has been relatively peaceful here for the last few weeks. That was until last week.
Lebanon's Shi'ite militia, Hezbollah, captured two Israeli soldiers and sent rockets flying over the border into townships across northern Israel. This is a provocation that Israel was never going to ignore.
EHUD OLMERT, ISREALI PRIME MINISTER: This mornings events are not a terrorist attack. They are the actions of a sovereign country attacking Israel for no reason and with no provocation.
SHEIKH HASSAN NASRALLAH, HEZBOLLAH SECRETARY GENERAL: You wanted an open war, and we are going into an open war. And we are ready for it. We are ready for it. War at every level.
Overnight and throughout Thursday, Israel responded by unleashing the full force of its military might upon Lebanon. Hezbollah continued to fire their rockets into Israel.
This is Nahariyah, just south of Israel's border with Lebanon. A Katyusha rocket hit the main street here just two hours before I arrived. Katyusha rockets are fairly inaccurate and cause little damage. Here they've shattered the windows of a bookstore, but it's enough to unnerve the owner's son.
BOOKSTORE OWNERS SON: When you hear the bombs, you start getting scared because it could fall on your house or something. It is just broken windows and stuff, but it is very dangerous.
REPORTER: How many in Nahariyah so far? How many rockets?
BOOKSTORE OWNERS SON: Rockets? From yesterday, maybe 20.
Friday, and Israel continues to pound Lebanese infrastructure and Hezbollah buildings in Beirut. Civilian casualties continue to escalate. In one case, 18 civilians, including children, are burnt to death as a convoy of cars try to escape the fighting. In what Israel saw as a worrying development, Hezbollah responded with increasingly sophisticated weapons with longer ranges and bigger payloads. An Israeli warship blockading Beirut's port is hit by a C-802 - a long-range anti-shipping missile supplied by Iran. Four sailors die.
Now it is no longer just the northern border region that is under bombardment - Haifa has come into range. A Hezbollah rocket landed on the grounds below this Carmelite monastery. The staff of the restaurant next door saw the impact.
MAN: It was a big fire, like a fire. That's what we saw.
The frightened reaction of visiting tourists was captured on the restaurant's security cameras.
REPORTER: Are you frightened here now? Are you worried?
MAN: No, we're not frightened. We don't look like frightened.
REPORTER: Why not?
MAN: We have a great army.
The reasonably relaxed attitude here would change over the next two days. A more powerful rocket has scored a direct hit on a railway maintenance shed. Eight men die, and dozens more are injured. The warhead of the rocket was packed with shrapnel to maximise casualties.
TONY: I'm scared to stay at home.
Tony, a nearby resident, tells me what he saw just two hours ago.
TONY: I came through that door, the red door there, I go inside the garage and I see terrible things inside the garage - eight bodies, eight or nine bodies. A lot of people are injured. Straight away the ambulances arrive - well, when I arrived here there was already ambulances here - they took the injured people and they were checking if they were dead or alive. Some of them were moving, I think some of them died, I don't know. But all young people, young workers here, you know? Terrible. I think it's very bad. The people are living in fear in Israel now.
REPORTER: Are you frightened?
TONY: Of course I am frightened. This evening I will leave for Elat, safer there.
As I film at the scene, the air raid sirens go off again, followed by several loud explosions.
SOLDIER: Now we have a new rocket attack on Haifa. There are about four hits. All of them are in the water of the bay. As we know by now, on this last attack of four rockets, nothing was hit in Haifa.
Miri Eisin, a spokeswoman for the Israeli Prime Minister, is inspecting the damage.
MIRI EISIN, SPOKESWOMAN FOR ISRAELI PM: Israel is determined that Hezbollah will not be the one to define the outcome. They initiated an act of war against Israel last week, they are continuing with it, and Israel is not backing down. We will not return to the state that we were before Hezbollah initiated these attacks on Tuesday. We are going to be sure at the end and we are determined that Hezbollah will not be on Israel's northern border, will not be in south Lebanon, that they will be disarmed, that a terrorist organisation will not keep the Lebanese Government and the Lebanese people hostage, let alone the Israeli people.
The acts of Hezbollah in the north have and don't have anything to do with what happened in Gaza before. Hezbollah, from southern Lebanon territory, crossed into Israeli territory, kidnapped two servicemen, but what we tend to forget is that at the exact same time they fired on dozens of Israeli villages with Katyusha rockets all along Israeli northern border. We have lived with this for the last six years. Israel is not willing to live with this any more.
Many of the injured are taken to the nearby Ramban Hospital. Relatives are waiting for news, and it's not good. The current crisis began on June 25 when Gilad Shalit, a 19-year-old corporal in the Israeli Defence Force, was captured and taken, not into Lebanon, but into Palestinian-controlled Gaza.
Within 48 hours, along with a deadly incursion into Gaza, Israel had rounded up more than 60 Palestinians, including the vast majority of the Hamas Government on the West Bank, and throwing them into jail. Fahdi Kawasmi, a Palestinian lawyer, is taking me to see the family of Ahmed Attun, one of the MPs detained by Israel.
FAHDI KAWASMI, PALESTINIAN LAWYER: The accusation is that there are members in the Palestinian Legislative Council in the name of Hamas. And because their membership is in the name of Hamas, it is illegal.
REPORTER: So this is the only charge, membership of..
FAHDI KAWASMI: Yes, yes. And there is something funny about this guy. One of the charges is that they found in his house a scarf.
REPORTER: What was on the scarf?
FAHDI KAWASMI: "No God but Allah" was written on the scarf. And this is one of the charges!
Ahmed's wife tells me how the Israeli secret police, the Shin Bet, came for her husband.
AHMEDS WIFE (Translation): They came for us at 1:00 in the morning and they started to search the house. There were about 10 or 12 of them. They searched the whole house. They searched his personal belongings, papers, everything. They searched the whole house. They spared nothing. Then they took him away. They arrested him.
FAHDI KAWASMI: All of it, they say that its because of kidnapping the soldiers, and they say also that if they release them, everything will stop, but I don't think everything will stop if the Israelis release them. I think this is an opportunity for Israel to really finish Hamas and Hezbollah forever.
REPORTER/CAMERA: Thom Cookes
EDITOR: Rowan Tucker-Evans
FIELD PRODUCER: Mariam Shahin
SUBTITLING: Joseph Abdo, Yehuda Kaplan
PRODUCER: Ashley Smith