2006年VOA标准英语-Israeli Commandos Raid Lebanese City of Tyre

By Challiss McDonough
Tyre
05 August 2006

Israeli commandos have stormed an apartment complex in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, trying to capture or kill leaders of a local Hezbollah unit they believe had been firing long-range rockets into Israel. At least five people have been killed, including a Lebanese soldier, and the Israeli military says eight of its troops are wounded. VOA Correspondent Challiss McDonough is in Tyre, and has this report.

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The Israeli commandos landed at around four in the morning, supported by Apache helicopters and low-flying fighter jets.

Heavy machine-gun fire from the helicopters indicated that this was not just another bombing raid. Israeli commandos stormed an apartment building in the northern outskirts¹ of Tyre.

Lebanese army troops look at a crater² after an early morning Israeli airstrike on a main road in southern village of Shabriha between the two main ports of Sidon and Tyre, Aug. 5, 2006   
  
Aircraft bombed the roads leading to the site, sealing the area off.

Nearby resident Nada Al-Hariri said, "It was like an earthquake. The ground was shaking. We thought we were going to die."

At the scene of the raid, there are signs of a violent struggle, and residents of nearby apartments describe a fierce gunbattle between Hezbollah militants³ and Israeli troops. Hours after the attack, a second-story apartment was still smoldering⁴. All the windows have been blasted out, and the walls are charred⁵. Blood is dripping from the back window.

About 50 meters away, in a parking space, a large pool of blood is congealing⁶ on the ground. The walls are pockmarked with bullet holes. A trail of blood droplets⁷ leads away toward the street.

Hezbollah claims it is the blood of an Israeli soldier who was killed. Israel acknowledges that eight of its troops were wounded in the assault, two seriously.

Hezbollah claims to have repelled⁸ the attack. Israeli military officials said the raid successfully targeted Hezbollah long-range rocket launchers, as well as leaders of the unit that launched a rocket attack Friday on the Israeli city of Hadera, some 80 kilometers south of the border and the deepest rocket attack into Israel since the conflict began. It is not clear how many Hezbollah militants were killed or wounded. The group does not disclose its casualty figures.

Among the dead was at least one Lebanese Army soldier. The raid took place near the army barracks, and one of their armored personnel carriers was obliterated⁹.

Hours later, Lebanese soldiers warned a reporter not to touch the charred, smoldering vehicle. It was still burning hot.

A few blocks away, standing¹⁰ next to a massive crater, a teenage bystander said he saw flashes of fire from a helicopter's heavy machine gun before a massive explosion tore apart the road near his house.

"They first came over our heads with a big heavy machine gun, and then they started dropping this stuff [the bombs]," he said. "This was terrifying. And they had troops on the ground, they had soldiers on the ground."

In the middle of a residential¹¹ neighborhood chunks¹² of debris¹³ flew into the air and landed on the tin-roofed homes just meters away.

A woman named Fatmeh points out the damage to her home. The dishes in the kitchen have been shattered, and there are holes in the roof. She and her family had been sleeping on the floor in the next room.

"When this explosion happened, we panicked," she said. "We didn't know where to go. One minute we'd run out on the street, we'd see what was happening, it would freak us out. We'd run out to the beach, and finally we thought maybe if we just sit on the beach with our back to the sea, in the soft sand, maybe we'll be safe there. We have no bunker here. We've got nothing to hide under."

She says she thinks the house is no longer sturdy enough to live in, but she and her three daughters have nowhere else to go.

"We don't have any armed youth who come here," she said. "We don't have rockets. We don't have guns. We just go to work, we come back. So yeah, I thought I would be safe."

This is the first time since the conflict began that Israeli commandos are known to have been on the ground in Tyre. The attack follows a similar airborne raid in the city of Baalbek on Tuesday, when Israeli commandos stormed a disused hospital and took several Hezbollah captives.

It is clear that the military activity around Tyre is far from over. A few hours after the raid here, another two rockets struck near the city center, killing¹⁴ two men on a moped. Heavy shelling around town has continued.

One of the bombs dropped during the raid destroyed the main road leading out of Tyre toward the north. That will seriously complicate¹⁵ efforts to bring aid shipments into the city by road.

1 outskirts   

n.郊外，郊区

参考例句：

• Our car broke down on the outskirts of the city.我们的汽车在市郊出了故障。
• They mostly live on the outskirts of a town.他们大多住在近郊。

2 crater   

n.火山口，弹坑

参考例句：

• With a telescope you can see the huge crater of Ve-suvius.用望远镜你能看到巨大的维苏威火山口。
• They came to the lip of a dead crater.他们来到了一个死火山口。

3 militants   

激进分子，好斗分子( militant的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The militants have been sporadically fighting the government for years. 几年来，反叛分子一直对政府实施零星的战斗。
• Despite the onslaught, Palestinian militants managed to fire off rockets. 尽管如此，巴勒斯坦的激进分子仍然发射导弹。

4 smoldering   

v.用文火焖烧，熏烧，慢燃( smolder的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The mat was smoldering where the burning log had fallen. 燃烧的木棒落下的地方垫子慢慢燃烧起来。 来自辞典例句
• The wood was smoldering in the fireplace. 木柴在壁炉中闷烧。 来自辞典例句

5 charred   

v.把…烧成炭( char的过去式)；烧焦

参考例句：

• the charred remains of a burnt-out car 被烧焦的轿车残骸
• The intensity of the explosion is recorded on the charred tree trunks. 那些烧焦的树干表明爆炸的强烈。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 congealing   

v.使凝结，冻结( congeal的现在分词 )；（指血）凝结

参考例句：

• Vague European uneasiness was congealing into panic. 欧洲各国先是隐约不安，后来逐渐惊慌失措起来。 来自辞典例句
• The process of congealing or the state of being congealed. 凝结的过程或被凝结后的状态。 来自互联网

7 droplets   

n.小滴( droplet的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Droplets of sweat were welling up on his forehead. 他额头上冒出了滴滴汗珠。 来自辞典例句
• In constrast, exhaled smoke contains relatively large water droplets and appears white. 相反，从人嘴里呼出的烟则包含相当大的水滴，所以呈白色。 来自辞典例句

8 repelled   

v.击退( repel的过去式和过去分词 )；使厌恶；排斥；推开

参考例句：

• They repelled the enemy. 他们击退了敌军。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The minister tremulously, but decidedly, repelled the old man's arm. 而丁梅斯代尔牧师却哆里哆嗦地断然推开了那老人的胳臂。 来自英汉文学 - 红字

9 obliterated   

v.除去( obliterate的过去式和过去分词 )；涂去；擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭

参考例句：

• The building was completely obliterated by the bomb. 炸弹把那座建筑物彻底摧毁了。
• He began to drink, drank himself to intoxication, till he slept obliterated. 他一直喝，喝到他快要迷糊地睡着了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

11 residential   

adj.提供住宿的；居住的；住宅的

参考例句：

• The mayor inspected the residential section of the city.市长视察了该市的住宅区。
• The residential blocks were integrated with the rest of the college.住宿区与学院其他部分结合在了一起。

12 chunks   

厚厚的一块( chunk的名词复数 )； （某物）相当大的数量或部分

参考例句：

• a tin of pineapple chunks 一罐菠萝块
• Those chunks of meat are rather large—could you chop them up a bIt'smaller? 这些肉块相当大，还能再切小一点吗？

13 debris   

n.瓦砾堆，废墟，碎片

参考例句：

• After the bombing there was a lot of debris everywhere.轰炸之后到处瓦砾成堆。
• Bacteria sticks to food debris in the teeth,causing decay.细菌附着在牙缝中的食物残渣上，导致蛀牙。

14 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

15 complicate   

vt.使复杂化，使混乱，使难懂

参考例句：

• There is no need to complicate matters.没有必要使问题复杂化。
• These events will greatly complicate the situation.这些事件将使局势变得极其复杂。