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Israelis in battered town start to pick up the pieces

Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service

Friday, August 18, 2006

(08-18) 04:00 PDT Nahariya, Israel -- Lydisia Kadosh was watching the TV news two weeks ago when she realized that the house blazing away on the screen was hers.

The burning three-story duplex in this northern Israeli town had just been hit by a Katyusha rocket, fired across the border by Hezbollah guerrillas during the 34-day war, which entered a tense cease-fire Monday.

"I saw my house exploding and going up in flames," said Kadosh, inspecting the damage Thursday. "My daughter burst into tears when she saw the pictures."

Kadosh, her husband and their four children had left Nahariya in the first week of the fighting to stay with friends and relatives. They returned home this week to find their house uninhabitable, with a huge hole in the roof and broken glass and furniture scattered everywhere.

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