World in brief: Hurricane deaths near 100
The death toll from Hurricane Felix neared 100 Thursday night as U.S., Honduran and Nicaraguan soldiers searched remote jungle beaches and the open sea for survivors and the dead.
Two days after the storm hit, dozens more bodies were recovered along the Mosquito coastline that stretches across the Nicaragua-Honduras border, many found floating in the sea, emergency officials said.
Abelino Cox, a spokesman for the Regional Emergency Committee, said the death toll from Felix had risen to at least 98.
The previous toll was at least 65 dead.
Damascus, Syria
Syrian defenses fire at Israeli jet
Air defense systems fired at Israeli warplanes that violated Syria’s northern airspace early Thursday, according to Syrian officials, who said the jets broke the sound barrier when they crossed the border after flying in from the Mediterranean Sea.
A Syrian army spokesman told the official Sana news agency that air defense units “confronted” Israeli military jets over Tall Abyab, near the Turkish border, “and forced them to leave after they dropped some ammunition in deserted areas without causing any human or material damage.”
Israel would not confirm or deny the claim by Damascus.
The incident comes amid Arab and Israeli media reports in recent weeks that the region may be headed toward war, provoked either by an Israeli airstrike or a military move by Syrian President Bashar Assad to try to retake the Golan Heights, which Israel captured during 1967’s Six-Day War.
Jerusalem
Israel blamed for civilian deaths
A U.S. human rights group charged Thursday that most of the civilian deaths in Lebanon during last year’s war resulted from “indiscriminate” bombardment by Israel rather than from Hezbollah’s battlefield tactics.
Human Rights Watch, based in New York, said Israel often fired before determining whether its targets were civilian or military, despite international law aimed at protecting noncombatants.
“Time and time again, Israel did not have the evidence required to justify firing,” the group’s executive director, Kenneth Roth, said in issuing the 249-page report.
The Israeli military said in response that it sought to prevent civilian casualties by urging civilians to evacuate combat areas and by refraining from strikes it knew would bring disproportionate harm to noncombatants.