BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN)
August 7, 2006
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said Monday that one person was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the southern village of Houla, not 40 as he had earlier reported.
"The massacre in Houla, it turned out that there was one person killed," Reuters quoted Siniora as saying. "They thought that the whole building smashed on the heads of about 40 people ... thank God they have been saved."
Siniora had earlier told Arab foreign ministers in Beirut that the attack "was a horrific massacre ... in which more than 40 martyrs were victims of deliberate bombing."
Saniora said he had based the initial tally on unspecified information that he had received, The Associated Press reported. He offered no other explanation for the error.
Lebanese media are reporting 65 survivors were pulled from the rubble, more than half of them children.
Six homes were destroyed, and fires engulfed the area, a Lebanese law enforcement source said.
The Israel Defense Forces said it is checking the reports on Houla, noting that it has warned residents for the past two weeks to leave.
