Hezbollah fired nearly three dozen rockets on Northern Israel on Wednesday in retaliation for an Israeli air raid on Baalbek in eastern Lebanon the previous day which killed a Lebanese woman and her six children.

The Prime Minister and members of his cabinet visited a number of sites hit by Rockets. Israeli radio said all of the ministers supported retaliation for the attack, which the army said Left 16 people wounded, one seriously. Tourism Minister Moshe Katsav said he supported `tough action' while Internal Security Minister Avigdor Kahalani called earlier for retaliatory bombing of power stationssupplying electricity to Beirut.

``It is unthinkable that residents of northern Israel have to go into shelters while residents of Beirut go about their business as if nothing was up,'' Kahalani told army radio.

Defence Minister Yitzhak Mordechai highlighted the difference between a rocket attack `aimed at intentionally killing children' and a mistake that claimed the live s of innocent civilians that Israel had apologised for. ``We are sorry about what happened and we apologised. But the Hezbollah attack wa s aimed at intentionally killing children on their way to school,'' he said. Netanyahu described the attack as ``calculated and malicious and aimed at killing children at 7:30 in the morning when they are on their way to school.''

The army ordered the inhabitants of Kiryat Shmona and villages in the North to Remain in bomb shelters until further notice. President Ezer Weizman visited the wounded hospitalized in Safed and called for `a solution to the problems with Lebanon.'