Hizbollah rockets hit Israel after commando raid

Hizbollah launched at least 206 rockets into Israel on Wednesday, killing one. Picture / Reuters

BEIRUT - Hizbollah fired more rockets into Israel on Wednesday than on any previous day of the 22-day-old war, killing an Israeli and wounding 123, after helicopter-borne commandos launched Israel's deepest raid into Lebanon.

Air strikes in support of the helicopter raid in the Hizbollah stronghold of Baalbek in northeastern Lebanon killed 19 people, including four children.

Israeli sources said around 10,000 soldiers were now battling Hizbollah in southern Lebanon. The United Nations force in the area reported heavy exchanges of fire, with bombings in some areas and intensive shelling across the south.

In Jerusalem, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel would fight on until an international force reaches south Lebanon - even though no country has volunteered to send troops in the absence of a truce and a durable ceasefire agreement.

Olmert called for an international combat force to implement a UN resolution calling for Hizbollah to be disarmed, saying Israel had already destroyed much of the group's military power.

Soon after he spoke, one of at least 206 rockets launched by Hizbollah landed just inside the West Bank after flying further than any fired at Israel in the past three weeks.

Israeli police and Hizbollah both said it was the highest number of rockets fired into Israel on one day since the war began. The barrage, which killed one person near the northern city of Nahariya, followed a two-day lull in such attacks.

Olmert said earlier Hizbollah's infrastructure had been "entirely destroyed" in the Israeli offensive.

Asked about when a ceasefire could be agreed, White House spokesman Tony Snow said: "I don't want to make a promise on it ... but I think it's safe to say days."

Diplomats and UN officials said the United States, France and Britain hope for a UN Security Council resolution within a week that would call for a truce and perhaps beef up UN peacekeepers in Lebanon until a more robust force is formed.

Once fighting has ended, negotiations would begin at the United Nations on a second resolution setting out a permanent cease-fire that all combatants could accept.

Battles raged between Hizbollah guerrillas and Israeli troops in south Lebanon, especially around the villages of Aita Shaab and Kfar Kila, where there was intense Israeli shelling and air strikes, the UN peacekeeping force said.

At least 750,000 Lebanese, almost a quarter of the population, have been driven from their homes.

At least 643 people in Lebanon and 55 Israelis have been killed in the conflict, now in its fourth week. Lebanon's health minister puts the toll at 762, including unrecovered bodies.

Israeli bombing has inflicted US$2 billion ($3.2bn) of physical damage across Lebanon, the transport and public works minister said.

Israel said its troops seized five Hizbollah militants in the night raid on Baalbek, which is 60 miles (95 km) northeast of Beirut. Hizbollah denied those taken belonged to the group. Security sources said four Hizbollah fighters were also killed.

It was the first helicopter-borne assault deep inside Lebanon in the conflict that flared after Hizbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12.

At least 13 civilians were killed when Israeli warplanes hit Jammaliyeh, a village near Baalbek, and six died in air strikes elsewhere. A Lebanese army soldier was killed and two were wounded when their post in the south was bombed.

Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos met Lebanese leaders in Beirut, and then went to Damascus as part of an apparent European bid to engage Hizbollah allies Syria and Iran - both shunned by Washington - in a solution for Lebanon.

- REUTERS