Israeli strikes kill 14 Lebanese

An Israeli army tank fires into southern Lebanon. Picture / Reuters

BEIRUT - Israeli air strikes killed 14 civilians in Lebanon and Hizbollah battled Israeli ground troops today as the UN Security Council failed to agree on a draft resolution seeking to end 27 days of fighting.

Opposition from Lebanon caused the United States and France to delay a vote on the resolution also aimed at setting terms to settle the Israel-Hizbollah conflict. The Security Council was scheduled to hold consultations later today and the United States and France could present a revised text at that time.

Meanwhile, there was no let up in the violence which has killed at least 773 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 94 Israelis. Both sides vowed to keep fighting.

Seven members of the same family were killed in the southern Lebanese village of Ghazzaniyeh when Israeli jets struck their house, security sources and witnesses said.

Two women and a boy were killed and 13 people wounded in a similar strike in Kfar Tibneet village, also in the south. Two more civilians died in a strike in the nearby Harouf village and one was killed and 14 were wounded in strikes in Ghaziyeh, just south of the port city of Sidon.

Israeli jets also struck a southern suburb of Beirut and the eastern Bekaa Valley, both Hizbollah strongholds. One civilian died in the Bekaa attacks.

Hizbollah battled Israeli troops on several fronts with the fiercest fighting in Houla, where the guerrilla group said it had ambushed and killed four Israeli soldiers. An Israeli army spokeswoman said five soldiers were wounded, but none killed.

The fighting follows the deadliest day so far for Israel, after Hizbollah rockets killed 12 soldiers and three civilians.

Hizbollah, whose snatching of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12 sparked the war, says it will fight on until Israel stops bombing Lebanon and pulls out its forces.

Lebanon's government has demanded the draft Security Council resolution drawn up by France and the United States include a call for a rapid withdrawal of Israeli troops from its soil.

China and Russia argued the text should be made more attractive to Lebanon. That prevented Paris and Washington putting the draft into final form which could have cleared the way for a Security Council vote on the resolution today.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met top defence officials to discuss broadening air and ground attacks on Lebanon in response to today's Hizbollah strikes, political sources said.

The army planned to hit strategic infrastructure targets and symbols of the Lebanese government after the Hizbollah attacks on Sunday, Israel's left-leaning Haaretz newspaper reported.

Israeli air strikes have already caused extensive damage to Lebanon's infrastructure, including roads and bridges that Israel says Hizbollah uses to transport rockets.

Israel expects the Security Council to pass a resolution this week ending offensive operations by the Jewish state but leaving the door open for more air strikes on Hizbollah arms convoys and rocket launching crews, government officials said.

Lebanon will seek support for its position from Arab foreign ministers due to meet in Beirut later in the day.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has already told UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan by telephone that instability could spread if a draft resolution on Lebanon is passed without the approval of all political forces in the country.

Syria, a main backer of Hizbollah, withdrew its forces from Lebanon last year under international and Lebanese pressure.

The war coincides with an Israeli military offensive in the southern Gaza Strip to recover another captured soldier.

An Israeli air strike destroyed a house in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday after residents said they received two telephone calls from the army, one urging them to leave and a second insisting, "This is not a joke."

At least 167 Palestinians have been killed in the campaign, more than half of them civilians.

- REUTERS