Hezbollah fired more rockets into Israel yesterday than on any previous day of the 22-day-old war, after helicopter-borne commandos attacked guerrilla targets in Israel's deepest raid into Lebanon.

 

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

 

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 Hezbollah to be disarmed, saying Israel had already destroyed much of the group's military power.

 

Soon after he spoke, one of more than 180 rockets launched by Hezbollah landed just inside the West Bank after flying further than any fired at Israel in the past three weeks.

 

Israeli police and Hezbollah 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 Hezbollah's infrastructure had been "entirely destroyed" in the Israeli offensive.

 

Battles raged between Hezbollah guerrillas and around 6,000 Israeli troops in south Lebanon, especially around the villages of Aita Shaab and Kfar Kila, where there was intense Israeli shelling and airstrikes, a source in the UN peacekeeping force said.

 

The source said Israeli forces were present in five areas of the south and troops had landed by helicopter during the night near the southeastern border village of Meis al-Jabal.

 

Lebanese security sources said the Israelis had captured a hilltop at al-Aweida overlooking several villages, including Kfar Kila and Adaiseh where fighting has raged this week.

 

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 of physical damage across Lebanon, the transport and public works minister said.

 

Israel said its troops seized five Hezbollah militants in the night raid on Baalbek, which is 95 kilometers northeast of Beirut. Hezbollah denied those taken belonged to the group. Security sources said two Hezbollah fighters were also killed.

 

It was the first helicopter-borne assault deep inside Lebanon in the conflict since July 12.

 

UN again postpones meeting on int'l force for Lebanon 

 

The UN yesterday canceled for the second time this week a planned meeting of governments over offering troops to an international force to be deployed in southern Lebanon.

 

"The troop-contributing countries meeting that was due to be held tomorrow has been again postponed," UN official Ahmad Fawzi said.

 

"It is clear that it remains premature for such a meeting to be held because of the absence of an agreed political framework for ending the conflict," the UN official added.

 

The meeting, initially scheduled for Monday, was delayed until Thursday to give the international community more time to make progress on a political settlement of the conflict.

 

France, considered as a possible leader of the international force, announced yesterday that it would not attend today's meeting, saying a political agreement on how to end the three-week conflict must be worked out first.

 

Members of the UN Security Council are discussing a France-sponsored draft resolution that would call for a ceasefire in the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah and set out conditions for a political settlement.

 

(China Daily, Xinhua News Agency August 3, 2006)