Major Israeli Operation Launched

Lebanon Says Number Of Israeli Aircraft In Area Is 'Unprecedented'

(CBS/AP)  In announcing the expanded operation, Israeli officials said their soldiers were to go as far as the Litani, about 18 miles from the border, and hold the ground until an international peacekeeping force comes ashore.

But the army later said it had distributed leaflets northeast of the river at villages where Hezbollah was active; the leaflets told people to leave, suggesting that the new offensive could take Israeli soldiers even deeper into Lebanon.

The Israelis want to keep Hezbollah off the border so their patrols and civilians along the fence are not in danger of attack, such as the July 12 raid in which guerrillas killed three soldiers and seized two others. The army also hopes to push Hezbollah far enough north so that most of the guerrillas' rockets cannot reach the Jewish state.

Despite mounting civilian deaths, President Bush held fast to support for Israel and was pressing for a U.N. resolution linking a cease-fire with a broader plan for peace in the Middle East. Staking out a different approach, European Union foreign ministers called for an “immediate cessation of hostilities” followed by efforts to agree on a sustainable cease-fire.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said it was not in Israel's interest to agree to an immediate cease-fire because every day of fighting weakens the guerrillas.

“Every additional day is a day that drains the strength of this cruel enemy,” he said. “Every extra day is a day in which the (army) reduces their capability, contains their firing ability and their ability to hit in the future.”

Until the arrival of an international force, Israel hopes to create a temporary buffer zone in a region that it occupied for 18 years until 2000. It is not yet clear that an international force will be formed, but the intention would be to bolster the Lebanese military's ability to control southern reaches of the country where Hezbollah has been launching its rocket attacks on Israel.

Israel resumed sporadic airstrikes — hitting Hezbollah strongholds and supply lines from one end of Lebanon to the other — despite a pledge to suspend such attacks for another day in response to world outrage over the killing of 56 Lebanese in a weekend bombing.

Hezbollah fired just 10 rockets across the border Tuesday, well below an average of about 100 a day since the fighting began 21 days ago, Israel said.

But the ground battles were intense.

At nightfall Tuesday, Israeli troops were fighting Hezbollah at several points along the common border. Reporters and Arab television reported especially heavy fighting and Israeli artillery bombardment at the village of Aita al-Shaab.

The Israeli army said that three Israeli soldiers died and 25 were slightly wounded by small arms fire and anti-tank rockets in Aita al-Shaab.

Israeli Cabinet Minister Haim Ramon said the fighting to date had killed about 300 of Hezbollah's main force of 2,000 fighters, which does not include its less-well trained reserves. “That's a very hard blow,” he said.

Hezbollah has said only 46 of its fighters were killed. Four were lost in battles with Israeli ground troops in Adaisse and Taibeh, near the Christian town of Marjayoun, about five miles from the border with Israel, Hezbollah said.

Israeli jet fighters also struck deep inside Lebanese territory, hitting Hermel, 75 miles north of the Israeli border in the Bekaa Valley. Warplanes fired at least five air-to-surface missiles on the edge of the town, targeting a road linking eastern Lebanon to western regions and the coastline.

In the west, Israeli warships fired artillery into the villages of Mansouri, Shamaa and Teir Harfan around the port city of Tyre. No casualties were reported.

Another strike at an area near the Syrian border, about six miles north of Hermel, targeted the Qaa-Homs road, one of four official crossing points between Lebanon and Syria. Two of the four border crossings are now closed because of damage, and repeated airstrikes have made the main Beirut-Damascus highway impassable.

The deaths of 56 Lebanese in the devastating weekend strike in Qana focused attention on civilian casualties.

Three more civilians were killed and three seriously wounded when Israeli warplanes hit a house in the southern Lebanese town of Lweizeh, Lebanese security officials said Tuesday.

Also, the Lebanese Red Cross said the bodies of 12 civilians were retrieved from the rubble of buildings destroyed in airstrikes on four villages in southern Lebanon and many more were believed still buried. It was not clear when the victims were killed.

At least 532 Lebanese have been killed, including 461 civilians and 25 Lebanese soldiers and at least 46 Hezbollah guerrillas. The health minister says the toll could be as high as 750, including those still buried in rubble or missing. Fifty-four Israelis have died — 36 soldiers as well as 18 civilians killed in Hezbollah rocket attacks.

But human lives are not the only casualties of this war. The United Nations warned Tuesday that the longer a spill of 110,000 barrels of oil is not cleaned up from Lebanon's coast, the more severe the environmental impact will be. The oil spilled two weeks ago after Israeli warplanes hit a coastal power plant.