Israeli aircraft yesterday again bombed targets in Beirut, as well as east and south Lebanon, killing eight civilians and wounding some 100, while in Israel two people were killed and dozens wounded as close to 100 rockets fired by Hizbollah pounded towns across the north of the country, write Peter Hirschberg in Jerusalem, Denis Staunton in Washington and Mark Brennock.
Foreigners fleeing the fighting, meanwhile, continued to stream out of Lebanon, with Cyprus expecting to take in thousands more yesterday. Several hundred evacuees were also heading yesterday by boat for Turkey.
US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice was due to leave Washington last night on a mission that would include meetings with Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian authority president Mahmoud Abbas. She will travel to Rome on Wednesday for an international conference on the Middle East conflict.
In the northern port city of Haifa, a man was killed yesterday when his car was hit by a rocket as he drove along a main road, while another died when a rocket ploughed into a factory.
Air raid sirens warning of incoming missiles wailed throughout the day across northern Israel, with several houses taking direct hits.
Meanwhile, the Irish Defence Forces announced yesterday that an audit of resources that could be contributed to any UN mission to Lebanon was being carried out.
The results will be presented to the Minister of Defence, Willie O'Dea, on Wednesday and will enable to Government to offer a quick response to any such request.
In Lebanon, Israeli air strikes hit a Shia religious centre in Sidon and killed one person in the Bekaa Valley and two in an attack on a village in the south.
Aircraft again targeted an area in south Beirut known as a Hizbullah stronghold and which has largely been reduced to rubble.
In Lebanon, 368 civilians have been killed in the fighting, while in Israel 17 civilians have been killed in rocket attacks.
Israeli defence minister Amir Peretz announced yesterday that Israel could support the deployment of a temporary international peacekeeping force in south Lebanon to keep Hizbullah away from the border with Israel.
Last week, Mr Olmert had said it was "too early" to discuss such an idea.
US ambassador to the UN John Bolton yesterday described a Syrian offer of direct talks on the conflict as "better than nothing" but insisted that Damascus must withdraw support from Hizbullah's campaign against Israel.
Mr Bolton said the US could back an international force for southern Lebanon, which Israel said yesterday could be led by NATO but said it was unlikely that US forces would participate.
"I think we have been looking carefully at the possibility of a multinational force perhaps authorized by the Security Council, but not a UN-helmeted force," he said.
"That might be analogous to the multinational force and observers in the Sinai between Egypt and Israel," Mr Bolton said.
The Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces, Lieut Gen Jim Sreenan, and Mr O'Dea agreed last Friday to conduct an audit of resources that might be contributed to any UN mission to Lebanon.
A spokeswoman for the Minister said any Irish commitment to any UN force would be likely to involve specialised units such as bomb disposal and engineering teams, rather than large numbers of troops.
The Government had a ceiling of 850 troops that could be abroad on peacekeeping duties at any one time, and there were already 700 in Bosnia, Kosovo, Ivory Coast and elsewhere.