MIDDLE EAST: Israeli defence minister Amir Peretz told top military officers yesterday evening to begin preparing to expand Israel's ground invasion of south Lebanon all the way to the Litani river, some 20-30km north of Israel's border with Lebanon.
Mr Peretz's directive, which will require cabinet approval, came shortly after eight Israeli civilians were killed in Hizbullah rocket attacks on towns in northern Israel. As of yesterday, the Israeli military said it had taken up positions some 8km inside south Lebanon and was clearing a no-go zone to keep Hizbullah fighters away from the border.
By taking control of the area up to the Litani, Mr Peretz is hoping to neutralise the threat posed by Hizbullah's short-range rockets, which have been raining down on northern Israel. Prime minister Ehud Olmert, however, was said to be reticent about expanding the ground operation because he does not believe it would help counter the threat posed by Hizbullah's longer-range rockets, which have hit Israeli cities like Haifa.
The deaths in yesterday's rocket attacks raised to 26 the number of Israeli civilians killed since fighting erupted on July 12th. Three soldiers were also killed in fierce battles with Hizbullah guerillas in south Lebanon yesterday, bringing to 38 the number of soldiers killed.
In one of the most intensive rocket bombardments so far, some 100 rockets slammed into towns in northern Israel in the space of a few minutes yesterday afternoon. In the coastal town of Acre, five people were killed when they emerged from a bomb shelter to see where an initial salvo of rockets had landed.
In the northern border town of Maalot, three Israeli Arab residents of the nearby village of Tarshiha were killed in a rocket attack.
For now, the Israeli cabinet has given approval for the army to secure a buffer zone along the border. Mr Olmert has said the military will hold the buffer zone until an international peacekeeping force has been deployed in south Lebanon.
If the cabinet gives the military the go-ahead to advance as far as the Litani river, many more of the 35,000 reserve soldiers who have already been mobilised would be moved into south Lebanon as Israeli forces pushed north.
A senior Israeli officer, speaking anonymously, warned last night that Israel would destroy Lebanon's infrastructure if Hizbullah fired missiles at Tel Aviv. The threat, aired on Israeli television, came shortly after Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah threatened to strike the Israeli city if Israel bombed Beirut.
Israeli planes dropped leaflets yesterday over Beirut telling residents of three neighbourhoods in the southern part of the Lebanese capital to vacate their homes, because the air force planned to carry out strikes in the area.
An investigation by the Israeli army into the killing of 28 civilians in an air raid in the south Lebanese village of Qana last Sunday admitted that the targeting of the building in which the civilians were taking shelter was a mistake, but blamed Hizbullah for using civilians as shields for their rocket attacks.
A hospital in Tyre said yesterday that 28 people, including 19 children, had been killed in the Qana strike, and not 54 as had originally been reported.
In the Gaza Strip, where Israel has been conducting a military incursion since a soldier was taken captive by militants in late June, eight Palestinians, most of them militants, were killed in an Israeli operation in the town of Rafah in southern Gaza. Among the dead was an eight-year-old boy.