Israel bombed the home of Hizbollah's leader in Beirut yesterday as part of a widening assault in Lebanon since Shi'ite fighters captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight.

Hizbollah said Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was safe.

Israeli air strikes destroyed Mr Nasrallah's apartment building and a main Hizbollah office in southern Beirut, Hizbollah said.

It said Mr Nasrallah and his family were not hurt in the raids, without saying if they had been at home at the time.

The Israeli army said warplanes attacked Hizbollah's headquarters in Beirut, but a spokesman would not say if it was an attempt to kill Mr Nasrallah.

"We targeted by air the headquarters of Hizbollah in southern Beirut. We attacked two structures that are used by the leadership of Hizbollah," she said, adding that civilians had been warned in advance to leave the area.

Israel also attacked many Lebanese civilian installations in the third day of its campaign to force the release of the two Israeli soldiers and halt cross-border rocket strikes.

The assault has drawn mounting international criticism but the White House said US President George W. Bush would not press Israel to halt its military operation.

Asked whether Mr Bush had agreed to a request from Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora that he rein in the Israelis, White House spokesman Tony Snow said: "No. The President is not going to make military decisions for Israel."

Hizbollah, that wants to trade its captives for prisoners held in Israel, fired more rockets across the frontier, killing an Israeli woman and child.

The Lebanon violence is the fiercest since 1996 when Israel launched a 17-day blitz on Hizbollah strongholds in the south, four years before its troops pulled out of Lebanon.

Israeli aircraft rocketed runways at Beirut's international airport and bombed a flyover just to the south, witnesses said.

The airport has been shut since runways and fuel tanks were hit on Thursday. Four planes from Lebanon's Middle East Airlines had taken off empty for Amman shortly before the latest raids.

Israeli warplanes blasted the main Beirut-Damascus highway overnight, tightening an air, sea and land blockade of Lebanon, and bombed targets in Beirut's teeming Shi'ite Muslim suburbs, killing three people and wounding 40, security sources said.