Battles rage on eve of UN truce

Israeli troops battled Hizbollah guerillas across southern Lebanon yesterday and air strikes battered Beirut's suburbs as the Israeli army pressed on with its offensive in the hours until a UN-brokered truce begins.

Israel's Cabinet approved Friday's UN Security Council resolution calling for an end to the fighting, and the UN said Israeli and Lebanese leaders had agreed that a truce would take effect from 0500 GMT today.

Hizbollah launched its heaviest one-day rocket barrage into Israel since the start of the war. Security officials said more than 250 rockets were fired, killing a 70-year-old man and wounding at least 91 people. Some hit the centre of the port city of Haifa but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

Al Arabiya television reported that seven Israeli soldiers were killed in fighting in south Lebanon, and Lebanese security sources said Israeli air raids killed at least 17 people.

Saturday was the deadliest day of the month-old war for the Israeli army, with 19 soldiers killed and five missing and feared dead after their helicopter was shot down by Hizbollah.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni repeated Israel's position that its troops would only pull out when a peacekeeping force arrived - which the UN says could take up to 10 days.

"Israel will leave in tandem with the deployment south of the Lebanese army along with the international force," she told a news conference.

The resolution approved by the Security Council on Friday calls for a "full cessation of hostilities" and for Israel to withdraw its troops "at the earliest".

As they withdraw, 15,000 Lebanese soldiers and an expanded international force of 15,000 foreign troops, likely to be led by France, will be deployed.

Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Saturday his guerillas would observe a truce but reserved the right to fight Israeli soldiers still on Lebanese soil.

Israeli aircraft attacked targets in more than 50 villages and towns, Lebanese security sources said, killing at least eight people in southern Lebanon and seven in the Bekaa valley.

Several explosions shook Beirut and thick white smoke billowed over the Hizbollah-controlled southern suburbs. The attack destroyed 11 residential buildings. Witnesses and security sources said two children were killed.

An air raid on a village in southern Lebanon hit a house with 15 people inside, Lebanese security sources said. The number of dead or wounded was not yet known, they said.

Israel, which has some 30,000 troops in Lebanon, widened its offensive on Friday despite the UN resolution.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said fighting should end immediately to spare civilians.

"The fighting should stop now to respect the spirit and intent of the Security Council decision, the object of which was to save civilian lives, to spare the pain and suffering that the civilians on both sides are living through," Mr Annan said.

At least 1,082 people in Lebanon and 144 Israelis, including 104 soldiers, have been killed in the war.

Analysts said that a truce might not hold, particularly with Israeli troops still in Lebanon.

"I think this talk of a ceasefire going into effect tomorrow seems to be highly exaggerated and dubious," said Mouin Rabbani, senior Middle East analyst with the International Crisis Group.

"It seems that Israel's strategy has been to establish positions as far north as possible to implement a fighting withdrawal, meaning that they will try to take on as much of Hizbollah as they can while they work their way south."