The raids early on Monday came hours after Hezbollah launched its deadliest rocket attack since the beginning of the conflict, killing 12 Israeli soldiers and three civilians. The UN Security Council has yet to agree on a draft resolution seeking to end the 27-day-old war, which has killed at least 800 people so far. Fighting on the ground also erupted on Monday.

Hezbollah's television station, Al-Manar, said the group had engaged Israeli infantrymen attempting to advance on the border villages in south Lebanon. Hezbollah said four Israelis had been killed, but an Israeli army spokeswoman said five soldiers were wounded, but none killed in the fighting several kilometres inside Lebanese territory. Seven members of one family were killed in an Israeli air strike on a house in the village of Ghazzaniyeh in the south of Lebanon, police said.

Two women and a boy were killed and 13 people wounded in a similar strike in Kfar Tibneet village. Two more civilians died in a strike in the nearby Harouf village.

Roads targeted

Two Israeli raids targeted the road leading to the Masnaa border post, knocked out by previous attacks and hit again each time residents filled in the craters so as to be able to drive around, Lebanese police said. Warplanes pounded the road between Baalbek and Rayak, linking the Baalbek region with Zahle in the centre of Lebanon, they said.  Two other raids hit the Aita al-Fukhar road linking villages in the Bekaa Valley with Syria.

The warplanes also carried out four raids on hills east of Baalbek, about 10km from the border with Syria, the police said. One civilian died in the Bekaa attacks. The Hezbollah stronghold of southern Beirut was targeted. Four loud explosions were heard but it was unclear what had been hit.

Source: IslamOnline.net