Israel OK's deeper push in Lebanon

JERUSALEM -- Israel's security Cabinet yesterday approved a major expansion of the war against Hezbollah as combat raged across southern Lebanon, killing 15 Israeli soldiers, the highest daily combat toll in the four-week-old war, and an estimated 40 Hezbollah fighters.

An Israeli news report last night said the bodies of Iranians had been found among Hezbollah dead, but Hezbollah issued a statement early today denying that any Iranian fighters were among its forces in the south.

Early today, heavy battles were in progress in south Lebanese villages across from Israel's Galilee panhandle, which has been hard hit by rockets. Hezbollah said its fighters were engaged in ``a violent confrontation" with Israeli forces advancing on a border village. There was no immediate word on casualties .

Many Israeli politicians, analysts, and former generals had been clamoring for days for a more aggressive effort to stop the short-range Katyusha rockets Hezbollah is raining down on northern Israeli cities and villages.

Government officials said last night that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had not yet given the order for troops to move deeper into Lebanon to the Litani River, as authorized by the Cabinet. Olmert was hoping to allow cease-fire efforts at the United Nations to move forward, the officials said.

Diplomatic efforts were stalled, however, as the United States and France disagreed on how to revise a draft resolution that would call on both sides to cease fighting and allow an international force to deploy in a strip along the border.

In Lebanon, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, addressed the Israeli forces in a broadcast on the organization's Al-Manar television station.

``You won't be able to stay in our land, and if you come in we'll force you out," Nasrallah said, vowing to turn southern Lebanon ``into a graveyard for the invading Zionist forces."

About 190 Hezbollah rockets exploded on the Israeli side of the border yesterday, and fierce fighting raged on the Lebanese side, according to an Israel Defense Forces spokeswoman.

Israel's Channel 10 television reported that members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard were found among Hezbollah guerrillas slain by Israeli forces in southern Lebanon. Channel 10 quoted diplomatic sources as saying the unidentified number of Iranians were identified by papers found on their bodies. The report gave no other details.

Iranian Revolutionary Guard members are in Lebanon serving as advisers and trainers for Hezbollah, the Israeli government has said. Israel and the United States have pointed to the Iranians' presence in Lebanon as evidence of Iran's backing of the Hezbollah organization.

In his defiant address, Nasrallah said that a month of Israeli strikes have not weakened Hezbollah's offensive capabilities, and said the organization would intensify its attacks on Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, which is about 18 miles south of the Lebanese border on Israel's Mediterranean coast.

Nasrallah warned Arab residents of the city -- one of the most integrated areas in Israel -- to leave.

``I have a special message for the Arabs of Haifa, to your martyrs and to your wounded," he said. ``I call you to leave this city. I hope you do this. . . . Please leave so we don't shed your blood, which is our blood."

Hezbollah has fired more than 3,300 rockets of varying sizes into Israel since the conflict began with a guerrilla incursion into Israeli territory July 12. The vast majority have been Katyusha rockets with ranges of 6 to 11 miles.

Israel has attempted to counter the rockets by having its ground troops destroy Hezbollah strongholds and munitions depots and drive Hezbollah fighters from a 4-mile-wide strip along the Israel-Lebanon border, while its air force pounded the organization's training areas, headquarters, and other facilities in Beirut, the Bekaa Valley, and other locations deep inside Lebanon.

This strategy failed, many officials and military analysts say, because Hezbollah fighters simply relocated beyond the 4-mile border zone, where thousands of rockets were stored, and continued launching.

The Litani River runs roughly parallel to the border, except in the far eastern area. In the western and central areas, the river is 14 to 18 miles from Israel -- far enough to place most of northern Israel out of reach of most of the Katyushas. Hard-hit towns like Kiryat Shmona, Metulla, and Kfar Giladi -- where the river runs much closer to Israeli territory -- still would be in range of the rockets.

Western cities such as Haifa and Nahariya could still be struck with longer-range rockets in the Hezbollah arsenal, but those rockets require larger, more sophisticated launchers that are more vulnerable to Israeli warplanes.

In Lebanon, officials said that an Israeli airstrike hit the largest Palestinian refugee camp, killing at least two people, and that other Israeli attacks killed eight Lebanese civilians, the Associated Press reported. AP quoted Hezbollah as saying three of its fighters had been killed, below the Israeli estimate of 40.

Israeli warplanes dropped leaflets over the southern city of Tyre and over Beirut itself for the first time, the AP said. The fliers warned Nasrallah that he was ``playing with fire" and that the Lebanese people were ``paying the price."

In Israel, northbound traffic was heavier than usual yesterday as reservists called up for training two weeks ago reported to bases and staging areas near the border for the anticipated expansion of the conflict.

Scores of tanks, armored cars, and military-support vehicles lined the principal road parallel to the border near the village of Zarit, the area where Hezbollah guerrillas attacked an Israeli patrol and abducted two soldiers a month ago, triggering the conflict.

Reservists sat inside the armored vehicles to escape the midday sun, play backgammon, or catch a nap. Two hours later, the same stretch of road was empty, except for discarded plastic bottles and food wrappers where the tank brigade had been waiting to move north toward the border.

The same scene was repeated several times along the road -- long lines of military vehicles and waiting soldiers, or discarded trash where they once had been.

A few hundred yards across the border, Israeli artillery shells crashed into targets in the village of Aytal Shab, where heavy fighting continued between Israeli and Hezbollah forces.

Villages that had been identified as Hezbollah strongholds clearly showed the impact of nearly a month of intense Israeli fire. Many buildings were reduced to burnt-out skeletons.

From the upper floors of some of the few remaining buildings came flashes of gunfire from Hezbollah forces putting up fierce resistance against the Israeli invaders. Israeli helicopters hovered on the Israeli side of the border, unleashing missiles that whistled overhead before exploding with deadly force on the other side.

In Jerusalem, 12 members of the security Cabinet -- about half the members of the full Cabinet -- discussed military leaders' proposals for six hours before voting, 9-0 with three abstentions, to authorize expansion of the offensive. Timing of the planned operation was left up to Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz .

Minister of Industry and Commerce Eli Yishai told the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz after the vote that he abstained because he felt current air operations should run their course before large ground forces were committed. Yishai also said that the military estimated the expanded operation would take 30 days to complete, but he felt more time would be required.

Shlomo Breznitz , a member of parliament's foreign affairs and defense committee from Olmert's Kadima party, said the decision not to begin the expanded operation immediately was taken ``in case something exceptionally reasonable happens at the UN." But, he said last night, ``the chances of that are unfortunately not too big."

Globe correspondent Matthew Kalman contributed from the Israeli-Lebanese border. Charles A. Radin can be reached at radin@globe.com