Israel makes deepest push into Lebanon

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Israel poured up to 10,000 armored troops into south Lebanon Tuesday, and separately sent commandos deep into the eastern Bekaa Valley where they raided a Hezbollah-run hospital and captured guerrillas in a major escalation of the three-week-old war.

The Israeli military confirmed the attack on the ancient city of Baalbek, about 80 miles north of Israel.

The Baalbek raid was the deepest ground attack on Lebanon since fighting began 21 days ago.

The ferocity of the battles in the Bekaa Valley and across southern Lebanon and the determination of the Israelis to keep fighting quelled expectations for an early cease-fire, although U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said an agreement on how to end the conflict was possible within days, not weeks.

Hezbollah's rocket attacks into Israel, meanwhile, diminished. Hezbollah fired just 10 rockets across the border Tuesday, well below an average of about 100 a day since fighting began.

Early today, Hezbollah's chief spokesman, Hussein Rahal, told The Associated Press Israeli troops landed near the Hezbollah-run Dar al-Hikma Hospital in Baalbek, about 10 miles from Lebanon's border with Syria.

Rahal dismissed as "untrue" reports that the Israeli commandos managed to snatch some patients from the hospital and spirit them away in helicopters.

Witnesses said at least five people were killed as Israeli warplanes staged more than 10 bombing runs around the hospital as well as on hills in east and north Baalbek where Hezbollah's Shiite supporters live.

Residents said the Dar al-Hikma hospital is financed by an Iranian charity, the Imam Khomeini Charitable Society, which is close to Hezbollah. The hospital is also run by people close to the radical Shiite group, the residents said.

Baalbek, about 10 miles from the Syrian border, is a city with spectacular Roman ruins as well as the barracks of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards when they trained Hezbollah guerrillas there in the 1980s.

In southern Lebanon on Tuesday, up to 10,000 troops in armored personnel carriers and backed by tanks were operating in Lebanon along the border zone, Israeli defense officials said. Israel called up 30,000 reservists over the weekend, and thousands of them were gathering at staging areas on the Israeli side of the border, ready to join the battles.

Israel had 100,000 troops in Lebanon at the height of its 1982 invasion of Lebanon that began an 18-year occupation of the south.

Troops battled guerrillas Tuesday after Israel ordered its army to punch all the way to the Litani River, about 18 miles from the border. Israeli officials said their soldiers were to go as far as the Litani, and hold the ground until an international peacekeeping force comes ashore.

But the army later said it had distributed leaflets northeast of the river at villages where Hezbollah was active. The leaflets told people to leave, suggesting that the new offensive could take Israeli soldiers even deeper into Lebanon.

Despite mounting civilian deaths, President Bush held fast to support for Israel and was pressing for a U.N. resolution linking a cease-fire with a broader plan for peace in the Middle East. Staking out a different approach, European Union foreign ministers called for an "immediate cessation of hostilities" followed by efforts to agree on a sustainable cease-fire.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said it was not in Israel's interest to agree to an immediate cease-fire because every day of fighting weakens the guerrillas.

"The Israelis want to keep Hezbollah off the border so their patrols and civilians along the fence are not in danger of attack. The army also hopes to push Hezbollah far enough north so that most of the guerrillas' rockets cannot reach into the country.

Israel resumed sporadic airstrikes — hitting Hezbollah strongholds and supply lines from one end of Lebanon to the other — despite a pledge to suspend such attacks for another day in response to world outrage over the killing of 56 Lebanese in a weekend bombing.

Aid groups had hoped to take advantage of the supposed 48-hour lull in airstrikes to get food and medicine to civilians trapped in the south. But Israel denied access to two U.N. convoys.

The Israeli army said late Tuesday that three Israeli soldiers died and 25 were slightly wounded by small-arms fire and anti-tank rockets in Aita al-Shaab.

Israeli Cabinet Minister Haim Ramon said the fighting to date had killed about 300 of Hezbollah's main force of 2,000 fighters, which does not include its less-well-trained reserves. "That's a very hard blow," he said. Hezbollah has said only 46 of its fighters were killed. Polls in Israel show wall-to-wall support for Israel's fight against Hezbollah.

But the deaths of 56 Lebanese in the devastating weekend strike in Qana focused attention on civilian casualties.

At least 532 Lebanese have been killed, including 461 civilians and 25 Lebanese soldiers and at least 46 Hezbollah guerrillas. The health minister says the toll could be as high as 750, including those still buried in rubble or missing. Fifty-four Israelis have died — 36 soldiers as well as 18 civilians killed in Hezbollah rocket attacks.