Olmert Declares the Enemy Tamed But Rockets Keep Pounding Villages

Israel suffered its worst day of the Middle East conflict yesterday, despite government assertions that a three-week bombing campaign and mounting ground operations had severely damaged the Hizbullah militia.

For the second straight day, Hizbullah fighters launched a barrage of rocket fire into northern Israel. Eight civilians were killed and dozens injured. On the battlefields of southern Lebanon, four soldiers died and more were reported injured.

As the fighting escalated, Israel's defence minister, Amir Peretz, told the military to prepare for a major push up to Lebanon's Litani river, Israeli television reported. The river runs about 20 miles inside the country.

More than 7,000 Israeli soldiers, including infantry, armoured and engineering units, are now in southern Lebanon.

General Alon Friedman, the chief of Northern Command headquarters, said the military had captured a "security zone" of 20 villages in southern Lebanon up to four miles inside the border.

"We have completed the first stage, taking control over more or less the area of the special security zone we wanted," he told Israeli TV, adding: "There are still villages that aren't clean and from where there is resistance, and in the coming days we will have to continue to clean them."

Heavy fighting and continued casualties suggested the area was by no means free of Hizbullah. Troops were still fighting in Bint Jbeil, where eight soldiers were killed in an ambush last week.

UN observers said the Israelis had made two new incursions into the south and were holding five other areas.

On the other side of the border, Israeli civilians were under heavy attack. Four people, including a father and daughter, were killed in the coastal town of Acre yesterday when they emerged from a bomb shelter after a rocket strike and were hit by a second barrage. Three others, farmers working their fields, died near Maalot. More than 300,000 Israelis have fled the north in recent weeks.

"People have been holed up in shelters," said the mayor of Acre, Shimon Lancry. "It is difficult, but people understand that soldiers are still fighting in Lebanon and we will get through this period."

The rocket barrage came after more than 200 strikes on Wednesday, the highest total so far. The volley of rockets and the rising Israeli death toll, which stands at 67, has put the Israeli government under growing pressure, evidenced by the prime minister, Ehud Olmert, declaring military successes which do not appear to be matched by events on the ground.

On Wednesday, Mr Olmert declared that the infrastructure of Hizbullah had been "entirely destroyed". He said a ceasefire would be agreed within days, and that once an international force was on the ground, Hizbullah would be significantly weaker and Israel's deterrence would be reaffirmed. "I personally presume that it will take a very long time, if at all, before anyone, Hizbullah or Syria or anyone, will think of shooting missiles on the Israeli population," he said.

When the conflict first erupted after the capture of two Israeli soldiers and the deaths of eight others, the Israeli government said it would dismantle Hizbullah. Those remarks were echoed yesterday and, in public at least, the rhetoric remains tough. But as the days have gone by, that goal, to destroy a well-trained guerrilla force established over many years, has appeared more elusive.

Now Israeli officials talk of weakening the militia enough to allow the international community to pressure the Lebanese government into dismantling Hizbullah.

In a second arena, Israeli tanks pushed deep into the southern Gaza Strip last night, killing eight Palestinians including an eight-year-old boy.