Israel Bombs Lebanese Highway

Israeli aircraft bombed southern Beirut last night and launched raids on the highway north of the city, threatening to cut Lebanon's only remaining link with the outside world.

In the south of the country, Israeli ground forces continued their attempts to establish a five-mile "security zone" north of the Lebanese border, with Israel's Channel 10 television reporting heavy fighting in the central section of the zone this morning.

The strikes on Lebanon's coastal highway north of Beirut were the first significant attacks on civilian targets in the north of the country during the 24-day offensive. Four civilians were killed and 10 were wounded as Israeli bombers blew up bridges during the early morning rush hour.

Witnesses reported brush fires being ignited by the attacks and cars plunging off the destroyed bridges into ravines.

Local television showed video of rescuers sifting through twisted metal and blocks of concrete to rescue people whose cars fell from the Madfoun bridge in the north of the country. A van was stuck in a hole made by a missile, its driver resting on his back on the ground outside. His face was blackened and covered with dust but he appeared still alive. Attacks also punched holes in highway bridges at Maameltein, Halat and Jounieh, according to reports.

Israel also bombed Ouzai, a Shia suburb of southern Beirut that had previously been spared the kind of attacks that devastated the nearby Hizbullah stronghold of Dahiyah. A Lebanese soldier was killed in the Beirut attacks, with two soldiers and four civilians wounded.

Israel suffered its worst day of casualties since the start of the war yesterday, as Hizbullah killed eight Israeli civilians in a barrage of missile attacks on northern Israel and four soldiers during heavy fighting in southern Lebanon.

The Hizbullah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, threatened to strike the commercial capital Tel Aviv, although it is not believed that the militant group yet possesses the weapons to carry out such a threat. He also promised to halt attacks if Israel did so, although the remarks fell short of the formal ceasefire demanded by Israel.

"Any time you decide to stop your campaign against our cities, villages, civilians and infrastructure, we will not fire rockets on any Israeli settlement or city," he said in a taped television message broadcast last night.

The Israeli justice minister, Haim Ramon, this morning rejected the offer. "What Nasrallah wants is for us to give in, for him to remain with the rocket threat, and whenever he feels like it, he will be able to attack Israel, and whenever he feels like it, he will fire rockets on a civilian population," he told Israel Radio.

Meanwhile, Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper reported that a split had developed between the defence minister, Amir Peretz, and the prime minister, Ehud Olmert, on the issue of the buffer zone that Israeli troops are carving out of southern Lebanon.

Mr Peretz favours occupying an area extending to the Litani river and possibly including the city of Tyre, while Mr Olmert believes that such an occupation would not be able to prevent attacks from longer-range Lebanese missiles, the paper said.

Israeli military planners want to occupy the zone and drive out Hizbullah guerrillas in advance of an international peacekeeping force coming in to patrol the area, but attempts to strike a deal on the crisis at the UN have so far stalled.

US officials said they hoped to have a draft resolution before the UN security council by today, but that deadline may be set back as UN members argue about the text of the resolution.

The US and Britain have insisted that a peacekeeping force be established before there is any consideration of a ceasefire or cessation of hostilities in the region.