Israel battered Lebanon on Friday, killing 11 people as waves of air raids struck villages in the hills behind the southern port of Tyre and hundreds of artillery rounds crashed across the border.
Lin Noueihed
BEIRUT: Israel battered Lebanon on Friday, killing 11 people as waves of air raids struck villages in the hills behind the southern port of Tyre and hundreds of artillery rounds crashed across the border.
Security sources said at least eight people, including a Jordanian, died in over 40 air raids in the south. Three were killed in overnight air strikes in the eastern Bekaa Valley.
Despite growing world demands for an end to Israel's war with Hezbollah guerrillas, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice delayed a possible return to the region.
The pounding of villages, where some civilians remain trapped, followed a decision by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's security cabinet to intensify air strikes and ground forays against Hezbollah, rather than launching a big invasion.
Rice is likely to delay her departure from Malaysia until Saturday, said a senior State Department official, dashing prospects that she would return to the Middle East on Friday.
"She will go when it is the right time," the official said."She will go when it is useful."
Israel has taken Washington's refusal to demand an immediate ceasefire as permission to pursue an onslaught on Lebanon aimed at crippling Hezbollah guerrillas who set off the conflict by seizing two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12.
Hezbollah has kept up rocket strikes on northern Israel and fought Israeli ground incursions, especially near the southern town of Bint Jbeil, where sporadic fighting continued on Friday.
An Israeli military source said the army believed it had killed at least 200 Hizbollah fighters in the conflict. The Shi'ite guerrillas have acknowledged only 31 dead. Hundreds of civilians casualties and a humanitarian crisis in Lebanon have fuelled world pressure for an instant ceasefire.
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