Lebanon: Three Hizbullah fighters, three Israeli troops die in clashes

TYRE: Israeli ground troops Tuesday were involved in four different ground incursions in southern Lebanon as they kept up a major offensive across the border, police said.

The expansion of the ground offensive came as the Israeli security cabinet gave the army the green light to send ground forces up to 30 kilometres (19 miles) into southern Lebanon.

A spokesman for the UN force in the region confirmed that in the morning a limited number of Israeli troops had staged a new incursion around the area of Houla in the southeastern sector of the border.

"I can confirm that Israeli forces in the morning entered across the border in the general area of Houla in a limited incursion," said Milos Strugar, spokesman for UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

"According to our information they are still in the area," he added.

Witnesses earlier told AFP that Israeli troops, backed by tanks made a new incursion into Lebanon near the village of Mais Al-Jabal in the same region where they were encountering fierce resistance from Hezbollah guerrillas.

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NORTHERN ISRAEL (CNN) -- The Israeli military engaged in fierce fighting Tuesday with Hezbollah forces just across the border with Lebanon while warning residents almost 20 miles inside the country to leave the area.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israeli forces were weakening Hezbollah daily and that no cease-fire would come until Israel was safe from a future war.

Israel says it has wiped out 300 of the estimated 2,000 Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon during its three-week offensive.

"Hezbollah has taken a serious beating and that is why the pressure of a ground offensive will produce the expected results," Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon said Tuesday on Israeli Channel 10.

A Hezbollah spokesman says a total of 43 of its fighters have been killed, Reuters news service reported.

Clashes with Hezbollah have left 33 Israeli troops dead, IDF said.

Ramon's announcement came after Israel's Security Cabinet approved an expansion of the ground campaign against Hezbollah.

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BINT JBEIL, Lebanon (Reuters) - "Four bodies inside this house", reads the notice scrawled with charcoal on the remains of a house in the southern Lebanese village of Aynata.

In the neighbouring town of Bint Jbeil, the stench of death rises from the ruins of the once-bustling market street.

One village along in Aitaroun, tearful residents clutch white sheets and what belongings they can salvage, begging journalists and rescue workers alike for a ride out of "hell".

"We have been living in hell and fear for 21 days, without power or water and we felt real hunger. We even ate stale and mouldy bread to keep going," sobbed Zeinab Baalbaki, who said a number of her relatives have been killed in Israeli air raids.

"The children felt the worst pain because we could not find milk. Is it their fault, these people who had their homes brought down on their heads?"

After 21 days of Israeli air strikes, rescue workers have used a partial 48-hour respite to aerial bombardment to visit Lebanese border villages that have seen the worst of the violence and been largely cut off from the world.

There, they have found ruined buildings and largely deserted streets. Where residents have been stranded, some are now hungry or wounded and desperately waiting for a chance to get out.

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Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday that Israel is "winning the battle" in its 21-day offensive against Hezbollah guerillas in southern Lebanon.

Olmert's speech at a graduation ceremony at the National Security College in Glilot, near Tel Aviv, came as a number of Israel Defense Forces soldiers were hurt in heavy exchanges of fire with Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanese village of Ayta a-Shab, near Zarit.

Olmert repeated his remarks of the day before, that Hezbollah had been weakened by Israel's military offensive in Lebanon.

Three weeks ago, Israel decided it would no longer live under the Hezbollah threat, he said, and would deal with it with courage and determination.

Responding to criticism that the army had failed to stop Hezbollah from firing rockets into Israel, Olmert said that the success of the fight "cannot be measured by the number or range of the rockets fired at us."

He said he had never promised the Israeli people that the offensive would destroy all Hezbollah's missiles, but said the threat from the Shi'ite group had been massively reduced.

"This threat will not be what it was. Never will they be able to threaten this people they fired missiles at. This people will defeat them," he said.

The prime minister said, however, that the diplomatic process to create conditions for a cease-fire was underway.

"We are at the beginning of a political process that in the end will bring a cease-fire under entirely different conditions than before," Olmert said.

He said there was no cease-fire yet because Israel was still working to limit Hezbollah's strength. Hours earlier, the security cabinet decided to widen the ground offensive in Lebanon.

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