A senior official of a radical Palestinian faction today warned that if the Lebanese army launches an assault to wipe out an Islamic militant group barricaded in a Palestinian refugee camp, it would trigger violence in other camps.

Government and opposition supporters clashed at a Beirut university campus today, battering each other with sticks, stones and even pieces of furniture in new violence spilling over from Lebanon’s political crisis.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah promised that his opposition alliance would intensify its campaign to bring down the Lebanese government, pledging to mount an "effective" action in the coming days.

Hezbollah and Amal Cabinet ministers resigned from the Lebanese government today, Hezbollah's al-Manar TV station said.

Israel’s military struck Lebanon’s largest Palestinian refugee camp early today, killing at least two people and wounding five, officials said. In the eastern Bekaa Valley five people were killed and two feared dead in an Israeli raid.

Israel continued its bombardment of Beirut early today, while Hezbollah fighters repelled Israeli paratroopers trying to land in the southern city of Tyre, according to Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television.

Hezbollah fighters battled today to stop Israeli forces from capturing the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbail, where Arab TV stations reported that up to 12 Israeli soldiers had been killed.

Israeli forces kept up their offensive in Lebanon today, with troops battling Hezbollah for control of a southern town as their jets flattened a house in an unrelated strike and killed seven civilians.

Israeli warplanes hit TV transmission towers today in Lebanon, knocking the nation’s leading private network off the air and cutting phone links to some regions.

Israeli troops clashed with Hezbollah guerrillas on the Lebanese side of the border today, while warplanes flattened buildings and killed at least 20 people overnight as fighting entered its second week with the US signalling it will not push Israel toward a fast ceasefire.

Israeli troops fought Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon today, and there were Israeli casualties, the Israeli military said in Jerusalem.

Hezbollah tonight dismissed international ceasefire proposals as “Israeli conditions”, accusing foreign envoys of allowing Israel time to continue its military offensive to force Lebanon into submission.

Israeli airstrikes pounded parts of the Lebanese capital early today, killing two people in Beirut’s port, hitting a gas tank in a northern neighbourhood and shelling the southern suburbs.

ISRAELI air strikes reduced entire apartment buildings to rubble and plunged parts of the Lebanese capital of Beirut into darkness in a ferocious response to a Hezbollah attack.

Lebanese guerrillas fired a relentless barrage of rockets into the northern Israeli city of Haifa today, killing nine people and wounding dozens of others, police in Israel said.

Heavy clashes erupted in southern Lebanon today as Hezbollah TV announced that guerrillas had captured two Israeli soldiers along the border with Israel.

Four people were killed and 15 wounded when gunmen stormed a Sunni mosque near Tikrit today, Iraqi police said.

An Israeli hang glider inadvertently floated into south Lebanon today, sparking renewed clashes between Hezbollah and Israeli troops as the guerrillas tried to grab him and the soldiers covered his dash back across the border.

Hezbollah guerrillas clashed with Israeli soldiers on the southern Lebanese border today, reviving a two-day old confrontation that saw some of the heaviest fighting in years.

Hezbollah and Israeli forces exchanged barrages of shells and rockets across the Lebanese border today and Israeli warplanes struck guerrilla positions in the heaviest clash in months between the two sides.

Hezbollah shelled Israeli positions in the disputed Chebaa Farms near the border today, and Israeli artillery returned fire in the heaviest exchange in months between Israel and the Lebanese guerrilla force.

National broadcasting regulators from across the EU today agreed to co-ordinate the fight against those who use television to incite hatred.

The government will take action to ban Arab satellite television stations from broadcasting anti-Semitic programmes in France, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin has announced.

HUNDREDS of Iraqi police and security agents searched for a possibly downed coalition pilot yesterday, shooting into the reeds alongside Baghdad’s Tigris River.

At least eight people died and more than two dozen were injured when a bomb blast ripped through a packed bus in northern Israel during the morning rush hour, police sources and doctors said.

A leading Palestinian militant has been killed in a car bombing in the Lebanese capital, Beirut.