Up to 50 people were killed today – more than half of them children – when Israeli missiles struck a southern Lebanese village early today, flattening houses on top of sleeping residents.

Israeli Cabinet ministers today decided not to expand the country’s Lebanon offensive, but ordered the call up of tens of thousands of reserve soldiers to boost the campaign, officials said.

Hezbollah dealt Israel its heaviest losses yet in the current campaign, killing nine soldiers in fierce firefights.

ISRAEL yesterday suffered its heaviest losses in Lebanon in its offensive against Hezbollah, with militants killing eight soldiers in a battle for a key town.

A top Israeli general today said he expected Israel’s offensive in Lebanon to last several more weeks.

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.

Hezbollah fighters battled to stop Israeli forces from capturing the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbail today, with the guerrilla group’s TV station reporting one Israeli soldier killed and five wounded.

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.

Israel’s ground offensive will not go beyond southern Lebanon, a senior Israeli army commander said today, for the first time outlining the scope of the two-week-old campaign.

US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice will lobby Israeli leaders today in an attempt to silence the guns and halt the bloodshed on both sides of the Lebanese border.

FIERCE fighting has been raging at the Lebanese border as Israeli troops moved to besiege the biggest town there — Bint Jbail, nicknamed the “capital of the resistance” due to its intense support of Hezbollah during Israel’s 1982-2000 occupation of the south.

Fierce fighting was raging at the border today as Israeli troops moved deeper into Lebanon to besiege the biggest town close to the border – Bint Jbail, nicknamed the “capital of the resistance.”

Lebanon seeks an immediate ceasefire in the nearly two-week old Israeli military campaign against Hezbollah in the country’s south, Lebanon’s ambassador to Japan said today.

ISRAELI forces yesterday withdrew from five villages in southern Lebanon and UN troops set up new checkpoints as Lebanese troops rolled into the area.