Israel halts army offensive

Israel ordered its army to halt its offensive against Lebanese-based Hezbollah guerillas in as a United Nations-imposed ceasefire went into effect today.

The ceasefire that began at 5am GMT (6am Irish time), followed 34 days of warfare that devastated much of south Lebanon and left northern Israel in a shambles.

During fierce fighting this morning that preceded the ceasefire, Israeli warplanes struck a Hezbollah stronghold in eastern Lebanon and a Palestinian refugee camp, killing one person, and Israeli artillery pounded targets across the border throughout the night.

An army spokesman said the military was told not to initiate any action after the 5am ceasefire - 8am Beirut time - but "the forces will do everything to prevent being hit".

Isaac Herzog, a senior minister in the Israeli Cabinet, said it was unlikely all fighting would be silenced immediately.

"Experience teaches us that after that a process begins of phased relaxation" in the fighting, he said.

Israeli military officials say the army will continue enforcing the air and sea embargo on Lebanon.

Prime minister Ehud Olmert gave the order to halt firing as of this morning, his spokesman Asaf Shariv said. "If someone fires at us we will fire back," he said.

There were no immediate reports from the battlefield.

A United Nations force that now has 2,000 troops in south Lebanon is due to be boosted to 15,000 soldiers and, along with a 15,000-strong Lebanese army contingent, it is to gradually take control of the contested border area.

The deployment of the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers was a cornerstone of the ceasefire resolution passed early on Saturday by the UN Security Council. The forces are supposed to keep Hezbollah fighters out of an 18-mile-wide zone between the border and Lebanon's Litani River.

France and Italy, along with predominantly Muslim Turkey and Malaysia, signalled willingness to contribute troops to the peacekeeping force, but consultations were still needed to hammer out the force's make-up and mandate, making it unclear when it would be ready to take over.

Early today, Israeli warplanes attacked a village in eastern Lebanon and the edge of a Palestinian refugee camp, leaving two people dead and nine wounded, security officials said.

Air strikes continued until about 15 minutes before the ceasefire.

One of the raids hit an office of the pro-Syrian Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General-Command on the edge of the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp in the southern city of Sidon. One person, a rubbish collector, was killed and three civilians who lived near the office were wounded, officials said.

Earlier, Israeli missiles slammed into a minibus on the outskirts of the Hezbollah stronghold of Baalbek, where one policeman was killed and six Lebanese soldiers were wounded.

About 15 minutes before the ceasefire took effect, Israeli air strikes destroyed an antenna for Hezbollah's Al-Manar television in the Mount Lebanon village of Kaifoun, nine miles south east of Beirut.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military dropped leaflets on central Beirut, warning that it would "return and act with the required force against any terrorist act that is launched from Lebanon against the State of Israel".

Two more Israeli air strikes hit the Bekaa Valley village of Brital last night, killing at least seven people and wounding nearly two dozen.

The raids destroyed three houses in Brital, about nine miles from Baalbek, civil defence official Ali Shukur said. More people were believed to be under the rubble, he said. Residents said one of the homes housed a Hezbollah office.

A raid on Brital last week left seven people dead and wounded 23 people.