Deadliest Day Yet in Assault on Lebanon

Israeli soldiers advance toward Lebanon for what officials described as a short-term raid across the border. At least two soldiers and one Hezbollah militiaman were reported killed. (By Yaron Kaminsy -- Associated Press)

Chaim Biton, a farmer in the Israeli village of Avivim, just across the border about 22 miles east of the Mediterranean, said the ground fighting broke out when an Israeli tank and a bulldozer crossed into Lebanon to assist a patrol searching for Hezbollah bunkers. The tank hit a land mine, he said, but Israeli military officials said it was hit by mortar fire.

The attack set off exchanges of artillery, mortar and light-weapons fire throughout the day, Biton said. Bursts of machine-gun fire and the thump of outgoing artillery could be heard in Avivim.

Hezbollah's television station, al-Manar, said militia fighters destroyed three Israeli tanks and killed a half-dozen Israeli soldiers in that clash and several others along the border hills. One of its militiamen was killed, Hezbollah announced. Israeli military officials said two soldiers were killed and seven were injured.

On Israel's other front, soldiers reentered the central Gaza Strip near the Mughazi refugee camp, setting off intense clashes with Palestinian militants. Six Palestinians, including two civilians, were killed and 30 fighters and civilians were wounded, according to local hospital officials. Most of the dead and wounded were hit by a missile fired from an Israeli drone, they said.

Five Israeli soldiers were wounded in the clashes, a military spokeswoman said. In a statement, the military said its forces "carried out aerial attacks against three cells of armed gunmen and a cell carrying antitank missile launchers in the central Gaza Strip."

About 12 miles south, around the Sufa border crossing between Israel and Gaza, Israeli engineering units searched for tunnels into Israel, the spokeswoman reported. An Israeli soldier being held prisoner in Gaza was captured by Palestinian militants who had tunneled into Israel in a June 25 attack. Since then, according to a report Wednesday by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 100 Palestinians, including 16 children, have been killed and 300 have been injured in Israeli attacks. One Israeli soldier has been killed and 12 Israeli civilians have been injured in the same period, the report said.

Three Palestinians were killed and about 20 people were injured when the Israeli army moved into the West Bank city of Nablus on a mission to arrest Palestinian militants, according to Palestinian and Israeli officials. Palestinian security officials said about 150 Palestinian security officers were detained by Israeli forces during the operation.

The Israeli security cabinet, meanwhile, reiterated its demand for the unconditional release of two Israeli soldiers held by Hezbollah and the Israeli soldier held in Gaza by Palestinian militants, including some from the Islamic Resistance Movement, known as Hamas. The cabinet, in a statement, said there would be "no negotiations on a release of prisoners" held by Israel, as demanded by Hezbollah and Hamas in exchange for releasing the Israeli soldiers.

The cabinet said the "principles of a diplomatic solution" to the Lebanese crisis were its soldiers' release, a halt in Hezbollah rocket and missile fire into Israel, extension of Lebanese government authority into border zones controlled by Hezbollah, deployment of the Lebanese army along the border and disarmament of all militias in Lebanon.

"The intensive fighting against Hezbollah will continue, including strikes against its infrastructure and command centers, its operational capabilities, its war materiel and its leaders," with the aim of achieving these goals, the cabinet declared.

Anderson reported from Jerusalem. Correspondents Anthony Shadid in Tyre and Jonathan Finer in Nazareth and Avivim contributed to this report.