Lebanon-Israel Developments

Brothers Nabil Alaa al-Din, left, Ramzi, center, and Ali, right, wounded in an Israeli warplane missile attack in the southern village of Srifa, Lebanon, sit at hospital beds in the outskirts of the port city of Sidon, Wednesday, July 19, 2006. The airstrikes flattened 15 houses and the village's headman, Hussein Kamaledine, said 25 to 30 people lived in the houses, but it was not known if they were at home at the time. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari) (Mohammed Zaatari - AP)

-- Developments Wednesday in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon:

_ Lebanon's prime minister said 300 people have been killed, 1,000 have been wounded and a half-million displaced in Israel's week-old onslaught. Prime Minister Fuad Saniora also said he would seek compensation from Israel for the "unimaginable losses" to the nation's infrastructure, and he appealed for an end to hostilities on a humanitarian basis.

_ Israeli troops crossed into Lebanon in search of tunnels and weapons, Israeli military officials said. Israel said two soldiers were killed, and Hezbollah reported the death of one guerrilla.

_ Five people were killed when a missile struck a neighborhood in the southern Lebanese town of Nabatiyeh, officials said. In the village of Srifa, airstrikes flattened 15 houses. One person was killed in the village of Ghaziyeh when a missile struck a building that housed a Hezbollah-affiliated social institution. Four people were killed in an air raid on the Lebanese village of Loussi, police said. Planes also hit Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold.

_ A Hezbollah rocket slammed into a building in the mainly Arab town of Nazareth in northern Israel, killing two children, Israel said. That raised the country's death toll to 29.

_ Israeli airstrikes on Hezbollah militants in Lebanon have destroyed about 50 percent of the militia's arsenal, a senior Israeli army commander said.

_ A cruise liner evacuating more than 1,000 Americans from Lebanon sailed out of Beirut's port, the first mass U.S. evacuation since Israeli airstrikes started. Four Chinook helicopters ferried 800 Americans to Larnaca airport in Cyprus. The Marine coordinating the evacuation said more than 6,000 the 25,000 Americans in Lebanon will have been taken out of the country by the weekend.

_ Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will make a trip to the area "in the near future," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.