Israeli Airstrike Hits U.N. Outpost

A Lebanese man who fled the fighting listens to news of the crisis from a shelter at an old courthouse in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon. (By Kevin Frayer -- Associated Press)

As early-warning sirens wailed across northern Israel, Hezbollah fighters fired more than 90 rockets, which landed from the Mediterranean coast to the Sea of Galilee. The barrages killed a teenage girl in the Druze town of Maghar and sent roughly 30 others to hospitals, most of them with symptoms of shock. More than a dozen rockets hit the city of Haifa, Israel's third largest, which only two weeks ago was thought to be beyond the range of Hezbollah's arsenal.

The strikes increased the number of Israeli civilians killed by rocket fire to 18, while 24 Israeli soldiers have died in combat operations. Eight soldiers were wounded early Tuesday in ground operations around Bint Jbeil, a town about two miles inside Lebanon's border that Israeli officials say is a center of Hezbollah's military operation.

By the end of a day of sporadic clashes, Israeli forces claimed to have seized Bint Jbeil, one of the largest towns in the roughly 15-square-mile region where Israel has focused its ground operation. Defense Minister Amir Peretz indicated that Israel intends to hold the region until an acceptable peacekeeping force could be arranged.

Israeli warplanes kept up their attacks across Lebanon, hitting 10 sites in southern Beirut, roads in the battered coastal city of Tyre and a rocket launcher on its outskirts that Israeli military officials said was used earlier in the day to fire on Haifa. Lebanese officials told reporters in Beirut that a dozen Lebanese were killed, bringing the known death toll in two weeks of fighting to about 390, almost all civilians. The number of Hezbollah fighters killed is not known.

The bombing of Beirut's southern suburbs came after a one-day respite during Rice's visit to the Lebanese capital. Four powerful explosions rattled the city toward the end of the day, sending up smoke over the Dahiya suburbs where Hezbollah has its headquarters and where many of its Shiite supporters live.

Six of the victims died in an air raid that demolished two houses in Nabatiyeh, a Shiite town about 16 miles north of Bint Jbeil. A man, his wife and their son were killed in one house, according to a daughter who survived the strike and talked to her father as he died slowly under rubble.

The Associated Press in Beirut quoted Mahmoud Komati, deputy chief of Hezbollah's political arm, as saying "the truth is -- let me say this clearly -- we didn't even expect [this] response . . . that [Israel] would exploit this operation for this big war against us." But Komati said in the interview that the group did not intend to give up its arms.

Much of the day focused on the tentative first phase of diplomacy to halt the fighting, which Olmert has said will end only with the release of the two captured Israeli soldiers, the deployment of the Lebanese army or a multinational force in the south and the implementation of a U.N. resolution that calls for the disarmament of Hezbollah and other militias.

Israeli officials said Rice's meeting with Olmert concerned mostly humanitarian issues at a time when Israel and the United States are being pressured by European and Arab nations to address a growing crisis across Israel's border. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia pledged $500 million Tuesday for Lebanon's reconstruction, days after imploring the White House to endorse an immediate cease-fire.

According to U.S. and Israeli officials, Olmert agreed to lift the blockade as soon as possible. The Israeli navy has prevented ships from docking in Lebanon, while military aircraft have bombed the main airport and its fuel depots, and key roads and bridges across the country of 4 million people.

Israeli military officials say the campaign, which has left much of Lebanon's civilian infrastructure in tatters, is designed to prevent Hezbollah from restocking its arms supplies. Much of its weapons stocks come from Iran through Syria, Israeli officials say.

Rice's meeting with Olmert also touched on what a senior Israeli official described as "Israel's exit strategy." The official said the government believes it has at least until Rice returns to the region -- perhaps next week -- to press on with its military operation.