Israel Suffers Highest Toll Yet

Hezbollah fighters continued to offer fierce resistance to Israeli army units. In the town of Marwaheen, near the border, fighters fired a missile at an Israeli Merkava tank, killing two soldiers instantly, according to an Israeli military spokeswoman. A third soldier died of his wounds at a hospital, she said.

Another soldier was killed by a Hezbollah antitank missile in Taibe, according to the spokeswoman.

Fighting continued Thursday in locations where Israeli troops have been operating for weeks and in some towns that Israeli military commanders said days ago had been captured, including Maroun al-Ras and Bint Jbeil, near the Israeli town of Avivim.

U.N. officials described the fighting as raids and said Israeli forces did not appear to be holding territory. "It's pinpoint activity," one official said. "They're not occupying territory."

"The work is very hard, because you will only get the terrorists by working from village to village and house to house," said Maj. Svika Golan, a spokesman for the army's Northern Command. He said the army's goal is to create a zone at least 10 miles from the Israeli border in which no Hezbollah fighters operate: "That's guerrilla war. If you won't finish the job in one village, you won't be able to go to the next."

Israeli warplanes struck in Taibe, Nabatiyeh, Rashaya and Blat, Lebanese officials said. The planes also hit a bridge in the far northern Akkar region, near the border with Syria, and pounded roads in the Bekaa Valley near another section of the frontier.

The Israelis targeted several offices and a house used by Hezbollah members in Beirut Thursday, as well as a house belonging to Hamas, the radical Palestinian organization, according to an Israeli military spokeswoman. Lebanese officials said the Beirut targets had been hit previously.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora told Islamic leaders via video that Lebanon's death toll has surpassed 900 since hostilities broke out after a Hezbollah raid into Israel on July 12. More than 3,000 people have been wounded, he said, and a third of the total casualties have been children under 12.

Siniora did not say what that death toll estimate was based on. The Health Ministry, in a count of bodies handled by hospitals, has estimated the toll at around 550, most of them civilians. But it has suggested the figure could rise significantly once bodies are pulled from rubble in the hard-hit towns and villages of southern Lebanon.

Sixty-eight Israelis have been killed, including 41 soldiers in combat and 27 civilians.

Diplomatic efforts to halt the violence remained stalemated Thursday.

Hezbollah spokesman Hussein Rahal said on the group's al-Manar television station that a cease-fire would not be accepted as long as Israeli troops remain on Lebanese soil. If sustained, that position could complicate discussions at the United Nations aimed at arranging a cessation of hostilities while further talks take place on formation of an international peacekeeping force. Israel has vowed to retain its hold on a border strip until an international force is deployed.