Israel Fighter Jets Stage Mock Raids

A Lebanese woman carrying her child passes by a boutique named "Truthful Promise" after the name given by Hezbollah to the operation of kidnapping the two Israeli soldiers at the beginning of the 34-day Israel-Hezbollah conflict , in the Hezbollah stronghold's southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2006. Israeli fighter jets staged mock raids over Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut and two southern towns on Tuesday in the heaviest show of air power over Lebanon since an August cease-fire ended the war between Israel and the guerrillas. A picture of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah is seen right. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser) (Nasser Nasser - AP)

Israel claimed 800 Hezbollah fighters were killed but that figure was not substantiated, with the group only acknowledging 70 of its fighters were killed.

Lebanon and the U.N. have called on Israel to halt military flights over Lebanese territory, calling them a clear violation of the cease-fire.

Geir Pederson, personal representative in Lebanon of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, expressed concern about the overflights that "constitute a breach of Lebanese sovereignty" and of the U.N. resolution that ended the war.

But Israel contends the flights must continue because arms are still smuggled to Hezbollah, the group has armed personnel in south Lebanon, and the two soldiers whose capture by guerrillas sparked the Israeli offensive have not been released, said Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev.

"In the absence of the implementation of these obligations, Israel is forced to continue intelligence flights over Lebanon to monitor these infringements. If there's not a mechanism to prevent illicit arms transfers, we have to monitor arms transfers. If the Hezbollah presence is not removed, there is a need to observe that presence," he said.

American and European officials have stepped up their demands for Hezbollah to disarm in accordance to the U.N.-brokered cease-fire, but the militant group has repeatedly refused to lay down its arms. The refusal has caused internal struggles as the Lebanese army tries to take control of the south, which has been under Hezbollah's control for decades.

Neither an increased U.N. peacekeeping mission, which currently numbers about 7,300, nor some 15,000 Lebanese troops patrolling a buffer zone in south Lebanon have the mandate or the political will to take Hezbollah's weapons by force.

Nasrallah said in a three-hour taped TV interview Tuesday night that the guerrilla group now has some 33,000 rockets and warned that any attempts by an international force to disarm it would transform Lebanon into another Iraq or Afghanistan.

"The resistance in Lebanon is strong, cohesive, able and ready, and they will not be able to undermine it no matter what the challenges are," he said during the interview on Hezbollah's TV station Al-Manar.

He said America's plans in the Middle East face "failure, frustration and a state of collapse," and predicted the U.S. would be forced to leave the region "within years, not months."

The U.S. has "no future" in the region, Nasrallah said in a taped interview on Hezbollah's television station Al-Manar. "They will leave the Mideast, Arab and Islamic worlds just as they left Vietnam, and I advise those who are counting on them to draw conclusions from the Vietnam experience."

Nasrallah said a prisoner swap involving the Israeli soldiers and Arab prisoners in Israeli jails "is on track."

Although the U.N. resolution that ended the war called for the soldiers' unconditional release and Israel has refused Hezbollah's offer for a prisoner swap, Israel has exchanged prisoners in the past