Emerging unscathed after Israeli air strikes late Friday on his home and office in Hezbollah's southern suburbs, Nasrallah warned: "You wanted an open war, you will get an open war."

And in a dramatic new development, Nasrallah boasted that Hezbollah struck an Israeli warship patrolling off the coast of Lebanon, telling his supporters to "watch it burning"

Israel said four Israeli servicemen were missing after the attack on the vessel, which reports said was hit either by a rocket or an explosives-laden drone. Another civilian ship, believed to be Egyptian, was also hit and set ablaze, Israel said.

While the international community has issued urgent appeals for restraint, world powers appear divided over how to deal with the conflict, which erupted after Hezbollah guerrillas seized two Israeli soldiers in an attack on the volatile Lebanon-Israeli border on Wednesday.

The attack opened up a new battleground in the Middle East following the massive Israeli onslaught against Gaza launched after the capture of another soldier by Palestinian militants three weeks ago.

Israel is under fire from some members of the UN Security Council for using "disproportionate force" against Lebanon and Gaza.

But at an emergency Council debate on the crisis on Friday, the the United States stood alone in refusing to even caution restraint from Israel, instead laying the blame firmly at the feet of Iran and Syria, which both back Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamist movmement Hamas.

Lebanon is virtually cut off from the outside world after Israel imposed an air and sea blockade, launched repeated strikes on the country's only international airport and bombed the main highway to neighbouring Syria.

And in a sign that there would be no early easing of the crisis, Israel army chief Dan Halutz warned his forces would continue to strike Hezbollah and other infrastructure targets in Lebanon.

"Lebanon is paying a very heavy price because of Hezbollah: bridges, roads and airports destroyed -- and it could yet be deprived of other infrastructure," he said.

Northern Israel has been hit by a barrage of Hezbollah rocket fire from Lebanon, triggering the most intensive offensive by the Jewish state against its northern neighbour since its Grapes of Wrath operation in 1996.

Four people have been killed in towns in northern Israel, where panicked residents are spending much of their time in bomb shelters or reinforced rooms.

On Saturday, four civilians, including an Egyptian worker, were killed in a series of Israeli air raids across southern and easten Lebanon. War planes also struck the suburbs of Tripoli on Saturday, in the first such strike so far north by Israel.

"It's sparing nobody, in no area of Lebanon. Actually it is cutting the country into pieces, whereby more than 20 bridges in the country have been destroyed," Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora told CNN.

In a wave of strikes Friday, Israeli jets hit the main highway linking Beirut and Damascus and an airport hangar and fuel tanks, pounded Hezbollah's command headquarters in Beirut and a Palestinian guerrilla base in eastern Lebanon, as well as bridges and other roads.

A UN mission despatched to the region by Secretary General
Kofi Annan arrived in Egypt on Friday ahead of an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers on the crisis.

But Friday's UN Security Council meeting ended with no action on the Beirut government's demand for a ceasefire and an immediate end to Israeli air strikes on its territory.

US Ambassador John Bolton laid sole blame for the escalating violence in the region on Israel's arch-foes Iran and Syria and their support Hezbollah and Hamas.

And US President George W. Bush, preparing to attend the Group of Eight summit which opens in Russia on Saturday, is not pressuring Israel to halt strikes on targets in Lebanon.

"The president is not going to make military decisions for Israel," spokesman Tony Snow said.

In one of the strongest statements from a world leader on the conflict, President Jacques Chirac of France, the former colonial power in Lebanon, said Israel appeared to "wish to destroy" Lebanon.

Lebanon has been mired in its own political crisis since the murder of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri in 2005 and is still rebuilding after the devastating 1975-1990 civil war.

The Western-backed Lebanese government -- which includes two Hezbollah ministers but is led by anti-Syrian politicians -- denied any involvement in the Hezbollah action and demanded a "complete and immediate ceasefire".

Israel also pressed on with its air assault on Gaza on Saturday, killing one Palestinian in a helicopter strike in the centre of the impoverished territory after the United States vetoed a UN resolution calling on Israel to halt its military operations there.

At least 77 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier have been killed since Israel launched its assault on Gaza, which the
United Nations has warned is causing a humanitarian crisis in one of the most densely populated areas on earth.

Both Hezbollah and the Palestinian militants holding the soldiers are demanding the release of prisoners being held in Israeli jails -- something Israel has rejected outright.

Army chief Halutz said Friday that all three captured servicemen were alive and in a "reasonable" state of health.

He said that Hezbollah's strength was not harmed by Israeli massive offensive in the past five days. "We are in full strength and we'll give them more surprise on the land."

He vowed to use all means to exercise the right of resistance." As long as the enemy has no limits, we will have no limits."

He declared that Hezbollah was not fighting a battle for the group or Lebanon only, but also for the whole Arab world.

It was Nasrallah's first television appearance since a wave of Israeli bombardments against his headquarters on Beirut's southern suburbs in the wake of Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers on Wednesday.

The domestic significance of these hostages is ignored by those who choose to reduce the abductions to an act of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. Indeed Israel's media are aware of recent attempts to capture soldiers, including a botched attempt a few months ago in which three Hizbullah fighters were killed. Hizbullah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, confirmed the attack took five months to plan. Its timing was probably a coincidence. It would seem, though, Hizbullah exerts some influence over the fighters in Gaza - those who captured Corporal Shalit were at the very least inspired by Hizbullah.

The regional significance of the abductions has also been misconstrued. To suggest Hizbullah attacked on the orders of Tehran and Damascus is to grossly oversimplify a strong strategic and ideological relationship. Historically there has been an overlap of interests between Syria, Iran, Hizbullah and Hamas. Together they form a strategic axis - the "axis of terror" to Israel - that confronts US-Israeli designs to redraw the map of the region.

But the nature of that relationship has changed much over the years. Since Syrian forces left Lebanon, Hizbullah has become the stronger party. It has never allowed any foreign power to dictate its military strategy.

It is ironic, given Israel's bombing of civilian targets in Beirut, that Hizbullah is often dismissed in the west as a terrorist organisation. In fact its military record is overwhelmingly one of conflict with Israeli forces inside Lebanese territory. This is just an example of the way that the west employs an entirely different definition of terrorism to the one used in the Arab world and elsewhere, where there is a recognition that terrorism can come in many forms.

The attempt to frame Hizbullah as a terrorist organisation is very far from political reality in Lebanon, from public opinion across the Arab and Islamic world, and from international law.

Israel's disproportionate response to the soldiers' capture will have an impact on Lebanese domestic policy. Hizbullah has recently proposed a comprehensive national defence strategy; the Lebanese government has yet to come up with anything similarly convincing. If demands for a prisoner exchange are successful then it shows that what Hizbullah would term the logic of resistance is the most effective defence strategy. Israel's escalation has been a poor PR exercise. Even if it succeeds in showing the Lebanese people that Hizbullah can be a liability, this may well be cancelled out by Israel's own aggression, which will only confirm Hizbullah's repeated warnings of the constant threat posed by Israel.

- Amal Saad-Ghorayeb is assistant professor of political science at the Lebanese-America University.

The department said it was working with the Pentagon on a plan for helping American citizens depart Lebanon.

Israel imposed a sea, air and land blockade of Lebanon. It was targeting bridges, roads, the international airport and ports in response to a raid by Hezbollah militants into Israel that captured two soldiers and killed eight.

Witnesses said Saturday that Israeli aircraft attacked central Beirut for the first time in a four-day offensive.

The State Department said Friday that Americans in Lebanon should consider leaving when it was safe to do so, and officials made contingency plans for the evacuation of people who cannot leave on their own.

Family members and non-emergency American employees of the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon have been given permission to leave.

Pentagon officials have said they were monitoring the situation and studying options for removing Americans, in anticipation of the State Department requesting help soon with an evacuation. As of late Saturday afternoon, the Pentagon said it had not received such a request.

Most of the dead were members of one extended Montreal family, on vacation in the village of Aitaroun at the time of the Israeli attack. Among those killed was Ali El-Akhras who came to Montreal from Lebanon 15 years ago. His wife, Saada El-Akhras, was among the injured.

The nephew of Ali El-Akhras, also named Ali, had accompanied his uncle and aunt on their annual summer vacation. His wife, Amira, and their four children, ages one, four, six and eight, were killed in the attack.

Reports from Lebanon say the victims were crushed in a collapsed house.

Hassan El-Akhras, the son of Ali El-Akhras, was not with his parents on the trip to Lebanon. He heard about his father's death while he was demonstrating against Israel's attacks on Lebanon in Montreal. Family and friends gathered at the El-Akhras apartment to comfort each other and await further news from Lebanon.

"It's not just us," Hassan El-Akhras told CBC news, "There are a lot of civilians who have been killed. The streets are closed. I am asking the international community to help and put pressure on Israel to stop the bombing."

Ottawa sends vessels to help evacuation

Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay said in Ottawa that plans were being drawn up for a co-ordinated rescue effort by land sea and air for Canadians who want to leave Lebanon.

Ottawa was working with other countries who were trying to get their citizens out of harm's way. Commercial ships were to be hired and sent to the eastern Mediterranean, MacKay said.

"We are securing these vessels. They will be in the region as soon as humanly possible," he told CBC Newsworld.

The Foreign Affairs Department says 16,000 Canadians have registered with the government to say they're in Lebanon, while estimating that there are likely two to three times that many in the country.

On Sunday, for the first time since fighting began, Israeli warplanes unleashed bombs on central Beirut, as well as pounding its suburbs and striking a major power station nearby.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah - which spurred the outbreak of violence with a cross-border raid on the Israeli military - carried out a deadly rocket attack on the northern Israeli port of Haifa.

About 150 Lebanese, most of them civilians, have died since the violence erupted on Wednesday. At least 24 Israelis, including 12 civilians, have died from Hezbollah rockets.

The Israeli military ordered residents to flee villages in southern Lebanon, warning of air and artillery operations after the rocket attack on the Mediterranean port of Haifa, the deadliest cross-border rocket attack on Israel in decades.

Israeli medics said eight people were killed and dozens wounded by the rocket attacks on Haifa, with most casualties at the main railway station.

Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz vowed Israel would attack all sources of fire in its offensive, regardless of location, issuing a veiled threat to civilians living in Hezbollah strongholds, such as south Beirut.

"All those who attacked Haifa and positions behind our lines will pay a very heavy price," Peretz told a news conference in Haifa.

We have given orders that "every source of identified fire will be struck no matter where it is," he added.

But despite the rocket attacks on Haifa and the northern coastal towns of Nahariya and Shavei Zion, Peretz said Israel had no plans to reoccupy Lebanon. "We do not want to get bogged down in the Lebanese quagmire," he told reporters in Haifa.

The attack on Haifa came as Israeli jets showed no sign of letting up with an ever-widening assault on Lebanon that has almost completely cut it off from the outside world with its airport shut and ports blockaded.

At least 16 Lebanese civilians were killed and 33 others wounded Sunday in air attacks on southern Lebanon, medics and police said.

Their deaths bring to 119 the number of people killed in the Israeli offensive which began last Wednesday, according to an AFP tally based on official and medical sources. Another 313 have been wounded.

The military wing of the Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah, whose leader Hassan Nasrallah has declared "open war" on the Jewish state, claimed it fired dozens of anti-tank missiles at the city and warned it would not spare Haifa if Israel retaliated.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who ordered the offensive against Lebanon after two soldiers were seized by Hezbollah, warned of the consequences of the attack.

"Our government is determined to do everything necessary to reach our objectives. Nothing will prevent us," he said. "There will be long-term consequences on the northern border and in Lebanon and in the entire region."

Governments worldwide were drawing up emergency plans to evacuate their nationals from Lebanon, but world powers appeared sharply divided on how to end the conflict and avoid all-out regional conflict.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora had called Saturday for an immediate UN-sponsored ceasefire to halt the fiercest Israeli assault on its northern neighbour in 10 years and to stop Israel's "collective punishment".

The offensive has put Lebanon under an air and sea blockade, with wave after wave of air strikes that have shut the international airport, destroyed bridges and roads.

Sunday's 16 deaths followed a deadly day of relentless air raids Saturday that blitzed the Beirut headquarters of Nasrallah and struck ports up and down the Mediterranean coast.

At least 18 people, half of them children, were also burnt to death Saturday when jets fired missiles on a convoy of villagers fleeing the assault.

Early Sunday, air strikes hit Hezbollah's television station in Beirut's southern suburbs and other targets across southern Lebanon, and also launched a new air raid and incursion into the Gaza Strip, another battlefront.

Siniora declared Lebanon a "disaster zone" and appealed for urgent international help for a country that was slowly rebuilding after a devastating 15-year civil war and the end of a three-decade Syrian military presence.

Israel says the aim of its operation is to destroy Hezbollah, which sparked the offensive by capturing two Israeli soldiers last week and was instrumental in Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 after a bloody 22-year occupation.

For the past few days, northern Israel has come under a barrage of rocket fire from across the border in Lebanon that has now killed a total of 20 people.

Hezbollah also claimed a rocket attack Friday on an Israeli warship enforcing the blockade that killed four sailors in another display of its military capabilities.

Israel has also put the commercial capital Tel Aviv and all towns further north on alert for rocket attacks.

US President George W. Bush said at the G8 summit in Russia that Israel had "every right to defend itself against terrorist activity" by militants backed by Iran and Syria, but it must be "mindful of the consequences".

Damascus warned that any Israeli attack "will provoke an unlimited, direct and firm response using all means necessary".

Iran also warned of "unimaginable losses" if Israel attacked Syria and accused the US of playing a "destructive role by vetoing resolutions and hence encouraging the Israeli crimes".

Israeli television meanwhile reported that Nasrallah had been injured in an attack on his stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut, but Hezbollah dismissed this as "Israeli propaganda".

Israel is now fighting on two fronts after it launched a similar deadly offensive against against Gaza over the capture of another soldier by Palestinian militants more than three weeks ago.

Foreign governments were drawing up plans to evacuate their nationals from Lebanon, either by land to Syria or by ferry to the island of Cyprus.

Air travel from Beirut was made impossible after the country's only international airport was shut down Thursday by Israeli air strikes on its runways.

Shell-shocked Beirut residents were stocking up on basic goods and making plans to flee to the relative safety of the mountains outside the capital.

Israel also pressed on with its assault on Gaza, killing four more Palestinians in air raids and a ground incursion on Sunday. At least 82 Palestinians and one Israeli have been killed.

Both Hezbollah and Palestinian militants holding the soldiers are demanding the release of prisoners from Israeli jails -- something Israel has rejected outright.

Israeli-Hizballah Prisoner Exchanges

To date, there have been three prisoner exchange deals between Israel and Hizballah, the details of which follow.

In July 1996, Hizballah released the remains of two Israeli soldiers, Joseph Fink and Rahamim Alsheich, in exchange for the remains of 123 Lebanese soldiers. On the same day, Hizballah released 25 members of the South Lebanon Army (SLA), an army loyal to Israel. In exchange the SLA released 25 Lebanese prisoners from the Khima Prison in south Lebanon.

In June 1998, Hizballah returned the remains of Sergeant First Class Itamar Ilya in exchange for the remains of 40 Hizballah soldiers, among them the body of Hizballah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah's son who was killed in 1997. The deal also included the release of Lebanese prisoners. The bodies of the Hizballah soldiers were transported by a French aircraft.

In January 2004, in the largest prisoner exchange, Israel released a total of 436 prisoners including 400 Palestinians; 23 Lebanese; two Syrians; three Moroccans; three Sudanese; a Libyan; and a German Muslim. Israel also returned the remains of 59 Lebanese soldiers. Israel received the remains of three Israel soldiers and the release of Elhanan Tennenbaum who Hizballah claimed was an Israeli intelligence officer. Sheikh Abdel Kareem Obaid, who Israel kidnapped from Lebanese territory in 1989, and Sheikh Mustafa Dirani, kidnapped in 1994, were among those released by Israel in exchange for its three soldiers and intelligence officer.

Israeli-PLO Prisoner Exchanges

The most famous prisoner swap between Israel and the PLO was in May 1985. In exchange for three Israeli soldiers held by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Israel released 1,150 Palestinian political prisoners. Among them was Fateh activist Jibril Rajoub who, under the Oslo Accords with Israel, established and headed the powerful West Bank branch of the Palestinian Preventive Security force and forged strong security arrangements with Israel. The exchange was called the "Jibril Deal."

Jordanian and U.S. Intervention

In an assassination attempt on Hamas' Damascus-based Khaled Mashaal in September 1997, the Israeli Mossad, under orders from Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu injected Mashaal who was living in Jordan at the time with a toxic substance. Two Mossad agents were arrested and the Israeli covert action was revealed. Jordan's King Hussein demanded the antidote and Israel, after pressure from U.S. President Bill Clinton, provided the antidote. In exchange for the two Mossad agents, Israel released Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder and spiritual leader of Hamas who was serving a life sentence in Israel. Israel assassinated Yassin in the Gaza Strip in 2004.

Israel and Hamas

About twelve years before Hamas' 25 June 2006 capture of Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit in Gaza, Israeli soldier Nachshon Wachsman was taken prisoner in October 1994. Like today, Israel said it would not negotiate a release with Hamas. Then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin decided on a military option to free the Israeli soldier. The Israeli commando raid on a house in Bir Nabala near Jerusalem not only left the Hamas captors dead but with them Wachsman.

Hamas has demanded the release of all female and minor Palestinian prisoners held by Israel in exchange for Shalit.

Palestinian Political Prisoners

According to the Ramallah-based Mandela Institute for Human Rights, there are 9,600 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails and detention centers, among them 130 Palestinian women. Defense for Children International puts the number of Palestinian children in Israeli custody at 388.

According to a recent poll by the Jerusalem Media and Communication Center (JMCC), 69 percent of Palestinians insist on an exchange for Shalit's release. The high support for a prisoner exchange stems from the sensitivity of the prisoner issue within Palestinian society. The vast majority of Palestinians have been directly or indirectly affected by Israel's policy of arbitrary or blanket arrests and hold deep resentment for political violations of their leaders' authority and autonomy.

Israel's imprisonment and detention of Palestinians is an example of its failure to abide by international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention. Administrative detentions, imprisonment without due process and imprisonment inside Israel are both illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Furthermore, Palestinian prisoners are routinely tortured by Israel and held in detention centers and prisons that do not meet the minimum international standards and are routinely denied visitation rights by their legal representation and family members. The vast majority of Palestinian prisoners are held without trial. According to Amnesty International, the trials that do take place often fall short of international fair trial standards.

Israel's failure to release Palestinian political prisoners and its continued arbitrary arrest of Palestinian civilians serves only to highlight Israel's belief that it is above the law and that the Palestinians are beneath it.

Samar Assad is the Executive Director of The Palestine Center. This information brief may be used without permission but with proper attribution to the Center.