"We received yesterday at the Rome conference permission from the world... to continue the operation," Justice Minister Haim Ramon said.

His comments came ahead of an Israeli cabinet meeting to decide whether to intensify the military offensive.

There have been more Israeli air raids and fighting continues in the south.

At least 423 Lebanese and 51 Israelis have died in the violence since Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on 12 July.

Foreign ministers attending emergency talks on the crisis in Rome on Wednesday did not call for an immediate ceasefire, vowing instead to work with "utmost urgency" for a sustainable truce.

Speaking on Israeli army radio, Mr Ramon - a close confidant of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert - said "everyone understands that a victory for Hezbollah is a victory for world terror".

He said that in order to prevent casualties among Israeli soldiers battling Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon, villages should be flattened by the Israeli air force before ground troops move in.

'All southerners terrorists'

He added that Israel had given the civilians of southern Lebanon ample time to quit the area and therefore anyone still remaining there can be considered Hezbollah supporters.

"All those now in south Lebanon are terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah," Mr Ramon said.

Mr Ramon's call for the use of greater firepower came as the Israeli cabinet was set to decide whether to broaden its military offensive.

The chief of Israel's northern command, Maj Gen Udi Adam, has warned that he expects the fighting to "continue for several more weeks".

The head of political programmes at Hezbollah's TV station, al-Manar, Ibrahim Moussawi, says the organisation is determined to continue fighting:

"Israel is a mighty army. You're talking about a regional superpower with hi-tech weaponry," Mr Moussawi said. "But when you talk about resistance and determination and resolve to face and to confront this, yes, Hezbollah has the will and the determination to do it."

"The Israelis have tried this before since 1982, which culminated in the year 2000 with the defeat of the Israelis and their withdrawal from south Lebanon," he added.

In other developments:

* Following the deaths of four UN observers in an Israeli air strike, Australia withdraws 12 UN peacekeepers, describing the prospect of sending an international force to Lebanon right now as a 'suicide mission'

* UNHCR chief Antoni Guterres says 500,000 people have been displaced within Lebanon by the fighting and 200,000 have crossed the border

* A poll of Israelis published by Israel's Maariv daily newspaper suggests 82% back the continuing offensive and 95% say Israel's action is justified.

The BBC Jim Muir in Tyre says that the progress of Israeli ground troops has not been as fast as expected as they battle through the difficult terrain of southern Lebanon.

They still have not managed to capture the Hezbollah stronghold of Bint Jbeil, where they have suffered their worst losses.

An Israeli military official told the BBC that Israel has destroyed 50% of Hezbollah's weapons arsenal, but nonetheless the group's ability to inflict damage appears undiminished - on Wednesday they fired some 150 rockets into Israel, more than on any other day of the conflict.

Tyre exodus

Pursuing Mr Olmert's plan of pushing Hezbollah back from border areas, in order to prevent them continuing to fire rockets into Israeli territory, and establishing a "security zone" in the south will take many weeks, our correspondent adds.

Meanwhile, Israel's attacks on Lebanon have continued with air strikes on a Lebanese army base and a radio relay station north of Beirut.

Fighting is ongoing around the town of Bint Jbeil and in Tyre the bombing of nearby areas, combined with last night's raid on apartments right inside the city, has sparked a civilian exodus.

He said that the weapons being used by the Israelis were from the "crusader coalition" and added that "every participant will pay the price".

Zawahiri, wearing a grey robe and white turban, and speaking in front of a picture of the World Trade Centre on fire, said al-Qaida now saw "all the world as a battlefield open in front of us".

He said: "The war with Israel does not depend on ceasefires ... . It is a jihad for God's sake and will last until [our] religion prevails ... from Spain to Iraq ... We will attack everywhere."

In another section of the tape, he said: "The shells and rockets ripping apart Muslim bodies in Gaza and Lebanon are not only Israeli [weapons], but are supplied by all the countries of the crusader coalition. Therefore, every participant in the crime will pay the price."

The Arab broadcaster appeared not to have transmitted the entire tape, using instead selected quotes interspersed with commentary from an anchor. There are long-standing fears that tapes from al-Qaida leaders might contain coded messages to followers.

In this latest tape, as well as the twin towers image there were also photographs of two militants behind Zawahiri. One appeared to be a bearded Mohammed Atta, the Egyptian ringleader of the September 11 attacks. The other was Mohammed Atef, also known as Abu Hafs al-Masri, a former top lieutenant of Bin Laden who was killed in a US airstrike in Afghanistan in November 2001.

Zawahiri, a medical doctor, is believed, like Bin Laden, to be hiding somewhere around the Afghan-Pakistan border.

A new audio or video message from Bin Laden about Lebanon and Gaza is expected to emerge in the coming days, according to IntelCenter, a US-based independent group that provides counterterrorism information to the US government and media.

Today's message was al-Zawahiri's tenth this year. Bin Laden has issued five messages in what has been a particularly active year in terms of messages from the al-Qaida leadership.

Al-Zawahiri last appeared in a video posted on an extremist website on July 7, the one-year anniversary of the train bombings in London. In that tape, he said two of the four suicide bombers in London spent time in an al-Qaida training camp, preparing themselves for a suicide mission.

An audio message, purporting to be from Bin Laden, was broadcast last month in which he eulogised the al-Qaida leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed by US airstrikes.

Firing continued during the rescue operation, "despite repeated requests to the Israeli Defense Forces for an abatement," she said. Another U.N. base came under Israeli fire on Wednesday as an artillery round fell 10 meters (yards) from its headquarters compound in Naqoura, she added.

While there was speculation Israel may have been targeting Hizbollah positions near the Khiam post, Holl Lute said there was no Hizbollah firing coming from near the outpost.

'LIVES MAY BE LOST'

An Irish army officer in south Lebanon warned Israeli forces six times that its strikes threatened the lives of the four observers, Ireland's Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.

Lieutenant Colonel John Molloy, the chief U.N. liaison officer with Israel in south Lebanon, told the Israelis on six separate occasions "that their bombardment was endangering the lives of U.N. staff in south Lebanon," a Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman said.

"He warned: 'You have to address this problem or lives may be lost,"' the spokesman said.

In New York, Holl Lute and U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown telephoned Israeli U.N. Ambassador Dan Gillerman and his deputy half a dozen times to convey the same message, U.N. officials said.

"The base is clearly marked, a well-known. well-established position for a generation," said a U.N, official, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity.

The United Nations still wanted a joint investigation, as Annan requested, despite Olmert's decision to conduct a solely Israeli inquiry, the U.N. official said.

Gillerman wrote the Security Council on Wednesday "to express Israel's deep sorrow" over the four deaths and to "categorically deny" the attack had been deliberate.

Separately, Israeli Brig. Gen. Udi Dekel wrote U.N. commanders that the deaths resulted from "a tragic operational mistake" and said an investigation was already under way.

Justice Minister Haim Ramon, an Israeli cabinet minister who is close to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said the failure at the summit in Rome to agree on the conditions necessary for a ceasefire is permission for Israel to push harder in its campaign to crush the Lebanese-based militant group.

Ramon said Israel interprets the lack of agreement as a signal that it can continue its offensive. "We received yesterday at the Rome conference permission from the world ... to continue the operation, this war, until Hezbollah won't be located in Lebanon and until it is disarmed," he told Israel Army Radio. "Everyone understands that a victory for Hezbollah is a victory for world terror."

As the offensive entered its 16th day on Thursday, Israel continued to pound Hezbollah positions across Lebanon. Its air strikes also hit a Lebanese army base and a radio relay station and damaged several roads. The series of raids in northern, eastern and southern Lebanon killed at least one person.

Meanwhile, Israel was recovering from its heaviest losses in its ground operations in southern Lebanon after nine soldiers were confirmed dead in fighting with Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon on Wednesday. The deaths are believed to have occurred in house-to-house fighting in Hezbollah strongholds.

At least 423 people in Lebanon and 51 people in Israel have been killed since the offensive began on July 12 after Hezbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid.

The decision came as the military pounded suspected Hezbollah positions across Lebanon on Thursday. The attacks extended the air campaign a day after the military suffered its highest one-day casualty toll since the offensive began.

An Israeli Cabinet minister said lack of agreement on a cease-fire gave Israel permission to press deeper to wipe out the Islamic militant group.

The airstrikes also hit a Lebanese army base and a radio relay station and destroyed several roads. The series of raids in northern, eastern and southern Lebanon killed at least one person and wounded others.

On Wednesday, a high-level Mideast conference in Rome ended in disagreement, with most European leaders urging an immediate cease-fire, but the U.S. willing to give Israel more time to punish the guerrilla group.

Some reports have named the station as the Voice of the South.

The South Lebanon Army, a Christian militia backed by Israel, operated a radio station called Voice of the South from Kfar Killa in southern Lebanon in the 1980s and 1990s.
The station closed down in May 2000 when Israeli forces withdrew from southern Lebanon.

Cash for tip-offs

The Israeli newspaper Maariv on Sunday reported the appearance of a website called All 4 Lebanon which offered payment for tip-offs from Lebanese citizens "that could help Israel in the fight against Hezbollah".


Whoever is able and willing to help Lebanon eradicate Hezbollah's evil and get back its independence, freedom and prosperity is hereby invited to contact us
All 4 Lebanon website

According to Maariv, the site, with content in Arabic, English and French, had been set up by Israeli intelligence.

"We appeal to everyone who has the ability and the desire to uproot the sore called Hezbollah from your heart and from the heart of Lebanon," the paper quoted the website as saying in Arabic.

On its English-language page, the site says: "Whoever is able and willing to help Lebanon eradicate Hezbollah's evil and get back its independence, freedom and prosperity is hereby invited to contact us."

It adds: "For your own safety, please contact us from places where no-one knows you."

The Arabic wording is identical to that on leaflets which Israeli aircraft have been dropping over Beirut and the south of Lebanon.

The leaflets called on people to "remove the sore known as Hezbollah from the heart of Lebanon".

The rewards "could be a range of things, such as cash or a house", according to an Israel Defence Forces spokeswoman quoted by Reuters news agency.

It was not clear how such items would be delivered or exactly what information Israel wanted, Reuters noted.

Mobile aggression

On Friday, residents of southern Lebanon reported receiving recorded messages on their mobile phones from an unknown caller.

The speaker identified himself as an Israeli and warned people in the area to leave their homes and head north.

Dubai-based news channel al-Arabiya TV reported that the recorded messages also said they "held the Lebanese government responsible for the abduction of the two Israeli soldiers, and called on Lebanon to set them free".

Inquiries by Lebanon's communications ministry revealed that the calls had come from exchanges in Italy and Canada, but had originated in Israel.

According to US magazine Time, Israel has been targeting SMS text messages at local officials in southern Lebanon, urging them to move north of the Litani river before Israeli military operations intensified.

The UK's Guardian newspaper said mobile phone users in Lebanon were regularly receiving messages to their phones which purported to be news updates, attempting to discredit Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah or his party.

Satellite warfare next?

As Israel broadens its psyops activities, it also continues to attack media targets using conventional military means.

Air raids on Saturday hit transmission stations used by Hezbollah's al-Manar TV, Future TV and the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC). A technician working for LBC was reported to have been killed.

The next day, a convoy of journalists from Lebanese and pan-Arab TV channels was attacked by Israeli planes while on a tour of southern Lebanon; no injuries were reported.

According to an unconfirmed report by Egypt's Middle East News Agency, Israel managed on Sunday "to intercept the satellite transmissions of Hezbollah's al-Manar TV channel for the third successive day, replacing it with Israeli transmissions that reportedly showed Hezbollah command sites and rocket launching pads which Israel claimed it has raided".

Replacing a TV station's picture with output you want the audience to see is more difficult to achieve than jamming.

Al-Manar TV has three satellite signals, one on ArabSat 2B at 30.5 degrees east, one on Badr 3 at 26 degrees east and one on NileSat 102 at 7 degrees west.

On Badr 3 and NileSat, al-Manar is broadcast alongside other TV stations in a multiplexed or combined digital signal.

While it would be technically feasible to replace one station's output, all the other stations in the multiplex would be taken off the air too. The technical parameters of the original station would need to be exactly duplicated by the interloper.

On the Israeli border today diplomacy meant very little as troops prepared to expand the war into southern Lebanon.

On one road in the north, we counted 20 tanks lining up and more on the way.

Israeli officials said they plan to form a security zone running the length of the border with Lebanon, while sending more forces along more crossing points.

They won't say how far into Lebanese territory they'll go, but some of the troops will remain until an international force is deployed and Hezbollah positions are destroyed.

"They really cannot be destroyed from the air," said Maj. Michael Oren of the Israeli Defense Forces. "There's really no alternative but to send in ground forces."

Soldiers Comment on Battle

There was jarring evidence of Hezbollah's tactics today when more than 80 rockets struck Israel, wounding dozens and killing a 15-year-old Israeli Arab girl. [Ed: an Israeli Arab? Doesn't matter then]

For Israeli troops deployed inside Lebanon, the fight is difficult and dangerous.

We spoke with a group of soldiers returning from 48 hours of intense fighting, including the rescue of soldiers from a tank destroyed in the fighting.

"They are attacking us in a very organized position," one soldier said. "They know where we are coming from. They know everything. They shoot us wherever they like. It's their country."

He added they are "very well armed."

Now more Israeli soldiers are on the way, including an armored unit being transferred from Gaza to Lebanon. They have been told civilians have left the region where they will fight.

"Over here, everybody is the army," one soldier said. "Everybody is Hezbollah. There's no kids, women, nothing."

Another soldier put it plainly: "We're going to shoot anything we see."

Both belligerents are attacking indiscriminately. Hizbullah's weapons are notoriously inaccurate and more likely to kill innocent civilians than soldiers. And Israel has targeted noncombatants in southern Lebanon as though the area were a free-fire zone. Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz as much as admitted his contempt for noncombatant immunity when, according to Israeli army radio on July 24, he ordered the destruction of 10 multistory buildings in the Shiite-inhabited suburbs of Beirut for every rocket hitting Haifa.

With the Bush administration providing diplomatic cover, Israel is playing for time. Israel's premise is that the longer its war continues, the more it will wear down Hizbullah. The Israeli military is fighting intense battles to capture border villages with a view to re-creating a buffer zone. Hizbullah fighters, honed by two decades of Israeli occupation, are defending their soil fiercely.

Despite international demands for a cease-fire, and the anguished pleas of Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insists that conditions need to be "right" before the US will endorse one. But the idea that time favors Israel's goal of disarming Hizbullah is dubious for five reasons:

- Hizbullah is wellprovisioned with weapons, and it is unlikely that the group could be completely disarmed. Southern Lebanon is filled with hills, valleys, and caves, not to mention villages where weapons can easily be cached. Moreover, Hizbullah enjoys widespread support in the south. The Shiite Muslims who predominate there revere Hizbullah for pressuring Israel to withdraw in 2000.

- Hizbullah precipitated the war by crossing into Israel to capture two soldiers, and many Lebanese are furious that Hizbullah provoked Israel. Israel has hoped to reinforce Lebanese alienation from Hizbullah, but Israel's prolonged and vengeful response is fostering new hatred for Israel and its US protector. Recently, an-Nahar, the respected Beirut paper and no fan of Hizbullah, featured a cartoon showing Dr. Rice trying to quell Lebanon's war fires with an eye dropper.

- An international force is no magic solution whether it deploys independently or in conjunction with the Lebanese army. Many soldiers in the army are Shiites, and they are more likely to applaud Hizbullah than to disarm it. As for the international soldiers, what will happen when Israel, with a robust record for recidivism, raids Lebanon, kidnaps or kills Lebanese, or attempts to prevent Lebanese from returning to their homes in a unilaterally imposed buffer zone? Hizbullah draws many of its members from the south. Will they be excluded from their own villages? The record of intervention in Lebanon reveals that even the well-intentioned may become part of the problem.

- For both the US and Israel, Hizbullah is an extension of Iranian influence. Yet, it is likely that Iran is going to be a major beneficiary of Israel's new war in Lebanon. To the extent the Shiites feel they were singled out for attacks, Iran will be seen as a stalwart coreligionist ally. And given the extraordinary destruction in the Shiite suburbs of Beirut, Iran will have a further entree by providing materiel assistance and financial aid.

- Support for Hizbullah is growing in the Arab world with every day that it confronts Israel. In Iraq, the parliament has spoken out forcefully against Israel's campaign, and last week Ayatollah Ali Sistani issued a powerful fatwa (religious opinion) condemning the attacks on Lebanese civilians and infrastructure and calling on all Shiite clerics to take action. Rice had to scratch Egypt off her itinerary because of swelling support for Hizbullah there. In Arab countries with a large Shiite community, sectarian sentiment is being fueled by the fighting in Lebanon.

Rather than continuing dawdling diplomacy it would be prudent for the US to embrace a cease-fire. Demilitarizing Hizbullah, and perhaps integrating its militia wing into the Lebanese army, is a tough challenge with a cease-fire, but impossible if the war continues. Instead of the victory promised the White House by Israel, this war is fostering the results that it was supposed to defeat.

- Augustus Richard Norton is professor of international relations and anthropology at Boston University.

Last night the city of Tyre was hit in a major Israeli air strike. Sixteen people, including six children, were injured when a seven-storey building that had been used as a Hizbullah community centre collapsed.

In Bint Jbeil, Israeli troops ran into large numbers of heavily armed Hizbullah fighters when they tried to sweep through the town, just two and a half miles from the Israeli border.

"We have got very intense fighting, house to house, room to room," a spokesman for the Israeli military said last night. He refused to give full casualty figures but said there were "many seriously injured Israelis". Reports put the number of dead and injured at 30.

Troops found a large cache of Hizbullah weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades, automatic assault rifles and ammunition. The spokesman said: "This indicates they were planning on holding out much longer." He said more than 200 Hizbullah fighters had been killed since the conflict began.

Israel's northern command chief said the offensive in Lebanon was still not nearing its end. "I assume it will continue for several more weeks and in a number of weeks we will be able to declare a victory," Major General Udi Adam said.

The heaviest fighting yesterday came as troops tried to capture an important hilltop at Bint Jbeil. Hizbullah said its fighters had ambushed an Israeli unit that was moving from a ridge towards the town. "Our men can hear the screams of their wounded calling for help," one Hizbullah source told Reuters.

Israeli troops had taken some areas in Bint Jbeil, but not the whole town. "The bodies of the soldiers remained on the ground amid the destroyed and burning vehicles," said an announcer on Hizbullah's television channel, al-Manar.

Many of the Israeli injured had to wait hours under heavy fire before they could be evacuated. Helicopters eventually flew them to hospital in Haifa.

"We knew well that we are entering a dangerous nest and the nest needs to be taken care of slowly," Major Tzvika Golan, an Israeli spokesman, told reporters.

Before the conflict erupted two weeks ago, Bint Jbeil was a small town of about 20,000 people but one regarded by Israeli commanders as symbolically crucial for Hizbullah. Its leader, the cleric Hassan Nasrullah, made an important speech in the town in 2000, shortly after the Israeli military withdrew from southern Lebanon. Israeli officers describe it as the "terror capital" and say it is an important logistics base for the militia.

But yesterday's fighting confirms an emerging sense within Israel that the ground battle is proving far tougher than expected. Before yesterday, 24 Israeli troops had been killed and 79 injured.

General Yiftah Ron-Tal, a former commander of Israeli land forces, told Israel Radio: "You can't fight a battle like that without taking losses. The question is whether the mission has been accomplished. We had no choice but to fight there. This kind of position can't be taken without using ground troops. The enemy is well trained and knows the terrain well."

One armoured brigade colonel told the Jerusalem Post that the operation to capture Bint Jbeil had been expected to last between 48 and 72 hours. It has now run for four days.

Early this morning Israel reportedly attacked a Lebanese army base at Aamchit, 30 miles north of Beirut. It was not clear whether the base had been attacked from the air or the sea. Hizbullah fired about 130 rockets into Israel yesterday, injuring at least 31 people.

The casualties
Israeli

Yesterday:

Civilian wounded 9

Military deaths 14

Since outbreak:

Military deaths 38

Civilian deaths 18

Wounded 390+

Lebanese

Yesterday:

No reported deaths

Civilian wounded 16

Since outbreak:

Military deaths 20

Hizbullah deaths 31

Civilian deaths 391

Wounded 1,550+