Kosovo became a U.N. protectorate in June 1999 after a 78-day NATO bombing campaign forced out Serb security forces accused of atrocities against Albanian civilians during a rebel insurgency by separatist Albanian guerrillas.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch estimates about 500 civilians were killed in the NATO bombing in Kosovo.

Some 10,000 Albanians died in Serbia's 1998-99 counter-insurgency war and there were allegations of random brutality by both sides.

In the Welt am Sonntag interview, Olmert was asked if he had underestimated Hizbollah.

"No, we know that they have only fired 3,000 rockets so far and that they have 15,000," he said. "The question is more: If Hizbollah knew what the consequences of their attack would be, would they nevertheless have done it? I don't think so."

Olmert said Hizbollah was being defeated but it was not possible to eradicate a grass-roots guerrilla movement.

"They are beaten but it is not possible to completely destroy them. Israel has nevertheless been more successful than any other country in the battle against a guerrilla organization."

Damascus has called up several reserve units in recent weeks and dispatched special forces and anti-aircraft units towards its border with Lebanon.

Syria has been jittery since Israeli jets buzzed Damascus early in the conflict and recently bombed Hezbollah positions and roads near the border.

Tensions soared on Friday, when 23 Syrian farm workers were killed by an Israeli air raid as they picked peaches in the village of Qaa in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa valley.

"This new massacre is a racist, fascist and terrorist act committed with American weapons," Syria's information minister, Mohsen Bilal, said.

Yesterday brought further death and destruction on both sides of the border, with Israel experiencing its worst day so far.

A Katyusha rocket fired by Hezbollah guerrillas hit a crowd of Israeli soldiers in Kfar Giladi, killing 12 of them and wounding ten others.

The attack was part of a barrage of 35 missiles in that area within half an hour that caused fires with huge plumes of smoke and damaged a synagogue.

An official from Kibbutz Kfar Giladi said he had warned the troops to take cover before the explosion, but that they had ignored him.

There were reports that a brigadier-general, Guy Zur, was among those wounded in the blast.

Eli Peretz, in charge of the local ambulance services, said: "An entire group was hit, some very severely.

Those lightly wounded fled in all directions. We evacuated the seriously wounded by helicopter. Since the beginning of this war, and in fact in all my years of service, I have never seen a worse incident."

Dan Ronen, the northern police chief, referring to the draft Security Council resolution, said: "I don't understand diplomatic processes, but I can tell you we have more very tough days ahead."

There were also reports that at least one person was killed and 30 were injured in rocket attacks on Haifa. The rocket strike posed a severe test to Israeli morale, bringing the Israeli death toll in the fighting since 12 July to 90.

This compares to an estimated total of 591 Lebanese killed by the Israeli army, but is a much heavier cost than the public expected when the government of the prime minister, Ehud Olmert, launched the war in response to Hezbollah's capture of two soldiers in a cross-border raid.

In a demonstration of the army's inability to limit the rocket fire, more than 140 Hezbollah rockets crashed into northern Israel, including in Nahariya, Tiberias, Carmiel, Safed and Shlomi.

In southern Lebanon, dozens of Israeli air strikes hit communities and roads, with some villages bombed continuously for half an hour, security officials said. Fighting on the ground also raged along a stretch of territory just north of the Lebanon-Israel border.

Six members of the Lebanese military were killed in two Israeli strikes and missiles also flattened a house in Ansar village, killing a man and four relatives, Lebanese security officials said.

A rocket fired by a pilotless aircraft blasted a van carrying bread near Tyre, killing its driver, according to civil defence officials. Another person was killed in Naqura.

The US-French draft resolution calls for a "full cessation of hostilities" but gives Israel the right to take "defensive" military action.

It also specifies that Hezbollah must be disarmed and the two captured soldiers returned. It does not demand that Israel withdraw its forces in advance of the deployment of an international force in southern Lebanon.

Israel has refrained from public comment, but privately the government is said to be satisfied with the draft.

In Beirut, Nabi Berri, the Lebanese parliament speaker, who represents Hezbollah in negotiations, said the draft resolution was unacceptable since it would leave Israeli troops in Lebanon and did not deal with Beirut's key demands: a release of prisoners held by Israel and moves to resolve a dispute over a piece of border territory.

The US national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, said that once a resolution was adopted by the United Nations, Washington wanted a second one establishing a peacekeeping force in days, not weeks.

As the bodies pile up, so the Israeli media has begun to turn, accusing the military of lacking the proper equipment, training and intelligence to fight a guerrilla war in Lebanon. Israel's Defence Minister, Amir Peretz, on a tour of the front lines, was confronted by troubled reserve soldiers who told him they lacked proper equipment and training.

Israel's chief of staff, Major-General Dan Halutz, had vowed to wipe out Hizbollah's missile threat within 10 days. These claims are now being mocked as rockets rain down on Israel's north with ever greater intensity, despite an intense and highly destructive air bombardment.

As one well-connected Israeli expert put it: 'If we have such good information in Lebanon, how come we still don't know the hideout of missiles and launchers?... If we don't know the location of their weapons, why should we know which house is a Hizbollah house?'

As international outrage over civilian deaths grows, the spotlight is increasingly turning on Israeli air operations. The Observer has learnt that one senior commander who has been involved in the air attacks in Lebanon has already raised concerns that some of the air force's actions might be considered 'war crimes'.

Yonatan Shapiro, a former Blackhawk helicopter pilot dismissed from reserve duty after signing a 'refusenik' letter in 2004, said he had spoken with Israeli F-16 pilots in recent days and learnt that some had aborted missions because of concerns about the reliability of intelligence information. According to Shapiro, some pilots justified aborting missions out of 'common sense' and in the context of the Israeli Defence Force's moral code of conduct, which says every effort should be made to avoiding harming civilians.

Shapiro said: 'Some pilots told me they have shot at the side of targets because they're afraid people will be there, and they don't trust any more those who give them the coordinates and targets.'

He added: 'One pilot told me he was asked to hit a house on a hill, which was supposed to be a place from where Hizbollah was launching Katyusha missiles. But he was afraid civilians were in the house, so he shot next to the house ...

'Pilots are always being told they will be judged on results, but if the results are hundreds of dead civilians while Hizbollah is still able to fire all these rockets, then something is very wrong.'

So far none of the pilots has publicly refused to fly missions but some are wobbling, according to Shapiro. He said: 'Their target could be a house firing a cannon at Israel and it could be a house full of children, so it's a real dilemma; it's not black and white. But ... I'm calling on them to refuse, in order save our country from self-destruction.'

Meron Rappoport, a former editor at the Israeli daily Haaretz and military analyst, criticised the air force's methods for selecting targets: 'The impression is that information is sometimes lacking. One squadron leader admitted the evidence used to determine attacks on cars is sometimes circumstantial - meaning that if people are in an area after Israeli forces warned them to leave, the assumption is that those left behind must be linked to Hizbollah ... This is problematic, as aid agencies have said many people did not leave ... because they could not, or it was unsafe to travel on the roads thanks to Israel's aerial bombardment.'

These revelations raise further serious questions about the airstrike in Qana last Sunday that left dozens dead, which continues to arouse international outrage. From the outset, the Israeli military's version of events has been shrouded in ambiguity, with the army releasing a video it claims shows Katyusha rockets being fired from Qana, even though the video was dated two days earlier, and claiming that more than 150 rockets had been fired from the location.

Some IDF officials have continued to refer vaguely to Katyushas being launched 'near houses' in the village and to non-specific 'terrorist activity' inside the targeted building. In a statement on Thursday, the IDF said it the air force did not know there were civilians in what they believed was an empty building, yet paradoxically blamed Hizbollah for using those killed as 'human shields'.

Human rights groups have attacked the findings as illogical. Amnesty International described the investigation as a 'whitewash', saying Israeli intelligence must have been aware of the civilians'.

One Israeli commander from a different squadron called the Qana bombing a 'mistake' and was unable to explain the apparent contradiction in the IDF's position, although he insisted there would have been no deliberate targeting of civilians. He said he had seen the video of the attack, and admitted: 'Generally they [Hizbollah] are using human shields ... That specific building - I don't know the reason it was chosen as a target.'

Fifty-nine dead? Thirty-seven? Twenty-eight? An air strike this time, and the usual lies follow. Ten years ago, Hizbollah were "hiding" in the UN compound. Untrue. Now, we are supposed to believe that the dead of Qana - today's slaughter - were living in a house which was a storage base for Hizbollah missiles. Another lie - because the dead were all killed in the basement, where they would never be if rockets were piled floor-to-ceiling. Even Israel later abandons this nonsense. I watch Lebanese soldiers stuffing the children's corpses into plastic bags - then I see them pushing the little bodies into carpets because the bags have run out.

But the roads, my God, the roads of southern Lebanon. Windows open, listen for the howl of jets. I am astonished that only one journalist - a young Lebanese woman - has died so far. I watch the little silver fish as they filter through the sky.

On my way back to Beirut, I find the traffic snarled up by a bomb-smashed bridge, where the Lebanese army is trying to tow a vegetable-laden truck out of a river. I go down to them and slosh through the water to tell the army sergeant that he is out of his mind. He's got almost 50 civilian cars backed up in a queue, just waiting for another Israeli air attack. Leave the lorry till later, I tell him.

Other soldiers arrive, and there is a 10-minute debate about the wisdom of my advice, while I am watching the skies and pointing out a diving Israeli F-16. Then the sergeant decides that Fisk is not as stupid as he looks, cuts the tow-rope and lets the traffic through. I am caked in dust, and Katya Jahjoura, a Lebanese photographer colleague, catches sight of me and bursts into uncontrollable laughter. "You look as if you have been living in rubble!" she cries, and I shoot her a desperate look. Better get out of this place, in case we get turned into rubble, I reply.

Monday, 31 July

Benjamin Netanyahu tries another lie, an old one reheated from 1982, when Menachem Begin used to claim that the civilian casualties of Israel's air raids were no different from the civilians killed in Denmark in an RAF raid in the Second World War. Ho hum, nice try, Benjamin, but not good enough.

First, the story. RAF aircraft staged an air raid on the Nazi Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen, but massacred more than 80 children when their bombs went astray. The Israelis are slaughtering the innocent of southern Lebanon from high altitude - high enough to avoid Hizbollah missiles. The reason the RAF killed 83 children, 20 nuns and three firemen on 21 March 1945 was that their Mosquitoes were flying so low to avoid civilian casualties that one of the British aircraft clipped its wing on a railroad tower outside Copenhagen central station, and crashed into the school. The other aircraft assumed the smoke from its high-octane fuel was the target.

Interesting, though, the way Israel's leaders are ready to manipulate the history of the Second World War. No Israeli aircraft has been lost over Lebanon in this war and the civilians of Lebanon are dying by the score, repeatedly and bombed from a great height.

Tuesday, 1 August

Electricity off, my fridge flooded over the floor again, my landlord Mustafa at the front door with a plastic plate of figs from the tree in his front garden. The papers are getting thinner. However, Paul's restaurant has reopened in East Beirut where I lunch with Marwan Iskander, one of murdered ex-prime minister Rafiq Hariri's senior financial advisers.

Marwan and his wife Mona are a source of joy, full of jokes and outrageous (and accurate) comments about the politicians of the Middle East. I pay for the meal, and Marwan produces - as I knew he would - a huge Cuban cigar for me. I gave up smoking years ago. But I think the war allows me to smoke again, just a little.

Wednesday, 2 August

Huge explosions in the southern suburbs of Beirut shake the walls of my home. A cauldron of fire ascends into the sky. What is there left to destroy in the slums which scribes still call a "Hizbollah stronghold"?

The Israelis are now bombing all roads leading to Syria, especially at the border crossing at Masna (very clever, as if the Hizbollah is bringing its missiles into Lebanon in convoys on the international highway). Then the guerrilla army, which started this whole bloody fiasco, fires off dozens more rockets into Israel.

I put my nose into the suburbs and get a call from a colleague in south Lebanon who describes the village of Srifa as "like Dresden". World War Two again. But the suburbs do look like a scene from that conflict. My grocer laments that he has no milk, no yoghurt, which - as a milkoholic myself - I lament.

Thursday, 3 August

More friends wanting to know if it's safe to return to Lebanon. An old acquaintance tells me that when she insisted on coming back to Beirut, a relative threw a shoe and a book at her. What was the book, I asked? A volume of poetry, it seems.

Electricity back, and I torture myself by watching CNN, which is reporting this slaughterhouse as if it is a football match. Score so far: a few dozen Israelis, hundreds of Lebanese, thousands of missiles, and even more thousands of Israeli bombs. The missiles come from Iran - as CNN reminds us. The Israeli bombs come from the United States - as CNN does not remind us.

Friday, 4 August

The day of the bridges. Abed and I are up the highway north of Beirut with Ed Cody of The Washington Post (he who reads Verlaine) and we manage to drive on side roads through the Christian Metn district, which has inexplicably been attacked (since the Christian Maronites of Lebanon are supposed to be Israel's best friends here). "You cannot believe how angry we are," a woman says to me, surveying her smashed car and smashed home and shattered windows and the rubble all over the road. A viaduct has fallen into a valley, all 200 metres of it, though another side road is left completely undamaged, and we cruise along it to the next destroyed bridge. So what was the point of bombing the bridges?

We drive back to Beirut on empty roads, windows open and the whisper of jets still in the sky. I go to the Associated Press office, where my old mate Samir Ghattas is the bureau chief. "So how were the bridges?" he asks. "I guess you were driving fast." He can say that again.

I do an interview with CBC in Toronto and talk openly of Israeli war crimes, and no one in the Canadian studio feels this is impolitic or frightening or any of the other usual fears of television producers, who think they will be faced with the usual slurs about "anti-Semitic" reporters who dare to criticise Israel.

I turn on the television, and there is Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbollah's boss, threatening Israel with deeper missile penetrations if Israel bombs Beirut. I listen to Israel's Prime Minister, saying much the same thing in reverse.

I call these people the "roarers", but I leaf through my tatty copy of King Lear to see what they remind me of. Bingo. "I shall do such things I know not, but they shall be the terrors of the earth." Shakespeare should be reporting this war.

Saturday, 5 August

Lots of stories about a massive Israeli ground offensive, which turn out to be untrue. The UN in southern Lebanon suspects that Israel is manufacturing non-existent raids to pacify public opinion as Hizbollah missiles continue to fly across the frontier. But a friend calls to tell me that Hizbollah might be running out of rockets. Possibly true, I reflect, and think of all the bridges which haven't yet been blown to pieces.

More gruesome photographs of the dead in the Lebanese papers. We in the pure "West" spare our readers these terrible pictures - we "respect" the dead too much to print them, though we didn't respect them very much when they were alive - and we forget the ferocious anger which Arabs feel when these images are placed in front of them. What are we storing up for ourselves? I wrote about another 9/11 in the paper this morning. And I fear I'm right.

Israeli warplanes and artillery also pounded other areas in Lebanon, causing at least 13 deaths. Loud explosions echoed across Lebanon's capital, Beirut, when Israeli jets fired missiles into its southern suburbs in the afternoon.

Hezbollah and its allies rejected the U.S.-French text of the U.N. resolution, saying its terms for a halt in fighting did not address Lebanon's demands - a signal that the nearly 4-week-old battle would burn on.

Both sides appeared to be aiming to inflict maximum damage in the few days before the resolution is expected to be voted on by the U.N. Security Council.

Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets at Israeli towns, with one Katyusha making a direct hit on army reservists gathered at the entrance to Kfar Giladi, a communal farm 40 miles northeast of Haifa on the border with Lebanon.

Ten people were killed outright, and two died a few hours later from wounds, said David Ratner, spokesman for Rambam hospital. Five more people were wounded, one seriously, he said.

The Magen David Adom rescue service said all the victims were soldiers, and it was the worst toll from a rocket attack on Israel since the fighting began July 12.

When word of the Kfar Giladi rocket strike reached the Israeli Cabinet during its weekly meeting, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said: "Lucky that we are dealing with Hezbollah today, and not in another two or three years," according to a participant in the meeting.

Just after nightfall, Hezbollah rockets crashed into several residential areas in Haifa, a port that is Israel's third-largest city. At least three people died and more than 40 suffered injuries when rockets collapsed at least two houses and damaged others, authorities said.

It was unclear how many rockets fell on the city, but a spokesman for the Haifa fire department, Chezi Levi, said one crowded district had five or six hits. Smoke rose high over the city.

Until now, only isolated rockets had landed in Haifa. One rocket explosion at a train station killed eight people July 16 - the highest death toll until Sunday's hit on the soldiers at Kfar Giladi.

The Israeli army spokesman said more than 150 rocket attacks originated in Qana, which he described as a Hezbollah stronghold. He said the rockets launched on Haifa were long-range Fajr missiles that carry 100 pounds of explosives and are packed with thousands of ball bearings to cause maximum injuries.

Qana was the town Israel attacked on Aug. 3 that killed 28 civilians, many of them children, in an airstrike that was widely denounced around the world. Israel acknowledged that attack was a mistake but accused Hezbollah of shielding its launching sites behind civilians.

Elsewhere in southern Lebanon, dozens of Israeli airstrikes hit communities and roads, with some villages bombed continually for a half hour, security officials said. Ground fighting raged along a stretch of southern Lebanon where the Israeli army has crossed the border.

Israeli airstrikes killed a Lebanese army intelligence officer and wounded seven soldiers at Mansouri and wounded five other soldiers in Debbin. Israeli missiles also flattened a house in Ansar village, killing a man and four of his relatives, security officials said.

Other attacks killed three people in the frontier village of al-Jibbain, the driver of a bread van near Tyre and a third person in Naqoura, near the border on the Mediterranean coast.

Israel also bombed two camps of a Palestinian militant group in Lebanon, the Syrian-backed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. The group reported one person killed in the attack.

A statement from Hezbollah announced the deaths of three of its fighters, but did not say when or where they were killed.

A Hezbollah rocket blast also injured three Chinese peacekeepers Sunday, China's state media reported, citing a Chinese officer. The report did not specify where the attack occurred or whether the peacekeepers had been hospitalized.

The U.S.-French agreement Saturday on a U.N. resolution calling for "a full cessation of hostilities" marked a significant advance after weeks of stalled diplomacy aimed at ending the conflict.

But getting the two sides - particularly Hezbollah - to sign on will likely require a greater push. Israel has said it won't halt its offensive until Hezbollah rockets are silenced.

The plan envisions a second resolution in a week or two that would authorize an international military force for the Israel-Lebanon frontier and the creation of a large buffer zone in southern Lebanon, monitored by the Lebanese army and foreign peacekeepers.

The deployment of the international force is a cornerstone of the U.S.-led Western effort to bring a long-term peace.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stressed the resolution was aimed at stopping the large-scale violence to allow a focus on the underlying problems in the conflict.

"It's the first step, not the only step," she said at a news conference in Crawford, Texas.

"We're trying to deal with a problem that has been festering and brewing in Lebanon now for years and years and years," Rice said.

Lebanon's parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, who represents the Shiite Islamic militant group in negotiations, said the draft was unacceptable because it would leave Israeli troops in Lebanon and did not deal with Beirut's key demands - a release of prisoners held by Israel and moves to resolve a dispute over a piece of border territory.

"If Israel has not won the war but still gets all this, what would have happened had they won?" Berri said. "Lebanon, all of Lebanon, rejects any talks and any draft resolution" that do not address the Lebanese demands, he said.

The Lebanese government said Saturday that it objected to portions of the draft resolution and demanded some amendments, but an aide to Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said that did not mean a flat rejection.

Hezbollah's two key allies, Iran and Syria, also rejected the resolution - suggesting they backed a continued fight by the guerrillas.

"The United States, which has been supporting the Zionist regime until today, has no right to enter the crisis as a mediator," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a phone conversation with Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Assad said the presence of international troops with extensive power in Lebanon would cause anarchy in the country, according to a report on Ahmadinejad's official Web site.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem, on his first visit to Lebanon since Damascus ended a 29-year military presence in its smaller neighbor last year, declared that the U.S.-French cease-fire plan was "a recipe for the continuation of the war" unless Israeli troops withdrew.

Arab foreign ministers planned a Monday meeting in Beirut that could see a stormy debate over the draft U.N. resolution. U.S.-allied Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia are eager for a halt to the fighting - but their citizens would be angered if they were perceived as forcing a surrender on Hezbollah.

For Hezbollah, the resolution would be a tough pill to swallow, particularly language calling for the "unconditional release" of two Israeli soldiers captured by the guerrillas in a cross-border raid July 12. The abduction prompted the Israeli offensive in Lebanon.

The Israeli army announced Sunday that it had captured one of the Hezbollah guerrillas involved in the abudction raid.

So far, at least 590 people have died in Lebanon, including 507 civilians, 29 members of the army, one Palestinian militant and 53 guerrillas acknowledged dead by Hezbollah. Israeli security officials told the Cabinet on Sunday they had confirmed the deaths of 165 Hezbollah fighters and estimated 200 more had been killed, according to a participant in the meeting.

The toll in Israel stood at 94 dead - 49 killed by rocket attacks and the rest soldiers killed in ground combat.

Souha's party was arranged by volunteers who organize activities for children at eight Beirut schools housing the displaced. The party was an opportunity for children to play and smile. Two acting students who were to arrive as clowns were late, so I became the opening act.

"What's your name?" a girl in a red tunic and white hijab asked me in Arabic. Two boys, one wearing an Italy football jersey, mumbled something in unison I was told was their attempt at "I love you" in German. We laughed. I took more photos.

"Where are you from?" The boy in the Italy jersey asked. I said I was an American and quickly added that my father is Lebanese. It helps that my name is Iman, an Arabic word meaning faith. I added that I lived in Beirut, that this was now my home.

The boy smiled. "So you're only half-Ijnabi," he declared happily. Half-foreign.

Once my camera was turned off, most of the kids lost interest, and only a few girls remained around me.

"Do you like Israel?" Fatima, age 4, demanded. "No one likes Israel," she said, answering her own question.

Last week, online, I saw a photo of two Israeli girls only a little older than Fatima signing missiles before they were fired into South Lebanon. This week, Fatima and her three sisters are living in a classroom. Her mother has no private space where she can remove her headscarf, and the family is living off food donations. I cannot see why Fatima would like Israel.

"Do you like the resistance?"Fatima asked again.

The girls all turned to me, smiling, and it was clear that everyone here liked the resistance. Although displaced, these families were not angry at Hezbollah. They were supportive. A victory would allow them to justify the loss of their homes as a sacrifice to the resistance.

These displaced people are mostly Shia Muslims. In a country where political positions are determined by religion, the majority Shia have historically felt disenfranchised and see Hezbollah as their voice in the nation. Hezbollah means empowerment, political voice, education, health care and farm equipment.

The Lebanese consider Hezbollah an indigenous resistance movement. It is rarely acknowledged that support comes from Iran and Syria. Hezbollah fighters are Lebanese fighting for land free of occupation and the release of prisoners. Hezbollah arose as a response to the 1982 Israeli occupation of Lebanon. The longer occupation lasted, the stronger Hezbollah got, even leading to participation in the Lebanese government.

Terrorism is often in the eye of the beholder - or its victims. To the Lebanese, terror comes from Israel, armed with American weapons, directed unequally against innocent civilians and Lebanese infrastructure as well as against Hezbollah outposts. For Israelis and Americans, Hezbollah is a terrorist organization that targets Israeli civilians. While there is no doubt that Hezbollah has engaged in terrorist actions, the overwhelming force being used against Lebanon is turning even moderate, non-Shia, Lebanese against Israel.

Such support does not make it okay that Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers. It was a monumental miscalculation. The Israeli response, however, has made it hard for any Lebanese to criticize Hezbollah.

A few days ago, I was walking in downtown Beirut when a motorcycle passed by, beeping, waving the now familiar yellow and green Hezbollah flag. A month ago, you never saw a Hezbollah flag in this part of town, which once boasted serious nightlife with scantily clad women and alcohol.

Now support is emerging throughout the city: flags around town, posters of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah in grocery windows, a photo of Nasrallah around the necks of Lebanese youth, graffiti everywhere.

I approached a group of students gathering to protest the Israeli strikes and asked if anyone spoke English. "No," one boy said, shaking his head. As I walked away he continued in Arabic: "We are with Hezbollah."

Occupying south Lebanon or aiming to destroy Lebanon's entire infrastructure will not protect Israel. If anything, it will only turn children and their parents against Israel even more.

(Iman Azzi grew up in Exeter. She is an intern at a Beirut newspaper.)

Lebanese security sources said 17 people had been killed in an initial strike on the village, while 40 died in six further attacks.

Residents said most of those killed were shepherds and their families who had refused to flee the fighting and leave their animals behind.

There was heavy fighting between Israeli ground troops and Hizbullah guerrillas in the area, three miles west of the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona, today.

The air strikes came after a UN ceasefire initiative drafted by the US and France ran into trouble when it was rejected by key Arab states overnight.

Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, yesterday warned that she expected fighting to continue once the text of the draft resolution was formally adopted. Speaking today in Crawford, Texas, the US president, George Bush, said he recognised that there were still divisions over the resolution but called for it to be adopted as quickly as possible. "We all recognise the violence must stop," Mr Bush said.

Israeli strikes today hit Hizbullah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut, eastern regions around the Bekaa Valley city of Baalbek and in the south of the country.

Reuters reported that Israeli aircraft had attacked the last remaining crossing on the Litani river between Sidon and Tyre, cutting the main artery for aid supplies to civilians in the south. Aid groups said Israel was paralysing aid delivery.

Hizbullah guerrillas fired more rockets into northern Israel, wounding one person.

Yesterday was the deadliest day of Hizbullah rocket attacks since the conflict began on July 12, with 15 Israelis - including 12 reservist soldiers - killed.

At least 19 Lebanese civilians died in Israeli air attacks yesterday, and the Lebanese health minister, Mohammad Khalifeh, today told Reuters that 925 people had so far been killed in the conflict, one third of them aged under 13. Another 75 are missing, presumed dead.

More than 90 Israelis, most of them soldiers, have been killed, with 48 dying in Hizbullah rocket attacks.

The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, today met defence officials to discuss the possibility of expanding the offensive, though no decision was made, the Associated Press reported Israeli officials as saying.

The Tel Aviv-based Ha'aretz newspaper today quoted an unnamed Israeli general as saying that Israel could launch further attacks on Lebanese infrastructure and symbols of government in response to the rocket attacks.

Mr Siniora has expressed concerns his government may collapse.

Meanwhile, it was reported that Arab leaders were considering holding an emergency summit on Lebanon in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, later this week.

The Saudi foreign minister, Saud al-Faisal, was expected to call for the summit during an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Beirut today, Saudi sources said.

Israel expects the UN security council to pass a resolution calling for the end of Israeli operations, but leaving the door open for air strikes on Hizbullah arms convoys and rocket launchers, this week.

The Lebanese government wants the UN draft resolution to call for the immediate withdrawal of around 10,000 Israeli troops from south Lebanon.

However, Israel wants to keep the troops there until an international stabilisation force, probably led by the France, moves in.

Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, criticised the draft resolution, dismissing it as "another operation against the Lebanese nation", the Associated Press reported.