At least 25 Lebanese, including several children, were killed and 30 wounded in an Israeli air strike that destroyed houses in the southern village of Srifa, about 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the southern port city of Tyre, where 10 houses were destroyed. The bodies of five members of the same family were retrieved from under the rubble of their house in Salaa, another village near Tyre.
And at least 40 other civilians were killed in air strikes that hammered other parts of south and east Lebanon. Hizbollah said one of its fighters was killed.
Two civilians were killed and two others wounded in the bombardment on the border village of Rmeich. Six people a Lebanese woman and her three children, a Sri Lankan and a Sudanese national were killed in an air strike on the central town of Nabatiyeh in southern Lebanon.
Israel also bombed the runway at Beirut international airport, which has been closed since Thursday. The runway and fuel tanks have been hit several times.
Two Israeli children were also killed and 37 people were wounded on Wednesday when a Katyusha rocket fired from Lebanon exploded in the northern Israeli-Arab town of Nazareth, more Hizbollah rockets fell on the city of Haifa and one hit an empty seafront restaurant.
Israeli troops crossed the border to raid Hizbollah posts and the Israeli army said two of its soldiers were killed and nine injured in fighting with Hizbollah guerrillas. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the bombardment would last "as long as necessary" to free two soldiers captured by Hizbollah guerrillas on July 12 and ensure the Shia Muslim group is disarmed.
U N human rights chief Louise Arbour said on Wednesday the scale of killing in Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territories could involve war crimes. Despite international concerns, Israel's security cabinet Wednesday ordered the twin offensives in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon to continue without a time limit despite a call from the EU for an immediate end to the conflict.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana will meet with UN chief Kofi Annan in New York on Thursday to discuss the Lebanese crisis, UN Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown announced.
The announcement came as two Israeli soldiers were killed in clashes with Hezbollah fighters, bringing the military toll to 14, and three civilians died in a rocket attack on the northern town of Nazareth.
But there was no sign Israel or its Lebanese Shi'ite foes were ready to heed the Beirut government's pleas for an immediate halt to a war that has cost at least 325 lives in Lebanon and 29 in Israel. The other side Hizbollah, backed by Syria and Iran, wants to swap the two Israeli soldiers for Lebanese and Palestinians in Israeli jails.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad discussed the need for a cease-fire in a telephone call with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan.
FOREIGNERS FLEE: Acting Interior Minister Ahmed Fatfat said Israel was trying to destroy Lebanon's infrastructure, not just to defeat Hizbollah. "Are they turning it into a second Iraq?" he asked.
Three Indian workers were killed in an air strike on a glass factory in the eastern Bekaa Valley. Israeli planes also bombed a base of the Syrian-backed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in the Bekaa, the PFLP. The guerrilla group gave no word on casualties.
The conflict has forced about 100,000 Lebanese to flee their homes. Displaced families packed into pick-up trucks and cars, many flying white flags, drove from border areas towards Sidon, the main city in the south, to try to escape the violence.Panicked foreigners flooded out of the country.
"It's very bad, very sad, I can't believe what's happening," said a tearful Lubna Jaber, an Australian who had come to visit relatives in Lebanon. She was waiting in central Beirut with about 350 compatriots to board buses and then a ferry to Turkey. About 1,100 American evacuees left Lebanon by sea and air bound for Cyprus on Wednesday, the largest group of US citizens to have been rescued from the country in a single day.
France said about 8,000 of its 17,000 citizens resident in Lebanon had asked to be evacuated. A ferry that can carry 1,200 was due to pick up people later in the day after taking 900 foreigners, most of them French, to Cyprus two days earlier.
Israel's offensive in Lebanon has coincided with a three-week-old push into the Gaza Strip to retrieve another soldier, seized by Palestinian militants on June 25. Tanks pushed into Gaza's Maghazi refugee camp on Wednesday, killing four gunmen and two civilians and wounding 52 people, including 10 children.
Five Israeli soldiers were wounded. Israeli troops shot dead three Palestinian gunmen in a raid on a security compound in the occupied West Bank town of Nablus, where bulldozers also demolished two buildings used by the Hamas-led government.
UN envoys will suggest deploying Lebanese troops in the south and enlarging an international force there to try to end the fighting, Western diplomats in Jerusalem said.