At least seven Lebanese and two Israelis were killed and 54 injured last night in a devastating escalation of cross-border hostilities. Five of the Lebanese victims were firemen, killed when tackling a blaze at a power station outside Beirut, set alight in a series of raids by Israeli warplanes. Two other deaths were reported in a strike south of Beirut.
The two Israelis were residents of the northern town of Kiryat Shmonah, killed in a hail of Katyusha rockets, fired across the border by the Hizbullah militia from bases in southern Lebanon.
The dramatic escalation of the ongoing mini-war on this front, in which Hizbullah is fighting to push the Israeli army out of the so-called "security zone" that Israel occupies in south Lebanon, comes, ironically, amid fresh hopes of a revived Middle East peace process that could see Israel enter substantive negotiations on a peace treaty with both Lebanon and its patron state, Syria.
Just this week, Israel's newly-elected Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, and President Hafez Assad of Syria, exchanged unprecedentedly complimentary remarks, raising prospects of an accelerated effort to complete a "circle of peace" in the region, involving an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon and the return of the captured Golan Heights to Syria.
Last night's deaths culminated a day of steadily intensifying violence, which began with the wounding of a Lebanese civilian by Israeli fire from the security zone, continued with several salvoes of Hizbullah Katyusha fire on northern Israel, and reached its peak with at least four Israeli air raids deep into Lebanon - marking the first time in more than three years that Israel has sent its planes as far as Beirut.
Reports from Lebanon indicated that the Israeli jets had hit the Jamhour power station, only a short distance from the Presidential Palace and Defence Ministry, which supplies electricity to Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hizbullah stronghold. The generator was taken out, parts of the capital were blacked out, and the four firemen died fighting the blaze. The Israeli planes were also said to have hit three bridges south of Beirut, and targets in the Sidon and Baalbek areas.
Lebanese leaders appealed for international intervention to halt the Israeli attacks.
The Hizbullah rocket fire into Kiryat Shmonah, meanwhile, left two Israelis dead, and another critically wounded. Rockets also fell in the western Galilee. Many residents of northern Israel slept in bomb-shelters overnight, in fear of further attacks.
Last night's Israeli raids followed a day of panicked deliberation in Israel about how to respond to the latest Hizbullah attacks.
Gen Shaul Mofaz, the chief of staff of the Israeli army, complained during the day that his forces were being denied permission to hit back at Hizbullah because Israel is caught between governments - Mr Benjamin Netanyahu remains prime minister, but he is to be replaced any day now by Mr Barak, who was overwhelmingly elected a month ago but is still finalising coalition agreements with other parties.
When they came, the Israeli strikes were the heaviest inside Lebanon since "Operation Grapes of Wrath", a huge bombardment of Lebanon in the spring of 1996 which killed over 100 Lebanese civilians and was intended by Israel to critically weaken Hizbullah. However, Hizbullah has grown stronger in the years since, staged increasingly effective attacks on Israeli troops and those of the Israeli-funded South Lebanon Army, and triggered a growing public clamour in Israel for a withdrawal to the international border. Mr Barak, in his election campaign, promised to bring Israel's troops out of Lebanon within a year.