At least 32 civilians have been killed in the latest Israeli attacks on Lebanon. The dead include 15 children in what has become the most destructive onslaught by Israel since its 1982 invasion of the country.
The Israeli bombardment of Lebanon widened throughout the day with the Israeli army attacking roads and bridges in the south, east and north of the country.
The scene of today's attack by Israel which killed at least 15 civilians fleeing a border village
An Israeli missile incinerated a van in south Lebanon, killing 20 people, among them 15 children, in the deadliest single attack of the four-day-old campaign launched by Israel after Hizbollah captured two of its soldiers and killed eight.
The convoy was attacked on leaving the border village of Marwaheen after Israeli loudspeaker warnings ordered them to leave their homes.
Raids on roads and petrol stations in north, east and south Lebanon killed 12 people and wounded 32, security sources said.
An estimated 99 Lebanese - all but three of them civilians - have lost their lives since Israel launched its offensive after Hezbollah guerrillas crossed the Israel-Lebanon border on Wednesday.
Thirteen Israelis, four of them civilians, have been killed since Wednesday.
Israeli fire targeted ports in Beirut and the northern city of Tripoli on Saturday, a Lebanese security source and witnesses said.
Aircraft fired two rockets at Tripoli's port radar while two missiles fell in the vicinity of Beirut port, the source said.
Israeli aircraft also bombed a Hizbollah office in southern Beirut's Haret Hreik district, and attacked roads, bridges and petrol stations in north, east and south Lebanon, killing at least 12 people and wounding 32, security sources said.
Meanwhile, Israeli officials have warned that Hezbollah has missiles that could reach as far as 100-200 kilometres, into the country, putting cities such as Jerusalem and Tel Aviv at risk if the weapons are used.
Several rockets fired by Hizbollah guerrillas hit the Israeli town of Tiberias overnight, marking the deepest penetration into Israel since Hizbollah began a rocket campaign three days ago.
There were no immediate reports of any casualties or damage from the attacks.
Hezbollah's al-ManarTV reported that three civilians were killed in an attack in Hermel, on the border with Syria.
Israel's campaign aims to force Hizbollah to free two soldiers captured in Wednesday's attack and also to destroy its ability to launch rocket attacks on northern Israel, where four civilians have been killed this week.
A senior Israeli intelligence official claimed that Iranian troops helping Hezbollah fighters fired a missile that damaged an Israeli warship off the Lebanese coast last night.
The official claimed some 100 Iranian soldiers are in Lebanon and helped fire the Iranian-made, radar-guided C-102 at the ship that killed one and left three missing.
Israel confirmed four of its sailors were missing after the Hizbollah strike, its first known success against the Israeli navy. Israeli television said the military had recovered the body of one of the four sailors.
Israeli media had reported the ship, which had to be towed back to Israel, was hit by an airborne drone packed with explosives. The Israeli army said a merchant ship, possibly from Egypt, was also hit in the same attack.
The Israeli army said today it had hit about 150 targets in Lebanon since the start of the offensive, with only less than a dozen linked directly to Hizbollah.
Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, speaking shortly after Israeli jets destroyed his Beirut home, announced yesterday that the guerrilla group had hit an Israeli warship off Beirut and threatened to launch deep strikes inside the Jewish state.
"The best way to stop the violence is for Hizbollah to lay down its arms and to stop attacking. And therefore I call upon Syria to exert influence over Hizbollah," US President George W Bush told a joint news conference with President Vladimir Putin at a summit in Russia.
The European Union, in a statement at the G8 summit, said Israel's assault on Lebanon was disproportionate.
The worst violence in Lebanon in a decade coincided with an Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip begun last month to try to get back another captured soldier, halt Palestinian rocket fire and destroy the institutions of the Hamas-led government.
Israeli aircraft attacked the Palestinian Economy Ministry and a house in Gaza on Saturday. One Hamas militant was killed in the strike on the house and eight people were wounded.
Aircraft also bombed a bridge in central Gaza. Palestinian officials said there no casualties in the bridge or ministry attacks.
Since the Gaza offensive was launched on June 28, Israel has killed more than 80 Palestinians, most of them militants.
Israel's aerial assault on Lebanon has drawn mounting world criticism but the White House said US President George W. Bush would not press Israel to halt its military operation.
Syria's ruling Baath Party said it would support Hizbollah and Lebanon against the "barbaric Israeli aggression".
The pledge came despite the sometimes hostile ties prevailing between Damascus and Beirut since Syria ended its 29-year military presence in Lebanon last year.
The Beirut government, led by an anti-Syrian coalition, is unable or unwilling to disarm Hizbollah, the only Lebanese faction to keep its guns after the 1975-90 civil war.
Lebanon has urged the UN Security Council to tell Israel to halt its operation, but the Council took no immediate action.