Israel called up army reservists yesterday for a possible major ground assault against Hizbullah in Lebanon as Washington announced a diplomatic drive and said that the conflict's root causes had to be tackled before any ceasefire.
Fearing a large Israeli ground attack, thousands of Lebanese civilians fled north after the attacking forces warned them to leave border villages and kept up a 10-day-long air bombardment.
Lebanese families packed into cars and pick-up trucks and clogged roads to the north after Israeli planes dropped leaflets warning residents of south Lebanon to flee for safety beyond the Litani River, about 20km from the border.
An estimated 300,000 mostly Shia Muslim Lebanese normally reside south of the Litani. There was no word on how many had already fled the bombing and fighting of the past few days. Air raids have wrecked many roads and bridges in the region.
"The siege on Lebanon is not letting humanitarian aid in," said Hisham Hassan, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). "The south is isolated."
Amid mounting world alarm at the crisis, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that she would visit the Middle East next week and attend an Italian-hosted international conference in Rome on Wednesday in an attempt to secure lasting peace.
The United States has rebuffed Lebanon's appeals for an immediate UN-backed ceasefire, saying that this would not last unless Hizbullah guerrillas, backed by Syria and Iran, were prevented from attacking Israel.
Dr Rice told a news conference in Washington that an immediate truce would be a "false promise" if the root causes of the fighting were not addressed. "What I won't do is . . . try to get a ceasefire that I know isn't going to last," she said.
Washington supported proposals for an expanded international force on the Israel-Lebanon border, but details were not fixed, a senior US official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
A 2,000-strong UN force monitors the border at present.
Israel has so far failed to stop Hizbullah cross-border rocket attacks despite its bombardment, which has killed nearly 350 people in Lebanon and has forced half a million to leave their homes. About 90 percent of those killed were civilians.
Hizbullah rockets crashed into the northern Israeli city of Haifa yesterday, wounding 19 people. Other towns were also hit. Rocket attacks have killed 15 civilians in Israel, which has also lost 19 soldiers in the conflict.
Israel's military chief, Lt-Gen Dan Halutz, said its forces had killed nearly 100 Hizbullah fighters during the 10-day offensive.
Israel began its assault after Hizbullah captured two soldiers and killed eight in a cross-border raid on July 12th. It has also waged a military campaign in Gaza since June 28th to recover another soldier, seized by Palestinian militants.
Lebanon's defence minister said that his country's army, which has not fought so far despite losing a score of soldiers in Israeli air strikes, would defend the country against invasion.
US helicopters plucked hundreds of frightened Americans from Beirut yesterday, adding to a swel-ling tide of foreign evacuees to Cyprus and Turkey. In Gaza, Palestinian medics said Israeli shelling killed a Hamas militant and four civilians yesterday as troops withdrew from a refugee camp after a three-day assault.