Metula, Israel – Thousands of Israeli troops fanned out across southern Lebanon on Tuesday as the military stepped up its efforts to uproot Hezbollah fighters from the border and set the stage for an international peacekeeping force to take control of the war-ravaged area.
As diplomats struggled to come up with a plan to end the fighting, Israeli soldiers launched a new phase of the operation intended to neutralize Hezbollah’s ability to fire rockets into northern Israel by forcing the militants to retreat more than 18 miles into Lebanon.
The death toll in Lebanon stands at 828, with some 200 bodies yet to be recovered, according to the country’s government.
The United Nations and Save the Children estimate that more than a third of those killed are children younger than 12.
Nearly 900,000 people have been forced from their homes, and economic losses are now at $4 billion.
Israel separately dropped helicopter-borne commandos deep into the eastern Bekaa Valley, where they raided a Hezbollah-run hospital and fought pitched battles with guerrillas.
After the raid on the ancient city of Baalbek ended, the Israeli military said it had captured some guerrillas. The military statement said all its soldiers returned unharmed to their base but gave no further details.
Witnesses said the fighting between Israeli commandos and Hezbollah guerrillas around the hospital raged for more than four hours.
The raid on Baalbek, once a Syrian army headquarters 80 miles north of Israel, was the deepest ground attack on Lebanon since fighting began 21 days ago.
The Israeli advance could hobble Hezbollah and sever its main supply line from Iran and Syria, but Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert conceded Tuesday for the first time that the campaign might fall short of meeting demands that the militant group be quickly disarmed.
“This action cannot in any way be judged by the number of missiles launched against us or their range,” Olmert said in a speech to graduates of Israel’s National Security College near Tel Aviv. “Neither the defense minister nor I, nor the government, nor the military leadership promised that, at the end of the operation, there would be no missiles in range of Israel.”
Hezbollah’s rocket attacks into Israel did diminish on Tuesday as Hezbollah fired just 10 rockets across the border, well below an average of about 100 a day since fighting began.
Although U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is working with the United Nations and other world leaders to fashion a cease-fire, Israel appears intent on continuing its military operation for days, if not weeks.
Rice on Tuesday wouldn’t predict that the diplomacy will be wrapped up this week, but she appeared for the first time to put a timeline on a cease-fire. “We are talking days, not weeks before we are able to get a cease- fire,” she said on PBS’s “NewsHour.”
A 48-hour lull in most Israeli airstrikes on Lebanese towns and cities is expected to end today. That’s likely to be followed by resumption of Hezbollah rocket attacks, which came to an abrupt stop after Israel enacted the temporary halt to most airstrikes.
Near the border, Brig. Gen. Shuki Shahar, the deputy chief of the Northern Command, said that Israeli ground troops and air forces controlled the Litani River – about 18 miles from Lebanon’s border with Israel.
Until 2000, the river was the northern boundary of Israeli-occupied Lebanon. It could provide a launching point for a wider military operation if Israel decides to push toward Beirut.
Over the coming days, Israeli forces will work to rout Hezbollah fighters from the area south of the river, Shahar said.
“The farther north we can push them, the fewer Israeli citizens they can put under threat with these rockets,” he said.
Brig. Gen. Alon Friedman, also with Israel’s Northern Command, said that seizing control of the area could take a week, and that securing it “could take from three to eight weeks, depending on the size of the area.”
Three Israeli soldiers were killed Tuesday in the expanded fighting, bringing the military death toll for the nation to 36, with more than 110 wounded.
Although Olmert said Tuesday that Israel was “winning the war,” so far his nation has little to show for its airstrikes that have decimated Lebanese towns, destroyed roads, bridges and airports and killed more than 800 people, most of them civilians.
The operation was dealt a moral and political blow on Sunday by an Israeli airstrike in Qana that killed at least 57 people, most of them young children.
The attack generated worldwide condemnation and prompted the temporary halt to Israeli airstrikes.
Israeli leaders say that as many as 300 Hezbollah fighters have been killed and that the airstrikes have destroyed more than two-thirds of the militants’ long-range rocket launchers, as well as half of its shorter-range Katyusha launchers.
The strikes, however, haven’t curtailed the Hezbollah attacks on northern Israel that have killed 18 people and injured more than 400.
On Sunday, the day Israel hit Qana, Hezbollah responded with its largest single-day barrage: More than 150 rockets hit northern Israel.
Israel says it supports plans to create a new multinational peacekeeping force for southern Lebanon. There’s broad disagreement, however, about how much power such a force would have to fight Hezbollah and prevent it from getting more rockets from Syria and Iran.
There also is disagreement among the major parties about when a cease-fire should take effect. France, which is likely to command any new U.N. force in Lebanon, is pushing for an immediate cease-fire to be followed by a long-term solution. The United States and Israel want the cease-fire to coincide with a new political framework.
In the meantime, Israel is expected to press ahead with its military campaign.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
