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Figh ting between Israeli forces and Hezbollah gunmen intensified in southern Lebanon as Israel carried out new air attacks on the group's bases in Beirut.

The army targeted six Hezbollah cells near Avivim during the night, a military spokeswoman said, speaking anonymously by regulation. Four soldiers were killed in the fighting, she said. Thousands of soldiers took part in operations across the border, the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz reported, citing unidentified military officials.

Air raids continued with explosions heard late yesterday near Hezbollah's stronghold in the Lebanese capital. Jets early today attacked roads and rocket-launching pads in the Bekaa Valley, the spokeswoman said.

Israel and Hezbollah have vowed to continue the fighting that has resulted in the deaths of more than 300 Lebanese and 29 Israelis since it began July 12. As many as 1-million people in Lebanon may be affected and much of the infrastructure in Beirut and surrounding areas has been destroyed, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said yesterday in an appeal for an end to the violence.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said yesterday his group won't free two captive Israeli soldiers unless Israel agrees to a swap of prisoners. A truce is undesirable as long as Hezbollah is capable of threatening Israel and the fighting will go on until the group is “incapacitated,'” said Dan Gillerman, Israel's ambassador to the UN.

Nasrallah said yesterday on al-Jazeera television that Israel's air strikes and artillery attacks haven't crippled Hezbollah's capabilities. The group captured the soldiers during a cross-border attack on an army unit last week, setting off Israel's largest military offensive in Lebanon since 1982.

About 40 Hezbollah rockets fell on Israel yesterday compared with 110 the day before, the Israeli army said.

An Israeli government official indicated yesterday that ground troops may start taking a greater role in fighting Hezbollah as air raids aren't effective.

“We have no choice but to go in and physically clean up the Hezbollah posts on the ground,'' Ephraim Sneh, deputy defense minister, told Israeli television. “The air force can't do that.'”

Annan told the UN Security Council Israel must immediately cease hostilities in Lebanon. He condemned both Hezbollah's “reckless disregard'' for the Lebanese people and Israel's “excessive use of force.''

The call for an immediate truce put Annan at odds with the US, which has said the Security Council should focus on disarming Hezbollah and the return of the Israeli soldiers. US Ambassador John Bolton said two days ago that calls for a cease-fire were "simplistic'' and unlikely to produce a lasting solution to the conflict.

“No one has explained how you conduct a cease-fire with a group of terrorists,'' Bolton said yesterday after Annan spoke.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit the Middle East "as early as next week,'' State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said yesterday in Washington. Her itinerary is still being worked out, he said.

Annan has asked the five permanent Security Council members to consider a force that would attempt to secure the border area between Israel and Lebanon as part of a cease-fire. US and Israeli officials insist that Hezbollah must be disarmed in the area and the Lebanese army sent in to claim the territory in compliance with a 2004 UN resolution.

The UN has stationed peacekeeping forces in a southern strip of Lebanon since 1978. The UN Interim Force in Lebanon, or Unifil, now has about 1 990 troops there. That contingent has failed to prevent either Israel or Hezbollah from undertaking operations.

Crude oil prices fell for a fourth day on speculation that shipments from the Middle East, which supplies a third of the world's oil, will be unaffected by the fighting. Crude for August delivery fell 41 cents, or 0,6%, to $72,25 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The US and other countries stepped up evacuations of their citizens from Beirut. About 2 600 US citizens left yesterday, bringing the total number of US evacuees to 3 850. The tally included 341 Americans who left southern Lebanon in a bus convoy.

Annan called for an immediate end to "indiscriminate and disproportionate violence'' in the Gaza Strip. Israel began a military operation in Gaza June 28 after one of its soldiers was abducted by a group led by the Islamic Hamas movement, which leads the Palestinian Authority government.

Israel dropped leaflets in the Gaza strip late yesterday, telling Palestinian civilians to stay away from homes used to store weapons. The Israel Defense Forces said it will now target such buildings, many of which are in populated areas.

Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005, razing Jewish settlements it established after seizing the area from Egypt in the 1967 Six-Day War. Israel hasn't launched a full-scale military attack on Lebanon or Hezbollah since it pulled its troops out of a swathe of southern Lebanon held for 18 years until May 2000.

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