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Nine Israelis killed in Lebanon
Nine Israeli soldiers have been killed in fierce clashes with Hezbollah militants in south Lebanon.
Eight troops died near the town of Bint Jbeil, the biggest loss of life in a single incident so far during Israel's two-week campaign.
In Rome, UN-led crisis talks ended with no agreement to urge an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
The talks were overshadowed by an outcry after an Israeli missile killed four UN observers on Tuesday.
The eight Israelis were killed early on Wednesday morning as Israeli forces tried to take control of Bint Jbeil, a strategically located town near the border between Lebanon and Israel.
The Israeli army confirmed the deaths on Wednesday evening.
Israel says the town is a Hezbollah stronghold, used by the militants as a launching ground for the barrages of rockets fired daily into northern Israel.
Twenty-two soldiers were injured in the fighting, the Israeli army said.
A military source told the BBC that several soldiers were killed when the Israeli infantry were ambushed near the town shortly before dawn.
More were killed during a rescue operation, which was followed by an intense five-hour firefight.
Later, another Israeli soldier was killed in the border village of Maroun al-Ras, which Israel moved into over the weekend after several days of fighting.
In the southern city of Tyre, a massive explosion destroyed a six-storey building where a local Hezbollah leader was believed to have an apartment.
At least six people were injured, although the building was empty at the time.
Correspondents say Israel has been meeting stronger resistance from Hezbollah than it initially anticipated.
A senior Israel army general said he expected the fighting would continue for "several more weeks".
More than 405 Lebanese and 51 Israelis have died in violence since Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on 12 July.
In other developments:
* Hezbollah fired more than 150 rockets into Israel, injuring 31 people, security and medical sources say
* Ten lorries loaded with food and medical supplies arrived in the southern town of Tyre from the capital, Beirut
* More than 300 people - mainly US and Australian citizens - who had been caught in the fighting in southern Lebanon are due to leave from Tyre on a Canadian ferry on Wednesday evening.
UN deaths
Details have emerged about the deaths of four unarmed UN observers after an Israeli air strike hit a UN post in south Lebanon on Tuesday.
UN staff had contacted Israeli troops 10 times to ask them to stop firing before a precision missile landed on the building, an initial UN report into the incident said.
Each time the UN contacted Israeli forces, they were assured the firing would stop, the report said.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has expressed "deep regrets" over the deaths.
More
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5218926.stm
In Rome, UN-led crisis talks ended with no agreement to urge an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
The talks were overshadowed by an outcry after an Israeli missile killed four UN observers on Tuesday.
The eight Israelis were killed early on Wednesday morning as Israeli forces tried to take control of Bint Jbeil, a strategically located town near the border between Lebanon and Israel.
The Israeli army confirmed the deaths on Wednesday evening.
Israel says the town is a Hezbollah stronghold, used by the militants as a launching ground for the barrages of rockets fired daily into northern Israel.
Twenty-two soldiers were injured in the fighting, the Israeli army said.
A military source told the BBC that several soldiers were killed when the Israeli infantry were ambushed near the town shortly before dawn.
More were killed during a rescue operation, which was followed by an intense five-hour firefight.
Later, another Israeli soldier was killed in the border village of Maroun al-Ras, which Israel moved into over the weekend after several days of fighting.
In the southern city of Tyre, a massive explosion destroyed a six-storey building where a local Hezbollah leader was believed to have an apartment.
At least six people were injured, although the building was empty at the time.
Correspondents say Israel has been meeting stronger resistance from Hezbollah than it initially anticipated.
A senior Israel army general said he expected the fighting would continue for "several more weeks".
More than 405 Lebanese and 51 Israelis have died in violence since Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on 12 July.
In other developments:
* Hezbollah fired more than 150 rockets into Israel, injuring 31 people, security and medical sources say
* Ten lorries loaded with food and medical supplies arrived in the southern town of Tyre from the capital, Beirut
* More than 300 people - mainly US and Australian citizens - who had been caught in the fighting in southern Lebanon are due to leave from Tyre on a Canadian ferry on Wednesday evening.
UN deaths
Details have emerged about the deaths of four unarmed UN observers after an Israeli air strike hit a UN post in south Lebanon on Tuesday.
UN staff had contacted Israeli troops 10 times to ask them to stop firing before a precision missile landed on the building, an initial UN report into the incident said.
Each time the UN contacted Israeli forces, they were assured the firing would stop, the report said.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has expressed "deep regrets" over the deaths.
More
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5218926.stm
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I miss the world. I miss life. I miss myself. People around me also go through these ups and downs, but I find them generally to be more resilient, more steadfast, more courageous than I. I am consumed by other people's despair. It's not very smart, I mean, for a strategy of survival.
My day started today (in effect it is Day 13 of the War, but just another morning under siege in my personal experience) with news from Bint Jbeil, reported on Al-Jazeera. Ghassan Ben Jeddo, the director of the Beirut office was analyzing the situation on the southern front in Bint Jbeil. He announced flatly that Hezbollah had conceded to the military surrender of Bint Jbeil, that the IDF had besieged the town, and that the town had been almost entirely flattened to rubble. My breathing became tight. I knew well, and had been told for days, that military defeats and victories were very tricky to determine in this type of unusual warfare, because a conventional army has clear retreats and advances whereas a band of guerrillas behaves in an entirely different way.
The military defeat in itself did not really matter enough to cause tightness in my chest, although I was a little worried about the IDF feeling empowered to proceed with "scorched earth" plans or some other nightmarish fantasy. My breathing became tight because I immediately thought about some 1,500 people, making up some 400 families whom I had heard the day before were trapped in Bint Jbeil. Some were displaced from villages around Bint Jbeil. They were trapped there in two buildings, one of which was a government school. I could not imagine what they were living. As the Al-Jazeera showed footage from around Bint Jbeil, there was a continuous soundtrack of pounding from Israeli tanks. I could only see them and hear that pounding. Were they huddled together? Were they laying down on the floor, their hands over their heads? How does one survive two days of continuous shelling like that? Had they any hope of fleeing?
More
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5260.shtml