ISRAEL pounded south Lebanon yesterday, sending some 400,000 refugees streaming north on the fourth day of its air and artillery blitz, and its warplanes also hit Beirut and eastern Lebanon.
Hizbullah threatened to send dozens of suicide bombers to the US and Israel, a possible development predicted by Israel's intelligence chief, Maj Gen Moshe Yaalon.
Hizbullah's al Manar television showed about 70 camouflage clad volunteers at a swearing in ceremony for suicide bombers.
Yesterday's assaults brought the casualties in the Israeli blitz - "Operation Grapes of Wrath" - so far to 30 dead and 126 wounded, all but a handful of them civilians.
Hizbullah, declaring its military capability untouched, unleashed its biggest rocket attack on Israel in three years, firing volley after volley of Katyusha rockets at towns in northern Israel. Rockets wounded a woman, raising to 41 the number of Israelis injured in attacks over the last week. Israel gave a figure of 10.
On the diplomatic front, the French Foreign Minister, Mr Herve de Charette, was heading for the Middle East to try negotiating a ceasefire, after President Chirac met the Lebanese Prime Minister, Mr Rafik al Hariri, in Paris. The Lebanese leader said he could not disarm Hizbullah and urged Israel to withdraw from the south of his country to be replaced by the Lebanese army with UN help.
Iran announced it is sending a foreign ministry delegation to Lebanon as well as humanitarian aid. The UN Security Council was to meet also today at Lebanon's request. The Arab League is to meet tomorrow.
Despite a total of 242 sorties by Israeli aircraft over a 24 hour period, Hizbullah fired several more salvoes of katyusha rockets across the border and vowed to turn northern Israel into "hell".
The White House blamed the "provocative" actions by the Hizbullah for the fighting. Lebanon's Foreign Minister, Mr Faris Bouez, replied: "We are sorry the position of the White House is an unjust and unrealistic position."
Syria, the main foreign power broker in Lebanon. warned that Washington risked losing its role as Middle East mediator. Saudi Arabia said that Israeli strikes could lead to more instability and violence and said it was standing by Lebanon in defending itself.
A Hizbullah rocket crashed into the Unifil headquarters at Naqoura in south Lebanon, damaging a workshop but causing no casualties, a UN official said.
The pro Iranian group fired rockets at the city of Safad, deeper into Israel than it has aimed before, hinting it was using a new kind of missile.
Meanwhile, Israel sought to create a 30 km wide guerrilla free zone north of the border by ordering all Lebanese south of the Litani river to leave. The new no go zone is home to at least 400,000 people, mostly Shia Muslims, who streamed north towards Beirut.
Israeli jets also bombed an electricity substation outside Beirut, causing power cuts nearby.