Israeli warplanes have renewed their attacks on targets in southern Lebanon, killing at least one person and wounding four others. The Israeli jets fired missiles at a building near the southern market town of Nabatiyeh on Friday morning, Lebanese officials said.
The building housed a construction company owned by a Hezbollah activist, they said.
Hussam Abu Shamet, a Jordanian in a nearby house, was killed in the attack by missile shrapnel.
Earlier on Friday, a deserted four-story building near the town was also destroyed.
Israel also staged four bombing raids which damaged roads in southeastern Lebanon, the officials said.
The Israeli military offensive began after Hezbollah fighters captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid in early July.
On Thursday, Lebanon's health minister estimated that as many as 600 civilians have been killed so far.
Nine Israeli missiles hit Meidoun, a Hezbollah controlled region that leads from the eastern Bekaa Valley into southern Lebanon late on Thursday, security officials said. The area could not be reached to determine the target or casualties, they added.
Israeli Radio reported that 130 targets in Lebanon were hit on Thursday and early Friday, including a Hezbollah base in the Bekaa Valley where long-range rockets were stored.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would return to the Middle East this weekend if needed, US officials have said.
No final decision had been made on Rice returning to the region but two US negotiators who stayed behind when she visited Beirut and Jerusalem earlier this week were working hard on "political elements" of a deal, said a senior US official.
"Based on their progress, (Rice) will decide whether or not it is time for her to return to the region," said the official, declining to be identified.
Agencies
Publication time: 28 July 2006, 10:50
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