July 28, 2006	Friday	Rajab 1, 1427

BEIRUT, July 27: Israel insisted on Thursday it had been given the green light from the world to press on with its deadly assault on Lebanon and called up three divisions of reservists – 15,000 soldiers — after suffering its biggest single-day military loss in the conflict.

Twelve Israeli soldiers were killed on Wednesday in pitched battles with Hezbollah in Bint Jbeil, a Lebanese town near the border with Israel.

But as its warplanes went into action again across Lebanon and fighting continued around Bint Jbeil, Israel said it would limit its ground offensives.

Ten people were killed as combat jets bombarded Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley, bringing the death toll to 417 people in Lebanon alone as the conflict entered its 16th day.

“Yesterday in Rome we in effect obtained the authorisation to continue our operations until Hezbollah is no longer present in southern Lebanon,” Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon told army radio, referring to a 15-nation conference in the Italian capital on Wednesday.

Mr Ramon said his country no longer regarded Bint Jbeil as a civilian area after ordering people to leave.

“Everyone who is still in southern Lebanon is linked to Hezbollah, we have called on all who are there to leave,” he said.

At an emergency meeting, Israel’s security cabinet decided to intensify air strikes on Lebanon and restrict its more risky ground operations to setting up a border buffer zone of a few kilometres, army radio reported.

World powers remain at odds over how to end the conflict, despite the mounting death toll and warnings that Lebanon was facing a humanitarian catastrophe, with much of its infrastructure in ruins, hundreds of thousands of thousands fleeing their homes and increasing shortages of food and medicines.

Washington infuriated Arab opinion by blocking calls at the Rome meeting for an immediate ceasefire.—AFP