TYRE (Lebanon), Aug 13: At least 25 civilians and four Lebanese soldiers were killed on Sunday as Israel continued to bombard the country despite an impending ceasefire, police and rescue workers said.

Israeli troops battled Hezbollah militants near the southern port city of Tyre, after the Jewish state suffered its biggest single-day death toll of the month-old war on Saturday, losing 24 of its soldiers.

Five Israeli soldiers were killed in action in Lebanon, a military spokesman said.

“Five Israeli soldiers were killed on Sunday during combat in Lebanon and 25 others wounded, four of them seriously,” he said.

He said one officer was killed in a mortar bomb blast at Kfar Dal Naf north of the Israeli border town of Metullah.

Another officer and three soldiers were killed in the southern Lebanon village of Abu Tawill, near Aita al-Shaab.

At least 10 people were killed and 20 wounded by Israeli air strikes that hit eight buildings and a mosque in Beirut’s southern suburbs, rescue workers said.

Police said a mother, her three young children and their Sri Lankan maid were killed overnight Saturday-Sunday when Israeli bombs flattened their home in the southern village of Burj el-Shemali.

Two civilians were killed in bombardments on the village of Jebshit, in the central sector of southern Lebanon, police said.

Israeli raids killed two Palestinians and wounded seven others in the Tyre area as well as in the Ain el-Helweh refugee camp near the southern port city of Sidon, police said.

Three civilians were killed and 15 others wounded when Israeli warplanes destroyed a house and a prayer building in the village of Ali an-Nahri east of the ancient city of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon.

Two civilians were killed and six others wounded when a pick-up carrying gas canisters was hit at the entrance to Baalbek.

In the Akkar plains in northern Lebanon, Israeli fighter-bombers destroyed two bridges linking Tripoli, the main city in the north of the country, with the Syrian border, wounding six people.—AFP

Our UN correspondent adds: The fighting worsened on the eve of the planned cessation of hostilities, said the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which sustained extensive material damage but suffered no additional casualties.

On Sunday the UNIFIL reported that over the past 24 hours, fighting worsened throughout southern Lebanon. The Israeli Defence Forces “intensified shelling and aerial bombardment across the south,” while Hezbollah “fired rockets in significant numbers.”

There were five incidents of firing from the Israeli side directly inside UNIFIL positions in the areas of At Tiri, Bayt Yahun and Tibnin (3) on Saturday and this morning, and one incident of firing from the Hezbollah side directly inside a UNIFIL position in the area of Ghanduriyah on Saturday.

The impacts caused extensive damage in all the positions.