BEIRUT, July 21: Israel mobilised thousands more troops on Friday after warning it could launch a ground invasion of Lebanon to defeat Hezbollah, despite calls for a ceasefire and predictions of humanitarian catastrophe.

Terror-stricken and exhausted residents of Lebanon’s battered south waved white scarves as they streamed to safer havens further north, with Israel issuing another warning for them to flee the frontier zone.

Lebanon said its army was ready to go into battle if Israel invaded — an action that would sharply raise the stakes in a conflict that has killed close to 350 people in Lebanon and forced over half a million to leave their homes

“The Lebanese army will resist and defend the country and prove that it is an army worthy of respect,” said Lebanese Defence Minister Elias Murr, whose forces have so far stood on the sidelines of the conflict.

Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz warned that Israel would launch a full-scale ground invasion ‘without thinking twice’ if necessary to crush Hezbollah, which has long been a thorn in the side of the Jewish state.

Israeli army spokesman Captain Yaacov Dalal said the aim of the call-up of some 3,000 reservists was to ‘clean up the border zone on the Lebanese side by limited operations aiming to destroy Hezbollah’s infrastructure’.

Mr Dalal said the operations on the ground were ‘indispensable because the air force cannot always destroy underground bunkers dug by Hezbollah, which has put in place an entire fortified network’.

He added that a major ground attack had not been ruled out.

Israeli combat jets and artillery were back in action in raids that killed four people in the eastern town of Baalbek – a Hezbollah stronghold near the site of ancient Roman temple ruins — and one in the southern port city of Tyre.

Two Israelis were also seriously wounded when rockets fired from Lebanon exploded in the northern port city of Haifa — the latest salvos in a deluge of nearly 1,000 rocket attacks since cross-border violence flared on July 12.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah issued a defiant new message that Israel’s firepower was failing to dent his movement and vowed he would only release two captured Israeli soldiers in a prisoner swap.

“All of Israel’s claims to have hit half of our missile potential and arsenal are nothing but erroneous words,” Sheikh Nasrallah said, warning of ‘more surprises’ to come. “The leadership of Hezbollah has not been touched.”

Thousands of Lebanese, in cars, trucks and minibuses, are still fleeing southern Lebanon, where Israel’s massive bombardment has left a trail of destruction and raised fears of a shortage of food and medicines.—AFP