BEIRUT, Aug 11: Strikes by Israeli warplanes across Lebanon on Friday killed 15 civilians, including 11 in an attack on a key bridge.

In Al Quds the Israeli prime minister ordered the army to be ready for expanding the month-long offensive deeper into Lebanon in case diplomacy fails at the United Nations.

Israeli tanks forces were preparing for orders to sweep into Lebanon after the wider offensive was approved.

“This decision does not exclude a diplomatic solution. On the contrary, Israel is following closely what is going on at the Security Council. But so far diplomacy has failed to produce concrete results,” a foreign ministry spokesman said.

In the attack on the bridge in Akkar plain, near the border with Syria, fighter bombers shot missiles and returned for a second strike when residents had gone onto the bridge to inspect the damage.

Fifteen people were wounded and rushed to three hospitals in Akkar after the early morning strike.

A third raid struck a village some 20kms northeast of the northern city of Tripoli.

Israeli warplanes had dropped leaflets on the northern city on Thursday warning residents that any trucks or vans travelling after 8pm would be attacked.

Israeli fighter-bombers also staged repeated attacks on Beirut’s southern suburbs, a stronghold of Hezbollah militia.

Dawn raids caused the collapse of four buildings at a major crossroads, blocking all traffic on the area’s main thoroughfare.

Two more raids struck the suburbs around midday. Television pictures showed blocks of buildings which had been flattened as a result of the raids but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

Israeli warplanes also staged new attacks on the main road leading north to Syria and the highway linking the Bekaa valley to the Beirut-Damascus highway.

The raids killed one civilian who had been driving a van on a road north of Baalbek.

In southern Lebanon, Israeli warplanes attacked the road leading from Sidon to Tyre, which has been cut off from the rest of Lebanon since Monday.

Armed drones killed two civilians on a mountain road east of Sidon, and one civilian was killed south east of Sidon.

The southern port city of Tyre was also attacked three times, and warplanes pounded several villages further to the south.

Hezbollah, whose capture of two Israeli soldiers sparked the war on July 12, fired more than 55 rockets into Israel, wounding seven people. —Agencies