Israeli forces enter southern Lebanon

Israeli troops moved across the border into southern Lebanon on Saturday, blazing past a UN observation post and engaging Hezbollah militantsas part ofa limited ground campaign.

Backed by artillery and tank fire,Israeli troops knocked down a border fence and moved pastthe observation post beforeassuming control ofthe large village of Maroun al-Ras, Israeli military officials said.

Israeli forces also dropped a half-tonne bomb on a Hezbollah outpost, nearly 500 metres away from the border.

Israeli fighter planes fired missiles at communications and television transmission towers in the central and northern Lebanese mountains, police said.

Within seconds, the Lebanese Broadcasting Corp., the nation's leading private network, and two other TV stations went off the air. Police also reported phone links in the region were severed.

Later in the day, the Israeli military reported Hezbollahmilitants fired at one of their military bases near the Lebanese border, wounding one soldier. The attack occurred at the Nurit army base near the Israeli town of Avivim, a spokesman for the Israeli Defense Forces said.

An Israeli military radio network, Al-Mashriq, warned residents of 13 villages to flee by 4 p.m. The villages form a corridor nearlysix kilometres wide near the Litani River.

Amid the violence, a bus convoy arrived in Beirut, carryingapproximately 170 Canadiansfleeing the dangerous southern region ofLebanon, CBC-TV's correspondent in Beirut, Nahlah Ayed, reported Saturday.

Israel calls up 3,000 reservists

The Israeli air campaign, now in its 11th day, has mostly targeted Shiite Muslim regions in southern and eastern Lebanon as well as Beirut's southern suburbs. Saturday's raids were the first major air strikes in the Christian heartland of Lebanon.

Israel has twice before invaded and occupied Lebanese territory, in 1978 and 1982.

Senior Israeli military officials said the offensive will not end until Israel can force Hezbollah to retreat beyond the Litani River, which runs about 30 kilometres north of the Israeli-Lebanese border. Israel on Friday called up approximately 3,000 reservists.

The fighting has killed at least 348 people in Lebanon including at least eight Canadian civilians and 34 people in Israel, including 19 soldiers. The attacks have displaced an estimated half a million people.

Israeli forces continued Saturday to pound Hezbollah targets in Beirut, the Bekaa Valley and south Lebanon, areas that arebelieved to be the group's strongholds, while Hezbollah continued to launch rocket attacks at northern Israel.

Hezbollah continued to volley rockets across the border into northern Israel, striking 10 towns and injuring seven in the latest violence. Other rockets wandered off course and landed in empty fields, starting fires.

Air raid sirens blared in Haifa, Israel's third largest city, but no rocket strikes were reported.

Hezbollah said it has fired about 900 rockets into Israel since the start of the fighting.

McKay, Rice exchange thanks

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay spoke with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Saturday regarding the conflict in the region. MacKay's office said they exchanged thanks for the mutual support each hasoffered in the evacuation of Lebanon.

Rice on Sundaywill embark on a diplomatic mission to end fighting in the Middle East.She isalso expected at a meeting in Rome next Wednesday that will bring together Israel, Lebanon, the European Union, the United Nationsand others interested in Middle East peace.