At least 25 people, including Lebanese soldiers, were killed on Monday alone as fighter jets slammed missiles into the port of Beirut, a military base in the northern city of Tripoli, and Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold in the east.

Raids destroyed two army posts on the northern Lebanese coast, killing at least six Lebanese soldiers, and damaged the homes of Hezbollah officials in eastern Lebanon, killing 11 people in over 60 strikes on the sixth day of violence.

Four more people died in strikes south of Beirut. Several thunderous blasts echoed over the capital and black smoke rose from a blazing fuel storage depot in the Christian suburb of Dora.

Twelve Lebanese civilians were killed yesterday when an Israeli missile hit their minibus, police said, bringing the civilian toll from six days of Israeli bombardment to at least 182 dead.

The vehicle, transporting two families, came under attack in the seaside town of Rmeileh, south of Beirut, as it was racing north to the capital to flee raids in the area.

Those killed included two women and three children.

The Lebanese death toll from the Israeli bombardment launched last Wednesday following the capture of two soldiers by Hezbollah militants now totals 182 civilians and 12 soldiers.

On the Israeli side, 12 civilians and 12 soldiers have been killed in the violence on either side of the frontier.

Civilian installations, petrol stations and factories elsewhere were also hit, security sources said.

Israel's six-day-old offensive against Hezbollah following the capture of two Israeli soldiers has been primarily an aerial campaign, but government spokesman, Asaf Shariv, said the Israeli army chief of staff confirmed that ground troops had gone into Lebanon, if only briefly.

A military official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, said that a small group of Israeli troops had crossed into Lebanon overnight to attack a Hezbollah position, but then returned to Israel.

"There was a small operation in a very limited area overnight," the source said. "That is over."

Israel has been reluctant to send ground troops into southern Lebanon, an area that officials say has been heavily mined by Hezbollah and could lead to many Israeli casualties.

In the occupied West Bank, Palestinian gunmen ambushed a group of Israeli troops, killing one and wounding at least two in the old city of Nablus, witnesses and military sources said.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Security Council members will start hammering out a detailed agreement on deploying a multilateral security force to Lebanon.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the force would be essential to stop Hezbollah rocket attacks and give Israel a reason to halt its devastating strikes which have wrecked roads, bridges and power plants across Lebanon.

But Israel said it was too soon to talk of deploying the force. "We're at the stage where we want to be sure that Hezbollah is not deployed at our northern border," government spokeswoman Miri Eisin said.

Hezbollah, which captured two Israelis soldiers and killed eight others last week, is seeking the release of Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. It has not commented on international efforts to halt the fighting.

Israel is demanding the disarming of Hezbollah in line with UN Security Council resolutions -- a task that is beyond a fragile Lebanese government dependent on consensus among rival sectarian groups.

Lebanon, just emerging from three decades of Syrian tutelage, fears that any attempt to tackle Hezbollah directly would re-ignite civil war and split its army.

Hezbollah rocketed Haifa on Sunday, killing eight people in its deadliest attack on Israel, prompting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to warn of far-reaching consequences for Lebanon.

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said the rocketing of Haifa, Israel's third-biggest city, was retaliation for Israeli killing of civilians and promised more "surprises."

Israel's army later said Hezbollah rockets struck a town 50km south of the border. Hezbollah said it had also rocketed the towns of Nahariya and Acre in northern Israel.

An Israeli army spokesman said Hezbollah had fired about 20 rockets at Israel overnight, wounding several people. More than 100 rockets had crashed across the border in 24 hours, it said.

An Israeli newspaper said Israel's offensive had so far destroyed a quarter of Hezbollah's fighting capabilities.