Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora renewed his calls for an immediate cease-fire.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora renewed his calls for an immediate cease-fire.
COMBINED DISPATCHES
JERUSALEM -- Israeli special forces clashed with Hezbollah gunmen in southern Lebanon on Wednesday as fighting between Israel and the militant Islamic group entered its second week with no sign of a diplomatic solution.
Lebanese officials reported that 55 people died there Wednesday as a result of Israeli air and artillery attacks, the highest single-day total since the fighting began. In Israel, a Hezbollah missile struck Nazareth, the childhood home of Jesus, killing two Arab-Israeli children and wounding 18 others.
Israeli troops also battled Palestinians in a Gaza refugee camp and surrounded a Palestinian Authority building in Nablus in the West Bank, where they accused militants of working on behalf of Hezbollah to create more chaos.
The Israeli incursion into southern Lebanon was a relatively rare ground confrontation in a conflict that's been fought primarily by air, artillery and rockets. Two Israeli soldiers were killed in the fighting, which took place north of the Israeli town of Avivim. There was no word on Hezbollah casualties.
Late Wednesday, the Israeli military said it dropped 23 tons of explosives on what it believed was a bunker in the Bourj al-Barajneh area of southern Beirut that was holding top Hezbollah militants. Hezbollah later issued a statement to various news media saying none of its leaders were killed in the strike.
A key goal of Israel's military campaign is to drive Hezbollah militants from southern Lebanon, where they launched last week's attack that killed eight Israeli soldiers, led to the capture of two others and sparked the past week's violence.
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan is pushing for a beefed-up international force to patrol the border. But Israeli leaders are lukewarm to the idea and demand that the frail Lebanese government take control of the border. The Bush administration so far has kept its distance from the conflict, except to support Israel's right to defend itself against terrorist attacks.
"Hezbollah is destroying Lebanon and preventing its independence," said Shimon Peres, Israel's vice prime minister, after meeting with the European Union's diplomatic liaison. "If the existing 50,000 Lebanese soldiers will not stand up against this and thus enable 7,000 Hezbollah terrorists to rule Lebanon, we will not tolerate such a situation."
Lebanese response
In Lebanon, Prime Minister Fuad Saniora renewed his calls for an immediate cease-fire.
"Lebanon deserves life," Saniora told a group of diplomats in Beirut. "What kind of life is being offered to us now?"
Lebanese officials said the death toll from Israeli attacks has now topped 300, the vast majority of them civilians.
Survival
President Bush has made the survival of the Saniora government a top priority, but the continuing Israeli operation threatened to return Lebanon to the political chaos and violence that ravaged the country during its long civil war.
Saniora pleaded for the foreign powers to back a cease-fire. "Lift the siege and quickly send humanitarian aid," he said, demanding compensation from Israel for "immeasurable loss" to infrastructure.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called his Canadian counterpart, Stephen Harper, to express regret for an airstrike that killed eight Canadian-Lebanese citizens. The attack fueled criticism that Israel is punishing innocents for the actions of a rogue military group over which they have no control.
Israel refused to rule out a full-scale invasion.
"There is a possibility -- all our options are open. At the moment, it's a very limited, specific incursion but all options remain open," Capt. Jacob Dallal, an Israeli army spokesman, told The Associated Press.
He said Israel had hit "1,000 targets in the last 8 days -- 20 percent (of them were) missile launching sites, control and command centers, missiles and so forth."
Israel said its airstrikes had destroyed "about 50 percent" of Hezbollah's arsenal. "It will take us time to destroy what is left," Brig. Gen. Alon Friedman, a senior army commander, told Israeli Army Radio.
Spain, France and Italy on Wednesday urged prompt action to end the fighting, implicitly criticizing the muted response of the Bush administration to the intensity of the Israeli bombardment.
Germany and Britain, however, hewed closer to the U.S. line, saying conditions were not right for an immediate cease-fire.
In Washington, several members of Congress urged the Bush administration to change course.
"I'm calling for a cease-fire ... all parties are calling for a cease-fire," U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said during an emergency meeting called by the Arab American Institute, an advocacy group in Washington.
Looking on in Beirut, desperate Lebanese officials echoed pleas for a halt to the Israeli offensive.
"The ferocity and inhumane aggression has reached unbelievable proportions," said Sami Haddad, Lebanon's minister of economy and trade. "Things are getting worse."
Israel supporters in Congress were expected to endorse a resolution supporting Israel's military campaign and condemning Hezbollah and its allies for instigating the fight.
"Some in this building may want to insist that maybe Israel's response is disproportionate to the attacks that it has suffered," said Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., a key Republican leader. "I think the majority of the members of the House will stand up and stress Israel's historic commitment to minimizing any civilian casualties, and, at the same time, be able to defend itself and its population."