"We have carried out this operation to prove that we can hit everywhere in Lebanon," army chief of staff Dan Halutz told reporters in the Israeli border town of Kiryat Shmona after the raid on Baalbek, 100 kilometres (60 miles) to the north.

Minutes later, a missile fell near Beit Shean, some 60 kilometers (37 miles) south of the border, Hezbollah's deepest strike yet into Israel.

Police said at least 160 rockets had slammed into northern Israel in what was by mid-afternoon already the biggest single-day barrage from Lebanon since the Jewish state launched its offensive against Hezbollah on July 12.

At least 36 rockets struck populated areas, killing one person and wounding 19 others.

Israeli warplanes meanwhile roared back into full-scale action, destroying two bridges in northern Lebanon and killing three Lebanese soldiers in the southern port of Sidon.

Israel had called a 48-hour partial halt to air attacks after a raid on the Lebanese village of Qana on Sunday which killed 52 civilians, most of them children.

The deaths caused worldwide outrage and prompted calls for an immediate ceasefire.

But Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert dismissed the calls and on Tuesday, Israel broaded its offensive on the ground, pouring thousands of crack infantrymen, paratroopers and reserve units into southern Lebanon.

Olmert told British television on Wednesday that Israel would continue to fight Hezbollah until an international force -- "an effective force made of combat units" -- is deployed in south Lebanon.

Reflecting international disagreement about how to end the fighting, France described as premature a meeting of potential contributors to a multinational force in Lebanon scheduled for Thursday at UN headquarters in New York.

"France believes that the conditions for the force's deployment have not been met," foreign ministry spokesman Denis Simonneau said in Paris.

The meeting, which some 40 countries were expected to attend, had already been postponed from Monday to Thursday.

Justice Minister Haim Ramon told Israeli public radio that the offensive in Lebanon would last until the end of next week.

"I counsel everyone to show determination and patience and let the army finish the job," Ramon said. "At the minimum, we have until the end of next week to react and try and finish the job."

Ramon added that Israel would "not negotiate with terrorists" nor would it "release prisoners to terrorist organizations" -- apparently dismissing any suggestion that it might seek to exchange those captured in Baalbek for two soldiers taken prisoner by Hezbollah on July 12.

Chief of staff Halutz, for his part, denied that "the goal of the operation was to seize a particular Hezbollah leader."

The commando raid on Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold, was the deepest yet to place troops on the ground in Lebanese territory.

Baalbek lies in the Bekaa Valley of eastern Lebanon less than 15 kilometres (10 miles) from the border with Syria, one of the main supporters of the Shiite Muslim militia.

Police said the Israelis snatched five people in the raid, carried out within sight of three ancient Roman temples which rise dramatically from the valley floor.

Eleven civilians, one of them a Syrian, died in the attack, they said.

Syria offered to put "all its resources at Lebanon's disposal to support its heroic endurance", according to the official SANA news agency in Damascus.

The news agency said Prime Minister Mohammed Naji Otri made the offer in a telephone call to his Lebanese counterpart, Fuad Siniora.

Israeli warplanes destroyed two bridges in northern Lebanon, about five kilometres (three miles) from the border with Syria.

And police in Lebanon's southern port city of Sidon said three Lebanese army soldiers were killed when Israeli warplanes strafed a nearby military base, hours after resuming air strikes.

Further south, the head of the town council in the port of Tyre said the funerals of those killed in the Israeli raid on Qana had been postponed in the face of the renewed Israeli bombardment.

"The funerals have been postponed to a later date owing to the situation in the city," said Abdel Mohsen al-Husseini.

In Tel Aviv, an army spokeswoman said the Hezbollah fighters captured in Baalbek had been brought to Israel and that all the Israeli troops involved in the raid had returned to their base.

Hezbollah denied the claim, saying that "the citizens kidnapped in Baalbek are normal civilians."

A statement broadcast by Hezbollah's Al-Manar television said: "The Islamic Resistance announces that it has foiled an Israeli landing operation in Baalbek and denies that the enemy has captured any of its members."

A Hezbollah spokesman had earlier said that Israeli troops were surrounded after attacking Dar Al-Hikmeh hospital, which is run by the Islamic militant group, about two kilometres (one mile) southwest of Baalbek.

The spokesman said all patients had been evacuated from the hospital on July 12, when Hezbollah fighters captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid.

That operation prompted a massive Israeli offensive by air, land and sea in which more than 820 Lebanese and 50 Israelis have been killed, more than 3,000 wounded and tens of thousands forced to flee their homes, according to various sources.

Lebanese officials estimate that Israeli bombardments have caused losses of 2.5 billion dollars, with half a billion this week alone.

An Israeli government minister said 400 Hezbollah fighters had been killed in the past three weeks, a claim the militia denies.

Residents of Baalbek told AFP they saw the Israeli forces land shortly after midnight (2100 GMT Tuesday) following an intense aerial bombardment.