Lebanon-Syria link cut

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Israel and Hezbollah fought bloody ground battles and exchanged fierce air and missile strikes Friday — including bombing raids that severed Lebanon's last major supply link with Syria and the outside world, and the guerrillas' deepest rocket attack inside Israel to date.

Loud explosions resounded in Beirut early today as Israeli warplanes renewed their onslaught, carrying out several strikes on southern suburbs, local media said. Israeli helicopters, meanwhile, attacked suspected Hezbollah positions in the southern city of Tyre, according to residents.

Also, after days of desultory diplomacy, Washington said it was near agreement with France on a U.N. cease-fire resolution, possibly by early next week. But Israel and Hezbollah showed no signs of holding their fire.

In other developments Friday and early today:

• Israeli military officials said Friday they completed the first phase of the offensive, securing a 4-mile buffer zone in south Lebanon, though pockets of Hezbollah resistance remained.

Defense Minister Amir Peretz told top army officers to begin preparing for a push to the Litani, about 20 miles north of the border — a move that would require Cabinet approval.

• Israeli airstrikes destroyed four key bridges after dawn, severing Beirut's final major connection to Syria and raising the threat of severe shortages of food, gasoline and medicines within days. The attack in the Christian heartland just north of Beirut killed four civilians and a Lebanese soldier.

"The war has come to us," said Pierre Hakayem, 39, a builder who lives near the first of the destroyed bridges. "Why? There's no Hezbollah here."

Israel said it targeted the bridges to stop the flow of weapons to Hezbollah from Iran through Syria. Those weapons include not only missiles but sophisticated anti-tank missiles said to be responsible for most of the 44 Israeli soldiers killed in more than three weeks of fighting.

Aid workers said the destroyed highway was a vital conduit for much-needed food and supplies, with Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Program calling it Lebanon's "umbilical cord."

"Beirut is pretty much cut off," said Nabil el Jisr, the coordinator for the Lebanese government's High Relief Commission.

With all major north-south arteries now in ruins, Lebanon essentially is cleaved into three separate chunks, each targeted by airstrikes and struggling to provide for thousands of displaced families.