Hezbollah OKs cease-fire

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Islamic militant group Hezbollah, grudgingly joined Lebanon's government in accepting a new U.N. cease-fire resolution but vowed to keep fighting until Israeli troops leave Lebanon and hand over territory to a muscular U.N. peacekeeping force intended to separate the antagonists.

Israel also signaled its intention to approve the plan, at a Cabinet meeting today, and a senior official predicted fighting would stop Monday morning, but there was no slowing in the bloodshed.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced early today that a cease-fire would take effect at 8 a.m. Beirut time Monday (1 a.m. EDT), saying both Israeli and Lebanese leaders agreed to the start time. In his statement, Annan called for an immediate halt to the fighting.

Israel was determined to batter Hezbollah until the end, while the guerrillas seemed to be fighting as fiercely as ever after a month of intense Israeli air, artillery and ground assaults.

More Israeli tanks and soldiers surged into southern Lebanon on Saturday, reaching the Litani River and engaging in some of the heaviest ground combat of the monthlong war just hours after the U.N. Security Council adopted the cease-fire plan.

Israel said 11 of its soldiers were killed and more than 70 wounded in an expanded offensive that tripled Israeli troop strength in southern Lebanon to 30,000. Israel Radio reported 100 troops wounded, which if confirmed would be the Jewish state's highest one-day injury toll of the fighting.

Israel confirmed that guerrillas shot down a helicopter in the south and there were injuries. Hezbollah said a battle raged for hours as Israel attempted to retrieve those on board. Hezbollah claimed to destroy 21 tanks.

Israel said it killed more than 40 Hezbollah fighters. Hezbollah issued a statement saying three of its fighters had been killed but gave no date.

Nineteen Lebanese civilians died from Israeli airstrikes, while Hezollah rockets wounded eight people in northern Israel. The 32-day struggle has claimed nearly 900 lives — including at least 763 in Lebanon and 130 in Israel.

The big expansion of Israel troop strength prompted Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, to declare the fight far from finished and likely to get worse.

"We must not make a mistake, not in the resistance, the government or the people, and believe that the war has ended. The war has not ended," he said.