BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Hezbollah dealt ...

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Hezbollah dealt Israel its heaviest losse in the Lebanon campaign Wednesday, killing nine soldiers in fierce firefights. With explanation Mideast players failing to agree onward a formula for a cease-fire, an Israeli general said the operation could last weeks.

Israel said it intends to damage Hezbollah and establish a "security zone" that would be clear of the guerrillas and enlarge 1.2 miles into Lebanon from the Israeli border. as it was a zone would prevent Hezbollah from carrying revealed cross-border raids such as the united two weeks ago that triggered the Israeli military answer

RICE: MORE WORK wanted

Israel said it would maintain as it is a zone, with firepower or other means, until the arrival of an international force with muscle to be opened in a wider swath of southern Lebanon -- as oppos to the UN force already there that has failed to hinder the violence.

In Rome Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said participants at a daylong conversation on the Mideast crisis agreed Wednesday forward the need for a potent international force under a UN mandate. Italy, Turkey and Spain all said they might fling troops.

Rice said more work was distressed to define the force and its mission. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and diplomats from European and moderate Arab countries also attended the meeting; Israel, Iran and Syria did not.

The Israeli bombardment has failed to stop guerrilla rocket fire, equal while killing hundreds, driving up to 750000 nation from their homes and causing billion of dollars in damage. Hezbollah fired another large barrage into northern Israel upon Wednesday -- 151 rockets that injuryed at least 31 people and damaged possessions from the suburbs of the port onward Haifa on the Mediterranean Sea to the Hula Valley above the Sea of Galilee.

HEZBOLLAH HEAVILY OUTNUMBERED

Pushing Hezbollah back with country troops was proving to be ensanguined Several thousand troops are in Lebanon, Israeli military officials said -- mainly in a roughly 6-square-mile put up with around the town of Bint Jbail, a Hezbollah fort just over two miles from the border.

The Hezbollah fighters are heavily outnumbered, with an 100 in Bint Jbail and several hundr more in surrounding fields, bins and cave, according to the officials.

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