Lebanese soldier killed by Israeli naval fire

The strike hit a military position close to Qassimiyeh bridge on the main coastal highway and came after Israel announced it was suspending air attacks on south Lebanon for 48 hours.

Israel expressed "regret" over the death, saying the strike had targeted "a car that was supposed to be carrying Hezbollah members."

"We are not targeting the Lebanese army," an army spokesman told AFP.

The Lebanese army has stood on the sidelines of Israel's 20-day-old war against Hezbollah but has still been targeted by several strikes.

On Sunday at least 52 people were killed, including 30 children, in Israeli air strikes that destroyed houses in the southern Lebanese village of Qana, police and rescue workers said.

Israel also said it carried out an air strike Monday in support of a ground operation near the southeastern Lebanese border village of Taibe, despite a promised break in the raids.

"Our aircraft are operating in the area to support ground troops," an army spokesman told AFP.

The spokesman denied the air strikes violated the suspension agreement, saying they hit "only uninhabited zones in order to prevent attacks against ground troops."

"The Taibe air raid does not contradict that announcement as we never said we would suspend all strikes completely. We said that we could continue to protect our civilians and our soldiers," he said.

An AFP count has put the total number of people killed in Lebanon at 518, including 443 civilians, since Israel launched the onslaught following the capture of two Israeli soldiers in a Hezbollah raid on the border.

But rescue workers say dozens more civilians, including a large number of children, are still buried underneath the rubble of houses destroyed in Israeli air strikes around Tyre.

Health Minister Mohammed Khalifeh said a total of 750 people have now been killed, most of them civilians, and more than 2,000 wounded in Lebanon since Israel launched its air, sea and land assault on July 12.

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