Aug. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Israeli warplanes attacked 100 sites in southern Lebanon today after Hezbollah fired 210 rockets into northern Israel, the most since the conflict began three weeks ago.

As many as 8,000 Israeli soldiers were sent across the border, the Associated Press reported. The deployment followed a commando raid on Baalbeck, in eastern Lebanon, where Israel said it captured five Hezbollah fighters and killed 19. The Shiite organization responded with rocket attacks on Acre, Dir al-Assad and Kiryat Shmona. One person was killed.

Prospects for a diplomatic solution receded after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said late yesterday that Israel won't agree to stop fighting until a United Nations peacekeeping force large enough to contain Hezbollah is deployed. The UN postponed a meeting planned for tomorrow to discuss that force as the French government said the world body must first agree on truce terms.

``If we have to go deeper into Lebanon, then we'll go deeper,'' Lieutenant-General Dan Halutz, Israel's military chief of staff, told reporters in remarks broadcast from Beit Hillel, about five miles south of the Lebanese border. ``If we have to go even deeper than that, we'll also be there.''

The targets struck by Israel today included buildings it said were used by Hezbollah fighters and three long-range missile launching sites, according to the army.

Ground fighting was limited to Lebanese villages adjacent to Israel's border, an army spokeswoman said. Residents in villages near the Litani River, about 29 kilometers (18 miles) inside Lebanon, were advised to leave, the army said.

Olmert Under Pressure

Olmert is under pressure from the National Union-National Religious Party in Israel to keep pushing toward the Litani.

``Olmert has all the backing of the opposition as long as he insists on reaching the goals we have set, which are dismantling and neutralizing Hezbollah,'' Effie Eitam, an official of the party, said in a telephone interview. ``They need to complete the ground operation. It must reach the Litani.''

Three Israeli soldiers were injured today, including one seriously, in fighting near the village of Mhaibib, and two others were wounded near the border village of Ayta al-Shab, AP reported. Hezbollah's al-Manar TV described combat there as ``fierce,'' and said fighters were trying to prevent Israeli troops from taking Ayta al-Shab.

UN Talks Stalled

The UN has made little progress toward a cease-fire since U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice left Israel July 31 after failing to broker an agreement. A resolution drafted by France, which administered Lebanon from after World War I until 1944, calls for an immediate cease-fire. The U.S. has resisted that until a political framework is in place to disarm Hezbollah and bar the group from control of southern Lebanon.

Brigadier General Yohana Loker of Israel's air force indicated that Israel isn't ready to stop fighting anytime soon.

``This combat isn't over, there are still a lot of targets,'' Loker told reporters in Tel Aviv. Hezbollah's arsenal ``was built in 10 years, you couldn't expect to eliminate it in ten weeks.''

John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, said today that Hezbollah needs to decide what role it will play in Lebanon. ``If it wants to be a political party, it needs to be a real political party,'' he said in New York.

Hezbollah

Hezbollah, founded in 1982, is sponsored by Syria and Iran. It has been linked to scores of terrorist attacks on Israelis and Americans, including rocket assaults on Israeli towns, the 1983 bombings that killed 241 U.S. and 58 French soldiers in Beirut, and the 1994 attack that killed 85 people at a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.

Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's leader, has stage-managed the group's move into politics, making it a major player in ruling Lebanon by controlling seats in parliament and Cabinet posts.

Lebanon's transportation minister said today Hezbollah is fighting as part of a government-backed ``national resistance'' to Israeli military action.

``We are supporting the national resistance to make sure Israel withdraws from Lebanese territory,'' Mohammed Safadi told Sky News. ``Israel has launched a massive war. Hezbollah is fighting back, the Lebanese are fighting back. Under these circumstances we all stand together to oppose the aggressor.''

Death Toll

The conflict has so far claimed the lives of at least 570 Lebanese and 52 Israelis. Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced from their homes by Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel and Israeli air raids in Lebanon. A Lebanese police spokesman said 2,131 people have been injured.

Israeli ground troops are trying to root out Hezbollah fighters from the border strip and create an isolated zone that might be patrolled by multinational forces.

``We have no intention to occupy Lebanon,'' Air Force Brigadier General Ido Nehushtam told the Tel Aviv briefing. ``We moved out six years ago now we have to create a new reality.''

The elite Israeli unit that conducted the raid late yesterday in Baalbeck in the Bekaa Valley of eastern Lebanon, less than 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the border with Syria, seized a number of papers and computers that are being analyzed for intelligence, Nehushtam said.

He said the operation targeted the headquarters of Hezbollah located in a hospital, and also in two suburbs where fighters were hiding in houses. He said that Hezbollah used one of the hospitals wings as an office and stored ammunition in different rooms.

Thousands of people fled southern Lebanon yesterday for the north, taking advantage of a two-day lull in air strikes announced by Israel after a raid on the town of Qana killed 62 people, UN spokesman Khaled Mansour said.

The number of people displaced across Lebanon ranges from 700,000 to 900,000, or a fifth of the population, he said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Caroline Alexander in Jerusalem at calexander1@bloomberg.net; Dania Saadi in Beirut on Dsaadi2@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: August 2, 2006 15:49 EDT