Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy has said "the soil of Lebanon will burn" if Hezbollah guerrillas fire Katyusha rockets into northern Israel to retaliate for bombing raids on southern Lebanon.

Correspondents say his remarks were some of the toughest from an Israeli leader since clashes escalated in southern Lebanon.

Mr Levy appealed to Syria, the main power broker in Lebanon, to rein in Hezbollah.

"I appeal to Syria not to put the fate of peace in the hands of those who declare their intentions of torpedoing the peace," he told reporters. "I appeal to Syria to prove its intentions of peace."

Hezbollah has killed six Israeli soldiers in the past two weeks, and Israel has knocked out three Lebanese power stations.

Diplomatic pressure

France, Syria and the United States are seeking an urgent meeting of a monitoring group set up four years ago to try to avoid civilian casualties in Lebanon.

American Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, has also urged Syria to use its influence to persuade Hezbollah to end its attacks.

Placing the blame firmly on Hezbollah for starting the trouble, Mrs Albright said she had talked several times to Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara to ask him to use his influence on the guerrillas.

"What the Israelis have done is to send a very strong signal about the fact that they don't want this escalating," she said.

In Damascus, an official quoted the Syrian foreign minister as saying Israel was trying to kill a peace process that was already stalled by Mr Barak's "obstinacy".

But a Syrian official said he had agreed on the need to hold a meeting of the monitoring group within 48 hours.

The United States said it would send its Middle East envoy Dennis Ross back to the region next week.

New raids

Israeli jets carried out four raids on Hezbollah strongholds early on Wednesday, Lebanese police said.

Israeli fighter-bombers made two sorties at about 0730 local time (0530 GMT) on the hills around Zaoutar, a village on the edge of the central sector of the Israeli-occupied zone, police said, without giving any casualties figures.

A little earlier, Israeli planes fired four air-to-ground missiles at the hills of Jabal Dahr, on the border of the western sector of the zone, the police said, with Israeli artillery targetting the southern sector of the Bekaa valley.

Late on Tuesday night, Israeli Apache helicopter gunships fired three missiles at the top floor of an 11-storey building in Tyre, 25km (15 miles) north of the Israeli border.

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At least two people were wounded and taken to hospital.

Some security sources said the apartment hit was being used as a communications centre for Hezbollah, but an official for the group denied any links to the building.

Counter-attacks

That attack came several hours after Hezbollah guerrillas killed an Israeli soldier, the sixth in two weeks, and an allied militiaman in southern Lebanon.

The group vowed to continue its operations against Israeli forces in southern Lebanon.

Israel has imposed a state of emergency in towns on its northern border with Lebanon and ordered all residents to remain in bomb shelters.

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