Nearby, the battle raged between guerrillas and soldiers. Warplanes struck around the village of Taibeh to give ground cover after Hezbollah fighters hit a tank with an anti-tank missile. The guerrillas also fired mortars into the nearby Israeli town of Kiryat Shemona, causing no casualties.

Hezbollah announced that five of its fighters were killed in the clashes, bringing the group's acknowledged death toll to 43. Israel says dozens more fighters have died.

Israel carried out two other airstrikes. One killed a Lebanese soldier in his car outside Tyre, prompting Israel to express its regrets, saying it had believed the vehicle was carrying a senior Hezbollah official. The other strike hit the main Lebanon-Syria border crossing for the third day in a row.

Hezbollah also claimed to have hit an Israeli warship off the coast of Tyre with a rocket, the second hit it would have scored on a ship. But Israel denied any of its warships were hit Monday.

The guerrilla group did not shoot a single rocket into Israel as of early evening, a remarkable turnaround for an area that had been hit by dozens of missiles each day during the offensive.

At least 524 people have been killed in Lebanon since the fighting began, according to the Health Ministry. Fifty-one Israelis have died, including 33 soldiers and 18 civilians who died in rocket attacks.