Two air raids destroyed a major bridge on the Assi river in the Bekaa Valley early Saturday, largely cutting off the town of Hermel from the rest of the country and from neighboring Syria. There were no casualties, residents said.
In Beirut's Galerie Samaan district near the southern suburbs, an Israeli warplane fired rockets at a Cherokee jeep but the driver escaped unscathed.
In southern Lebanon, the bodies of a family of five, including three children, were found on a road near the southern port city of Tyre. Civil defense workers said they had been killed three days ago. The party decomposed corpses of three other civilians were also found in the area.
At least 445 people have been killed in Lebanon in the fighting, most of them civilians, according to a Health Ministry count Friday based on bodies taken to hospitals.
The Israeli army said Friday that its troops have killed about 200 Hizbullah fighters, but the group has reported only 35 casualties. Israel claimed early Saturday that its forces killed 26 Hizbullah fighters in border clashes on Friday.
Meanwhile, United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Saturday welcomed as a "positive step" the agreement by Hizbullah cabinet members to seek an immediate cease-fire that would include the disarming of militias.
Speaking to reporters en route to Jerusalem, Rice also praised Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora for persuading Hizbullah to agree.
Hizbullah ministers on Thursday approved a peace plan put together by the prime minister that calls for an international force and the Lebanese army to move into the south, a step that could mean the withdrawal of Hizbullah fighters from the border and eventual disarming.
However, the plan requires not only an immediate ceasefire first -- but also a prisoner exchange and an Israeli withdrawal from the Shebaa Farms that Israel seized when it occupied the Golan Heights in 1967.
