Israel launched a heavy air and artillery bombardment of south Lebanon yesterday after nine Israeli soldiers were killed in the Jewish state?s worst 24 hours for casualties in a 17-day-old conflict against Hizbollah.

Senior international diplomats failed at a Rome conference on Wednesday to agree on calling for an immediate ceasefire, and a top Israeli officer, Major-General Udi Adam, told reporters: ?I reckon (the offensive) will continue for several more weeks.?

But although Washington prevented a call for an immediate truce in the conflict, in which 433 Lebanese and 51 Israelis have died, diplomats said groundwork was laid for a possible way forward. World concern has mounted over civilian casualties.

Israeli warplanes destroyed radio masts north of Beirut yesterday and attacked three trucks carrying medical and food supplies to the east, security sources said. They said two truck drivers were killed. Israel accuses Lebanon?s eastern neighbour Syria of supplying Hizbollah guerrillas with weapons.

Other Israeli aircraft blasted targets in and around several villages and towns in the mainly Shi?ite Muslim south, and artillery batteries opened up from Israel?s side of the border. Several Hizbollah rockets landed in northern Israel but no casualties were caused, Israeli emergency services said.

Hizbollah guerrillas killed nine Israeli soldiers in pitched battles in a border town and a nearby village on Wednesday. The conflict, triggered on July 12 when Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight in a cross-border raid, has largely overshadowed separate fighting in the Gaza Strip.

Palestinians also killed

An Israeli shell killed a 75-year-old woman at her Gaza home, a day after 24 Palestinians were killed in clashes, Palestinian medics said. Israel has killed 142 Palestinians in a month-long campaign to recover a soldier captured by militants.

Foreign ministers at the Rome conference pledged to work urgently for a ?lasting, permanent and sustainable? ceasefire but did not call for an immediate truce, as Lebanon and its Arab allies had demanded. Washington stuck to its stance that the root causes of the conflict must be tackled first.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice cautioned Syria and Iran, Hizbollah?s main allies, that they faced further isolation if they failed to cooperate. She blames Tehran and Damascus for stoking the conflict. Diplomats said key elements of a political solution were identified at a private meeting between Rice, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Lebanese Prime minister Fouad Siniora.

These included a UN ceasefire resolution, a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hizbollah, an end to a territorial dispute over the Shebaa Farms occupied by Israel, moves to disarm Hizbollah and the deployment of an EU-led international peace force in southern Lebanon.