BEIRUT, July 19: At least 70 civilians were killed on Wednesday in unremitting Israeli bombing raids on the deadliest day of its Lebanon offensive as Prime Minister Fuad Siniora made a desperate appeal for international help.

Thousands of terrified foreigners, mainly Westerners, were being evacuated by sea from Beirut to Cyprus, fleeing a bombardment that has killed 325 and displaced half-a-million people.

Concerns mounted over the humanitarian situation, with the United Nations warning of an impending “catastrophe” as Israel’s relentless campaign to defeat the Hezbollah militants entered its eighth day.

“The country has been torn to shreds. Can the international community stand by while such callous retribution by the state of Israel is inflicted on us?,” a bitter and emotional Siniora told foreign ambassadors.

“You want to support the government of Lebanon? Let me tell you ... no government can survive on the ruins of a nation,” he said. “I hope you will not let us down. We the Lebanese want life. We have chosen life. We refuse to die.”

In the latest Hezbollah attack on the Jewish state, two Arab-Israeli children were killed and 37 people wounded when a Katyusha rocket fired from Lebanon exploded in the northern Israeli town of Nazareth.

Another two Israeli soldiers were killed and nine wounded in border clashes after ground troops went back into Lebanon to conduct “pinpoint” operations against Hezbollah. One Hezbollah militant was also killed in the shootout.

With still no sign of a ceasefire in sight, a senior Israel official vowed after a security cabinet meeting its “intensive war” against Hezbollah would go on as long the Jewish state deemed necessary.

Hezbollah retorted that its guerillas could continue to strike with “an arsenal of rockets for long months, and not just days or weeks.”

Diplomatic efforts to end the bloodshed have yet to get off the ground, with Israel’s chief ally the United States refusing to back calls for a ceasefire until Hezbollah halts its rocket attacks into northern Israel.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana were to meet in New York on Thursday with UN chief Kofi Annan, who has proposed the creation of an international force to restore calm in Lebanon.

Israel pressed on with a new wave of attacks from air and sea against southern and eastern Lebanon, killing at least 70 people, flattening houses, destroying roads and hitting trucks, police said.

Twenty-five people were killed and 26 wounded in a single village where residents said 10 houses were turned to rubble by shelling from Israeli gunboats and warplanes.

Israeli helicopters also fired rockets on a residential Christian district in Beirut, the first direct strikes in the centre of the capital, raising concerns about the evacuation operation underway at the nearby port.

Israel also continued its deadly offensive in the Gaza Strip, killing at least eight people on Wednesday, bringing to 94 the number of Palestinians dead since it launched an operation to retrieve a captive soldier and halt rocket attacks. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana called for an immediate solution to end the violence.—AFP