TYRE, Lebanon, 29 July 2006 — Israeli warplanes and artillery intensified their attacks yesterday, hitting Hezbollah positions and crushing houses in southern Lebanon, killing up to 12 people, officials said. Hezbollah said it launched an assault on troops in a small border village seized by Israeli forces last weekend.

The United Nations decided to pull 50 unarmed observers out of their posts along the border and move them in with lightly armed peacekeepers for their protection. One strike yesterday hit a convoy evacuating trapped residents from a village, lightly wounding a journalist and his driver.

Hezbollah announced it used a new rocket, the Khaibar-1 to strike at the Israeli town of Afula, its deepest yet into Israel. Five rockets hit outside the town but caused no injuries, Israeli police said.

In the 17th day of warfare, diplomatic efforts to end the crisis were emerging on several fronts as allies pressed Washington to speed up efforts to secure a cease-fire.

Israel said its warplanes hit 130 targets in Lebanon on Thursday and early yesterday, including a Hezbollah base in the Bekaa Valley, where long-range rockets were stored and 57 Hezbollah structures, six missile launching sites and six communication facilities.

The bombardment — along with artillery pounding the south — was often hitting in populated areas and causing casualties

An airstrike flattened a house in the village of Hadatha, and six people inside were believed dead or wounded, the state news agency reported. Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV said all six were dead.

Missiles fired by Israeli jets also destroyed three buildings in the village of Kfar Jouz near the market town of Nabatiyeh. A Jordanian was killed along with a Lebanese couple who died when their shelter collapsed on them from the blast, Lebanese security officials said.

The raid apparently targeted an apartment belonging to a Hezbollah activist.

Nine people — including children — were wounded in the blast, and the toll from the strike could rise. Civil defense teams were struggling in Kfar Jouz to rescue some people believed buried under the rubble of one of the buildings, a three-story structure, witnesses said. Three women were killed in strikes on their homes in southern villages of Talouseh, Sheitiyeh and Bazouriyeh, the hometown of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, security officials said.

Israeli artillery also fired more than 40 shells at the village of Arnoun just outside Nabatiyeh, next to the strategic Crusader’s Beaufort Castle, which has a commanding view of the border area, witnesses said.

At least 443 people have been killed in Lebanon since fighting broke out between Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters, most of them Lebanese civilians, according to security officials. But Lebanon’s health minister estimated Thursday that as many as 600 Lebanese civilians have been killed so far in the offensive. Thirty-three Israeli soldiers have died in the fighting and 19 civilians were killed in Hezbollah’s unyielding rocket attacks on Israel’s northern towns, the army said.

The army said yesterday that Israeli troops have killed about 200 Hezbollah members since fighting began more than two weeks ago. Hezbollah has reported only 35 casualties.

Israel launched its offensive in Lebanon on July 12, after Hezbollah overran the border, killed three Israeli soldiers on patrol and captured two others.

Israeli troops yesterday appeared to have pulled back from some positions around Bint Jbeil, said a UNIFIL official, Richard Morczynski. He did not have details on the extent of pullback. “It looks like they have pulled out and are preparing the ground to come in again,” he said.

The town was the site of the worst Israeli casualties in a single battle of the campaign — nine soldiers killed on Wednesday.

Hezbollah said its fighters attacked Israeli troops in Maroun Al-Ras. Hezbollah said the attack inflicted casualties, but there was no immediate comment from the Israeli Army.