At least nine wounded in Israeli strikes in Lebanon

SIDON, Lebanon (AFP) - At least nine people were wounded overnight as Israeli forces staged a series of attacks across Lebanon, police said.

Fierce clashes between Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops continued through the night southeast of the southern Lebanese port city of Tyre in the region near the border with Israel, police added.

The area around Khiam, along the eastern part of the border, came under intense artillery bombardment by Israeli forces to cover the advance of tanks, they said.

Israeli fighter-bombers destroyed two bridges in the northern Akkar plains that link the main city in north Lebanon, Tripoli, with the Syrian border, wounding six people.

The air strike on the bridge at Halba destroyed a large number of homes, causing the civilian casualties, said a hospital worker.

A number of Lebanese Army soldiers stationed nearby were also wounded in the attacks, but none needed to be hospitalized.

The bridge in adjoining village was also destroyed.

Eight other bridges in the area have already been destroyed.

Israeli jets fired a missile on a location in the Ain el-Helweh camp that was already targetted in a similar raid on Wednesday, wounding one Palestinian.

The earlier raid, which killed two people and injured 16 others, destroyed a kindergarten run by Colonel Munir Maqdah, local chief of moderate Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah movement.

Maqdah does not live there, and it was unclear whether he had been the target.

The camp, the largest in the country and home to some 50,000 people, is located near Sidon, the main city of south Lebanon.

Two other Palestinians were wounded when Israeli attacks destroyed a filling station near the Burj el-Shemali refugee camp east of Tyre, police said.

Israeli warplanes carried out over three dozen raids in the eastern Nabatiye region, including destroying a three-story building and two structures used by Hezbollah's rescue service. Police were unable to provide any information about casualties.

Homes were also destroyed in the villages of Kfar, Tebnit and Ansar.

Israeli warplanes staged five raids near the eastern village of Baalbeck, destroying three tanker trucks, said police, who had no information about casualties.