TONY JONES: Having bought itself more time with the help of the US in Rome, Israel is pursuing its aim of crushing Hezbollah in Lebanon but at a very high cost. Hezbollah fighters are putting up fierce resistance and Israel has suffered its worst day of casualties so far with nine soldiers killed and scores wounded. Tonight, Al Qaeda weighed into the crisis issuing a statement saying it called for a global war on Israel and its allies. No doubt that development will be high on the agenda for the US Secretary of State Condaleezza Rice who's now in Malaysia to address the ASEAN meeting there. Our foreign affairs editor Peter Cave reports from Beirut.
PETER CAVE: Israel stepped up its offensive in southern Lebanon following the failure of the international crisis conference in Rome to agree on a demand for an immediate cease-fire. As its planes and helicopters pounded targets in the south, along the Syrian border, and the Becca Valley, Israeli ground forces backed up by artillery were engaged in fierce street to street fighting in several towns and villages on the Lebanese side of the border. Israel knows that its time to crush Hezbollah and establish a security zone is limited, despite help from the United States to buy it more time. But the cost has been high, with nine soldiers killed and a score wounded in and around the town of Bint Jbeil.
MAJOR GENERAL UDI ADAM, CHIEF OF ISRAEL'S NORTHERN COMMAND: In war you have days like this and we know it.
PETER CAVE: One of the Israeli soldiers who died was Assaf Namer who migrated to Australia from Israel with his family in 1992.
ALEXANDER DOWNER, FOREIGN MINISTER: His father lives in Israel, his mother and sister live in Australia and they are on their way to Israel now. This is the first Australian we can confirm has been killed in this fighting, and it's a sad thing that this has happened.
PETER CAVE: In Paris, the family of one of the Israeli soldiers whose capture by Hezbollah sparked the Israeli attacks on Lebanon has spoken out against the war.
MALKA GOLDWASSER, MOTHER OF EHUD GOLDWASSER: We really do hope that your nation actually can do something to stop this killing, to bring peace to this part of the Middle East, because the Lebanon nation and us could live perfectly nice. We had long friendship in the past, we can do it in the future.
PETER CAVE: There's been bitter disappointment here in Beirut that the international crisis conference in Rome failed to agree on a call for an immediate cease-fire, and that the US has also blocked a Security Council resolution condemning any deliberate attack on UN personnel. One of the four UN peacekeepers killed by an Israeli air attack this week was Chinese and China's representative on the Security Council says efforts to find words acceptable to the Americans will continue.
WANG GUANGYA, CHINESE AMBASSADOR TO THE UN: We want to send a message that any attack on the peacekeepers is not acceptable, and we have to be firm on this. We need this political message.
PETER CAVE: Tonight, the politics of the Israel-Lebanon crisis became even more complex when Al Qaeda sent a message via Al Jazeera television stating it's not prepared to stand by with arms folded in the face of Israel's offensives in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. The focus of Middle East diplomacy has now moved to Malaysia where US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will be attending a meeting of ASEAN which has already condemned Israel for its apparently deliberate attack on the UN post in Lebanon and called for an immediate cease-fire. Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki is attending the meeting and although he's unlikely to meet with Dr Rice, his presence in Kuala Lumpur will put pressure on the US position. Also attending the ASEAN meeting is Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, who's gravely concerned about trying to send any kind of peacekeeping force into Lebanon at the present time.
ALEXANDER DOWNER, FOREIGN MINISTER: There's no point in sending an international peacekeeping force on a suicide mission, to go into southern Lebanon without a commitment to the withdrawal of Hezbollah and without a commitment to helping the Lebanese to get back into southern Lebanon.
PETER CAVE: Meanwhile, Australia's Defence Minister Brendan Nelson has ordered 12 Australian military personnel who were in southern Lebanon helping with the evacuation of Australian citizens to be moved back to Beirut because of the worsening security situation in the south. Peter Cave, Lateline.