Saturday, August 5 2006 11:53 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Beirut: A day after a top Hezbollah leader threatened to launch rockets at Tel Aviv, Israeli warplanes today bombed Hezbollah strongholds in southern Beirut, Christian areas in north Lebanon and the zone near the Syrian border, killing 23 people in a strike.

The bombardment of the Lebanese capital continued for the second day and Israeli jets destroyed four bridges on the main north-south highway at the port city of Jounieh, located 20 km north of Beirut in the Christian heartland.

Four civilians and a Lebanese soldier were killed and 19 injured in air strikes on Christian areas while a Lebanese soldier died and six others were injured in the bombing of Beirut airport and nearby suburbs overnight.

Hezbollah said its men had had killed six Israeli soldiers in fighting in border villages but there was no reaction to this from the Israeli military.

At the Lebanon-Syria border, missiles hit a warehouse where farm workers were loading vegetables, killing 23 people.

The expansion of the Israeli air strikes to Christian areas, which had largely been spared so far, came a day after Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah threatened in a televised speech to fire rockets at Tel Aviv if Isreal attacked Beirut city.

"If you bombard our capital we will bombard the capital of your...Entity," he said.

Hezbollah guerrillas fired 45 rockets within half an hour into northern Israel, killing two persons. This raised the death toll in Israel to 72, including 43 soldiers.

Over the past two days, Hezbollah had fired more than 230 rockets into Israel.