An Israeli artillery unit fires across the border into southern Lebanon from a position on the frontier in northern Israel, Wednesday, July 12, 2006. Hezbollah fighters launched a raid into Israel and captured two Israeli soldiers Wednesday, triggering an Israeli assault with warplanes, gunboats and ground troops in southern Lebanon to hunt for the captives. Seven Israeli soldiers and two Lebanese were killed in the violence. -Xinhua/AFP

Israeli forces intensified their retaliatory attacks in Lebanon Thursday and brought the death toll to 55 civilians.

Israeli army is imposing a comprehensive blockade on Lebanese air, sea and land in a response to Hizbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers on Wednesday morning.

A total of 55 Lebanese civilians, including children, were killed in Israeli raids cross the country on Thursday, Hizbollah's television channel al-Manar reported.

At Thursday morning, Israeli aircraft bombed runways at Rafik Hariri International Airport, the country's only international airport, forcing flights to divert to Cyprus. Later in the day, Israeli aircraft also attacked two military airbases and gunboats fired shells at fuel tanks at Beirut airport, witnesses said.

The Hizbullah's Al-Manar television station in the group's stronghold in Beirut's southern suburb also hit by Israeli missile on Thursday, wounding six people.

Meanwhile, Israeli Planes dropped leaflets in a Beirut suburb, urging residents to stay away from Hizbollah offices, witnesses said.

In order to retaliate for Israeli "massacres", Hizbollah fired about 60 Katyusha rockets at Nahariya in northern Israel on Thursday, killing a civilian and 21 others, al-Manar reported.

Israeli security sources said two Katyusha rockets fired from Lebanon hit Israel's third largest city of Haifa Thursday evening, while Lebanese Hezbollah denied launching rockets at the city. Earlier, another rocket hit Israeli northern city of Safed. One woman was killed and 20 wounded, one of them in critical condition, the sources said.

The deterioration of the situation has begotten International concerns.

The United Nation's Security Council will hold an emergency meeting for Friday to discuss the dangerous situation at Lebanese-Israeli border area.

Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is sending a three-person team to the Middle East to try to defuse the crisis. The European Union and Russia criticized Israel's strikes in Lebanon as a dangerous escalation of the Middle East conflict. Arab foreign ministers agreed to hold an emergency meeting in Cairo on Saturday to discuss Israeli attacks in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.