The Israeli military said late yesterday that total of four soldiers were killed by Lebanese Hezbollah during fighting in the day in southern Lebanon.

Two Israeli soldiers were killed and two others wounded earlier on Thursday by Hezbollah fire in southern Lebanon, an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman told Xinhua.

During operations in the Lebanese village of Rajmin, 4 km north of the border, a Merkava tank was hit by a Hezbollah anti-tank missile, killing the two soldiers, said the spokesman.

A third died later of his wounds and the fourth was killed in clashes with Hezbollah fighters in Taibeh in the eastern sector of southern Lebanon, according to the military.

Hezbollah's anti-tank weapons, which can neutralize tank shields and destroy Israel's advanced tanks, pose one of the most complex threats to IDF troops in south Lebanon.

Meanwhile, at least eight Israeli civilains were killed and dozens wounded in massive rocket attacks by Hezbollah on northern Israel on Thursday, local media said.

Five were killed in Acre when a rocket landed near a hous ewhile residents stood on a balcony, while three others were killed in rocket attacks near Ma'alot, The Jerusalem Post reported.

Police said that some 180 rockets rained down across northern Israel on Thursday. Rockets also hit Nahariya, Kiryat Shmona, Tiberias and Golan Heights, lightly wounding some residents.

On Thursday, more Israeli troops penetrated into Lebanese territory to clear up border areas. Thousands of standing army and reservists were estimated to have been operating in southern Lebanon.

Earlier in the day, IDF reserve troops operating in southwestern Lebanon killed four Hezbollah gunmen. They also destroyed two rocket launchers and a warehouse in which rockets were stored.

Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz on Thursday evening ordered the army to prepare for a new phase of its military offensive in southern Lebanon to push the area of its control to Lebanon's Litani River, Channel Two television reported.

Peretz has asked the army to prepare for a possible push north to Lebanon's Litani River, about 30 kilometers from the border, to stop Hezbollah rocket fire, said the TV report.

But, Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Lebanese Hezbollah threatened later in the night that the guerrilla group would fire rockets at Tel Aviv deep inside Israel if Beirut was hit by air strikes.

"if you target our capital, we will target yours. If you target Beirut, we will target Tel Aviv, and Hezbollah is capable of doing so," Nasrallah said in a taped televised statement by Al Manr television.

He stressed that "the Islamic resistance is capable of striking with the quantity and the depth that is required and at the time it is asked to do it."