"Time is running out," noted Housing Minister Meir Sheetrit, a non-voting member of the inner Political-Security Cabinet. The U.N. Security Council is due to meet at the end of the week and it "could take all sorts of decisions. We want to be then... closest to the goals we have set ourselves," Sheetrit said.

Hostilities began three weeks ago when Hezbollah crossed the United Nations delineated border, kidnapped two soldiers, killed eight and shelled neighboring communities. Israel launched a massive counter-strike for "direction change" in southern Lebanon, from where Hezbollah launches sporadic attacks that end after short skirmishes.

Israel launched more than 6,000 sorties, destroyed Hezbollah's compound in Beirut, pounded roads, bridges, rocket launchers and stores. When that failed to stop the Shiite militants' rocketing of Israel, ground forces crossed the border for limited mopping up operations.

But the ground forces have operated slowly. Last week's battles were in Maroun e-Ras, on a plateau that overlooks part of northern Israel and is on the way to the town of Bint Jbail, itself of symbolic importance since it was where Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Narsallah described Israel as a flimsy spider web.

The fighting was heavy in Bint Jbail; dozens of Hezbollah guerrillas were killed and destruction was heavy. Eight soldiers were killed in the operation Israelis pointedly called, "Steel web."

All along Prime Minister Ehud Olmert gave the army a feeling it had time and could move slowly and carefully.

The United States has been standing beside Israel in demanding fundamental, long lasting changes in Lebanon to restore the government's sovereignty and dismantle militias, including Hezbollah. That was the Group of Eight's position, and a meeting of leading foreign ministers in Rome to discuss the situation reinforced the Israelis' feeling they had time.

Olmert Saturday told U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that Israel needed 10 to 14 days to complete its operation.

That seemed to change Sunday when the air force bombed a building in Qana, southeast of Tyre, and reportedly killed some 60 people including 34 children. The head of Israel's Operations Directorate, Maj. Gen. Gadi Eisenkott, said Qana is in a war zone and that Hezbollah had fired 150 rockets from there. Hezbollah's headquarters and rocket depots were there, he said, and Israel had dropped leaflets warning residents to leave and did not know civilians had taken shelter there.

The air force produced footage showing rocket launchings and said that was from a site near the bombed house. However TV pictures of dead children being pulled out of the debris were more powerful and international pressure for a cease-fire mounted.

Under that pressure Israel accepted a 48-hour limitation of its air strikes in Lebanon. That enabled tens of thousands of frightened Lebanese to leave the battle zones.

Nevertheless it was clear a diplomatic process was underway.

Israel realized that a cease-fire while Hezbollah is still on its feet, firing 100 to 150 rockets a day into Israel, means Nasrallah would claim victory. Never mind the damage he suffered. He would claim he managed to stand up to the mighty Israeli army. As it is, he boasts of having forced some two million Israelis into shelters.

A cease-fire under these circumstances might weaken one of the key elements in Israel's defense doctrine: deterrence.

"The coming days will determine... also the chances that in the future a terrorist organization would dare hit the Israeli hinterland.

"If an immediate cease-fire is announced, the extremists will raise their heads again. Then, within a few months, we shall find ourselves in a similar situation," Defense Minister Amir Peretz Monday told the Knesset.

Israel wants the Lebanese government to extend its sovereignty down to the border, deploy its army there and disarm Hezbollah. However it realized that the Lebanese army is too weak to take on the Muslim-Shiite militia that, for example, has more missiles than many armies.

Part of the solution being crafted in various capitals provides for dispatching a multi-national force to Lebanon.

Israel wants it to comprise 10,000 to 20,000 combat troops capable of enforcing order in southern Lebanon and controlling border crossings from Syria to prevent Damascus and Tehran from reaming Hezbollah.

Hezbollah opposes a force that would be more than the weak United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon that is just an observer. Its stance is that every government planning to contribute troops to the multi-national force is bound to take into account that in 1982 U.S. Marines and French troops left Beirut after Hezbollah truck bombs killed hundreds of them.

So Israel's goal in its current push seems two-fold, at least: One is to create a "Special Security Zone" along the border. It should be one to two kilometers wide depending on the topography, Eisenkott told United Press International. The idea is not to have a "permanent Israeli presence there" but to control the area by observation systems and fire, he said.

Sixty D-9 bulldozers are operating along the border, knocking down Hezbollah positions and facilities. Peretz seeks to change the landscape so that Hezbollah will no longer be able to open flat trajectory fire into Israel, and the army hopes to complete these activities by Thursday.

That, however, does not resolve the problems of Hezbollah's buildup farther inland where it has thousands of short-range rockets.

"We found rockets and missiles in residential homes. Sometimes special rooms were built to conceal them," Peretz told the Knesset. "We located launchers of Katyushas that were fired from mosque and church yards, schools and... yards of houses... We found terrorists and fighting equipment in every village," he added.

Israelis do not believe a foreign government would willingly risk its soldiers' lives in Lebanon. Hence, said Sheetrit, "the cleaner" the area will be the easier it would be to persuade governments to contribute troops to that force.

Peretz Tuesday told soldiers near the Lebanese border the operation is designed to create conditions, "that would enable the multi-national force to impose a new situation. We're not ready that Hezbollah would continue to move around southern Lebanon."

This means also weakening Hezbollah to a point where it might accept foreign forces. That point hasn't been reached yet, even though Eisenkott estimated that 200 to 300 Hezbollah men had been killed. Olmert said Israel destroyed Hezbollah's command and control systems, headquarters, and infrastructures and damaged its bases and facilities in Beirut, Baalbeck and elsewhere.

However, the job is not done yet and after midnight the Political-Security Cabinet approved sending more troops into Lebanon. Over the weekend the Israeli army called up several brigades out of the three divisions it was authorized to mobilize.

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