Israel has approved a decision to call up 30,000 reserve soldiers, while Lebanese officials raised the country's civilian death toll to 600 -- a sharp rise from the previous estimate.

Former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel has largely held back in its fight against Hezbollah, and blamed the civilian casualties on Hezbollah.

"We haven't used a fraction of a fraction of our power, simply because Hezbollah implants itself deliberately in civilian neighbourhoods," Netanyahu told CTV Newsnet.

"We could just obliterate a good chunk of Lebanon, but we haven't done that, contrary to what you see in the news reels. We haven't done that because we do care about civilians, and in fact, Hezbollah deliberately attacks civilians, and deliberately hides behind civilians."

Lebanese officials had earlier put the civilian death toll at 400. But Lebanon state radio quoted Health Minister Muhammed Jawad Khalifeh as saying between 150 and 200 people are likely buried underneath rubble.

The death toll has continued to rise since the conflict began on July 12, when Hezbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid.

Israel said it will not expand its battle with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon for now, but Netanyahu argued the reserves were called up to fight Hezbollah in "ways that are different."

"Obviously, we have to use ground troops in order to ferret them out, and we're going to do that," said Netanyahu, who is head of Israel's right-wing opposition Likud Party.

Israel pounds targets

ThE offensive continued Thursday as Israel pounded suspected Hezbollah positions across Lebanon -- a day after Israel suffered its highest one-day death toll since its military offensive began, with nine soldiers dead and 25 wounded in fighting.

Thursday's air strikes also hit an army base and a radio relay station and destroyed several roads.

But so far, after 17 days of bombardment and recent ground fighting, Hezbollah rocket attacks continue.

Netanyahu compared the conflict to the 1979 science fiction film Alien, in which parasitic creatures inhabit and kill the crew of a spaceship.

"This movie had these ferocious aliens that would implant themselves in a host, and then lurch out, burst out of the chest and attack the person next to the host. And in so doing, they would kill the host," said Netanyahu.

"Hezbollah is the alien body, Lebanon is the host, and we are the person attacked."

Israel warned Lebanese in the south on Thursday that their villages would be "totally destroyed" if missiles are fired from them.

It also told Lebanese not to use the road from Qleileh, near the Mediterranean coast, to Houlah in eastern Lebanon across the border from Israel's Kiryat Shmona.

Hezbollah has fired more than 1,400 rockets into Israel during the offensive, including 48 on Thursday.

Ahead of today's cabinet meeting, an Israeli Cabinet minister said lack of agreement on a ceasefire after an emergency summit in Rome gave Israel the green light to press deeper to wipe out Hezbollah fighters.

"We received yesterday at the Rome conference permission from the world ... to continue the operation, this war, until Hezbollah won't be located in Lebanon and until it is disarmed," Justice Minister Haim Ramon told Israel Army Radio.

"Everyone understands that a victory for Hezbollah is a victory for world terror."

Earlier, Israeli fighter jets hit a road in Rayak, several kilometres from the Lebanese-Syrian border. The attack wounded at least two soldiers and a civilian, Lebanese officials told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak to the media.

The warplanes also carried out more than 30 bombing runs in Iqlim al Tuffah, a highland region where Hezbollah is believed to have offices and bases, according to officials and witnesses.

Officials added there were a number of air strikes targeted mostly at deserted houses allegedly belonging to Hezbollah activists and roads linking villages in the region. Ambulances and civil defense crews were unable to reach the targeted areas because of intense bombardment, witnesses said.

Ramon said Israel must bomb villages before ground forces enter, suggesting that this would help prevent Israeli casualties in the future.

Asked whether entire villages should be wiped out, Ramon replied: "These places are not villages. They are military bases in which Hezbollah people are hiding and from which they are operating."

He added that Israel has given civilians in south Lebanon sufficient warning to leave the area, and those that have stayed behind should be considered Hezbollah sympathizers.

"All those now in south Lebanon are terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah," he said.

There have been a number of unconfirmed casualties in the series of raids in northern, eastern and southern Lebanon. Ambulances and civil defense crews were unable to reach the areas because of intense bombardment, witnesses said.

With files from The Associated Press