Israeli troops battle Hizbollah inside Lebanon

BEIRUT, July 20 (Reuters) Hizbollah fought fierce battles with Israeli troops on the Lebanese border today, as thousands more foreigners fled the nine-day-old war in Lebanon, including 1,000 Americans evacuated by U.S. Marines.

Al Jazeera television said three Israeli soldiers had been killed. An Israeli military source said there had been Israeli casualties but gave no details. He said one Hizbollah fighter had been killed. Israeli media reported eight soldiers wounded.

The firefight took place just inside Lebanon, near an area where Hizbollah guerrillas killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded nine inside Lebanon today.

Earlier today three Israeli soldiers were wounded, two of them seriously, in clashes in the area. The army said two Hizbollah fighters were killed in that battle.

Hizbollah said it had destroyed two Israeli tanks in house to house fighting in the village of Maroun al-Ras. The group's al-Manar television showed captured Israeli equipment, including a rifle, night-vision binoculars, grenades and a video camera.

Elite Israeli troops have launched small raids inside Lebanon in recent days to try to destroy Hizbollah positions and stop guerrillas firing rockets into the Jewish state.

ANNAN PLEA U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for an immediate end to hostilities, but said a team he had sent to the region believed a sustainable ceasefire would take time to arrange.

He told the Security Council a quick end to the fighting would allow aid workers to reach those in need and would ''give diplomacy the chance to work out a practical package of actions that would provide a lasting solution to the current crisis''.

A tiny U.S. Marine force landed in Lebanon to evacuate about 1,000 Americans stranded with thousands of other foreigners by nine days of Israeli bombardment which has killed at least 310 people and displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians.

It was the U.S. military's first return to Lebanon since it withdrew in 1984, months after a Shi'ite Muslim suicide bomber destroyed a Marine barracks killing 241 U.S. service personnel.

There was no sign Israel or Hizbollah was ready to heed the Beirut government's pleas for an immediate halt to the war, despite U.N., French and Russian backing for a ceasefire.

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