Israel threatens to expand Lebanon ground offensive

JERUSALEM, Aug 7 (Reuters) Israel will broaden its ground offensive in Lebanon within days if diplomatic efforts to end the fighting fail to make progress, Defence Minister Amir Peretz said today.

''I gave an order that, if within the coming days the diplomatic process does not reach a (successful) conclusion, Israeli forces will carry out the operations necessary to take control of Katyusha rocket launching sites in every location,'' Peretz told a parliamentary committee in broadcast remarks.

Peretz spoke after visiting an army headquarters near the Lebanese border with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Earlier, political sources said said Peretz had urged an expanded ground push up to the Litani River, 20 km (13 miles) inside southern Lebanon, in the wake of a Hizbollah rocket barrage today that killed, 15 people in Israel.

It was Israel's highest death toll in a single day since the start of the Lebanon war nearly four weeks ago.

World powers are struggling to agree a UN resolution to end the fighting that began when Hizbollah seized two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12.

REUTERS SP KP2254