By Tom Perry, Reuters, BEIRUT (Reuters) - Ali Bajouk set off to deliver supplies to elderly relatives in the village of Aita al-Shaab thinking Israel had suspended its aerial bombardment of southern Lebanon.He was wrong. Bajouk now lies in a hospital bed in Beirut, his body, head and face wrapped in bandages to cover the burns caused by an air strike which scorched half his skin.

"We went up to Aita on the grounds there was a ceasefire," said Bajouk, 39, his mouth and eyes all that were visible beyond thick layers of bandages. "They are liars," he said.Israel had said on Sunday it would suspend air strikes on southern Lebanon for 48 hours to investigate an air strike on the village of Qana which killed 54 civilians, mainly children.There were fewer air strikes than normal on Monday and Tuesday, but warplanes still struck.

The Israeli military said it had reserved the right to strike at Hizbollah guerrillas firing rockets into Israel from their strongholds in south Lebanon. Israel also warned civilians to leave the area but residents say they are hindered by bomb damage to roads.Making the trip from the nearby village of Rmaish with friends, Bajouk was outside a shop when the missile hit.

ABC, The Lebanese Government says three weeks of Israeli bombardment has inflicted $US2 billion ($2.6 billion) of damage on Lebanon's infrastructure. As Australians in Lebanon are urged to get on board what will possibly be the last government-chartered evacuation ship from Beirut, Lebanon's Transport and Public Works Minister has detailed the damage to infrastructure which has impeded the refugees' escape.

Israel launched a bombing campaign and ground incursions into Lebanon after Hezbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12. The bombardment has cut off many roads, bridges and flyovers in the south and east of the country as well as putting the country's only international airport and ports out of action. Transport Minister Mohammed al-Safadi says it will take at least three months to bring the airport back up to full capacity. Two runways can be temporarily patched up in days but a third will take three months to fix, hampering the speed of recovery once hostilities end.

DAY 21, By HUSSEIN DAKROUB, Associated Press Writer, BEIRUT, Lebanon, Israel launched a major attack deep into Lebanon, and Hezbollah said its guerrillas were fighting Israeli commandos trapped inside a hospital in the eastern city of Baalbek early Wednesday.

The Israeli army would not comment on the operation in the ancient city, which was once a Syrian army headquarters some 80 miles north of Israel. The Web site of the Israeli daily Haaretz reported that "helicopters put down IDF (military) commandos near Baalbek," without adding details.The ferocity of the battles in Baalbek and across southern Lebanon on Tuesday, the determination of the Israelis to keep fighting and the minimal diplomatic progress toward a cease-fire all indicate the 3-week-old war is more likely to escalate than end soon.Hezbollah's chief spokesman, Hussein Rahal, told The Associated Press Israeli troops landed near Dar al-Hikma Hospital.

Four hours into the operation, fighting continued, witnesses said. By early Wednesday morning, Israeli warplanes had staged more than 10 bombing runs around the hospital as well as on hills in east and north Baalbek. The planes dropped flares over the city while heavy fighting raged around the hospital, they said."A group of Israeli commandos was brought to the hospital by a helicopter. They entered the hospital and are trapped inside as our fighters opened fire on them, and fierce fighting is still raging," Rahal said.

DAY 19, Beirut- An Israeli raid Sunday on a building sheltering civilians in a village east of Tyre killed 51 Lebanese, leading to calls for an immediate truce in the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas and causing US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to cancel a scheduled visit to Beirut.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Seniora and House Speaker Nabih Berri said after the number of casualties became known that 'there will be no negotiations with Israel until there is an immediate and unconditional ceasefire.' Seniora also later called for an emergency meeting of the United Nation Security Council to discuss an end to the violence. Sunday's death toll in the bombing at Qana was the highest in any single incident since the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas began on July 12.'Fifty-one Lebanese civilians were killed, among them 27 children, also we have 17 wounded,' a hospital source in Tyre said. The building hit Sunday was housing refugees in the village of Qana, east of Tyre. An Israeli artillery strike which hit the same village in 1996 killed 109 people and forced Israel to suspend its 'Grapes of Wrath' operation against Hezbollah. TO VIIEW THE PICTURES PLS CLICK READ MORE and also NEWS ARCHIVE for previous days.