With already thousands of Israeli troops operating in southern Lebanon, Israel's security cabinet met on Wednesday to approve expanding the country's ground offensive against the Islamic extremist group Hezbollah.

The new push is expected to take 30 days and the cabinet authorized Israeli troops to advance to the Litani River some 30 kilometers from the Lebanese-Israeli border. The government has called up around 30,000 reserve soldiers and some 10,000 are already active on Lebanese soil.

"The assessment is it will last 30 days. I think it is wrong to make this assessment. I think it will take a lot longer," Israeli Cabinet minister Eli Yishai said.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert spoke by telephone for half an hour during the meeting, Israeli officials said according to the Associated Press. Olmert told the ministers upon his return that the offensive will be accompanied by a diplomatic initiative, based on a US-French truce proposal.

Before the cabinet meeting, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier  toured the region to bolster support for the draft UN resolution meant to bring a month of fighting to an end. But Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz made clear his country could not accept a continuing threat posed by Hezbollah operating freely along Israel's northern border.

"We will not agree to a situation in which the diplomatic solution will not promise us stability and quiet for many years," Peretz told Steinmeier during their meeting according to the Associated Press.

Widening its campaign on the ground poses considerable risks for Israeli forces, but Israeli Prime Minister Olmert may see little alternative after Hezbollah has launched over 3,000 rockets over the past month, killing around 40 Israeli civilians. Several hundred Lebanese have been killed in the fighting, as Israeli air strikes have caused predominately civilian casualties.

At least one Palestinian also was killed when Lebanon's largest refugee camp was struck by Israeli gunboat shells early Wednesday, Lebanese and Palestinian officials said according to the Associated Press. But the Israeli military said the attack was an air strike targeting a house used by Hezbollah guerrillas.

The AP reported the camp is home to about 75,000 Palestinian refugees and their descendants who were displaced by the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Some 350,000 Palestinians live in refugee camps in Lebanon that have developed over the years into shanty towns. Ein el-Hilweh is the largest of Lebanon's 12 Palestinian refugee camps and is believed to be a hideout for many fugitives wanted by Lebanese authorities, and a haven for militant groups.

Israeli bombs also leveled a two-story building in the Bekka Valley town of Mashghara, east of Sidon, trapping five people from the same family under the rubble, local residents said.

Israel's no-drive zone

Israel also effectively declared a "no-drive zone" throughout southern Lebanon by threatening to attack any moving vehicles below the Litani River. The United Nations suspended attempts to send relief to southern Lebanon because of heavy shelling in the area, Christian Berthiaume of the World Food Program in Geneva, Switzerland told the Associated Press.

"The Israeli forces were warning today, saying that there shouldn't be any vehicles in the southern part of Lebanon," he said. "They had exempted humanitarian convoys (but) we decided not to go because there has been heavy shelling the last 24 hours."