BEIRUT (AP) -- Israel poured up to 10,000 armoured troops into southern Lebanon yesterday and sent commando forces deep into the eastern Bekaa Valley where they raided a Hezbollah-run hospital and captured guerrillas during pitched battles, a major escalation of the three-week-old war.

Hezbollah's rocket attacks into Israel, meanwhile, diminished. Hezbollah fired just 10 rockets across the border yesterday, well below an average of about 100 a day since fighting began.

Early today, Hezbollah's chief spokesman Hussein Rahal said Israeli troops landed near the Hezbollah-run Dar al-Hikma Hospital in Baalbek, about 15 kilometres from Lebanon's border with Syria.