Daniel McGrory, Times correspondent in Beirut, says that today's Israeli air strikes have left cut off Lebanon's last road links with the outside world

"What was so striking about today's airstrikes was that they targeted roads north of Beirut, a Christian-dominated area that is far outside Hezbollah's territory. There is no way that these roads can be described as Hezbollah's highways.

"Seventy-one bridges across the country have now been destroyed, many across deep valleys that now cannot be crossed. The main north-south highway that connects Lebanon and Syria is impassable.

"The effect of the strikes has been completely to isolate Lebanon. There is now no land route to the north, where the bulk of the humanitarian aid was being driven into the country, and the roads are paralysed by Israel to the south. Lebanon's ports remain blockaded.

"We drove to the bombed roads north of Beirut this morning. The infrastructure is devastated. I spoke to a Red Cross official who said that until today a journey that used to take one and a half hours was taking eight hours, but now he did not see how supplies could reach Beirut and southern Lebanon at all. He was dumbfounded.

"One possible aim of the Israelis, in bombing Lebanon's Christian population, might have been to drive a wedge between them and Hezbollah, to make them angry at the group, but if that was the goal, it has backfired. Everyone we spoke to was furious: there was the feeling that rather than striking at Hezbollah, Israel has broadened its war to strike at Lebanon in general.

"And all the while, Hezbollah has already managed to fire more than 100 rockets at Israel today and seems to be able to do so with casual impunity.

"The impression you get from today's bombing raids is that Israel accepts that the conflict is not to going to last much longer and they intend to do as much damage to Lebanon as possible.

"There seems to be a determination that Lebanon cannot be left as a modern, functioning state. The transport infrastructure north of Lebanon has been set back by years today."

Times Recommends

• The Japanese Prime Minister is doomed: or is he?
• Brighton company 'involved in cyber attack'
• The art of survival: it's all in the mind