BEIRUT, Aug. 3 (Xinhua) -- Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Lebanese Hezbollah threatened late Thursday that the guerrilla group would fire rockets at Tel Aviv deep inside Israel if Beirut was hit by air strikes.

    "If you strike Beirut, the Islamic Resistance will strike Tel Aviv and it is able to do so," Nasrallah said in a taped televised message.

    He stressed that "the Islamic resistance is capable of striking with the quantity and the depth that is required and at the time it is asked to do it."

    But, Nasrallah meanwhile said that Hezbollah would end rocket attacks against Israel if the Jewish state stopped attacking civilian areas in Lebanon.

    Nasrallah's remarks came as Israeli planes on Thursday dropped flyers on southern Beirut, urging civilians to leave the area in  the Lebanese capital as "bombing of the area would be extended".

    Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz on Thursday evening ordered the army to prepare for a new phase of its military offensive in southern Lebanon to push the area of its control to Lebanon's Litani River, Channel Two television reported.

    Peretz's spokesman confirmed that the army has received orders from the Defense Minister to prepare for an eventual seizure of southern Lebanon up to the Litani River.

    Earlier on Thursday, eight Israelis were killed and dozens wounded in massive rocket attacks by Hezbollah on northern Israel.

    Five were killed in Acre when a rocket landed near a house while residents stood on a balcony, while three others were also killed in rocket attacks near Ma'alot, the Jerusalem Post reported. Enditem