Sri Lankan war planes pounded suspected Tamil Tiger targets for a third straight day on Friday after the defence ministry said the guerrillas were preparing for a major offensive.
Sri Lanka's key foreign aid donors -- the United States, European Union, Japan and Norway -- in a joint statement asked both the government and the Tamil Tigers to refrain from military action and expressed regret over the bombing of a hospital.
The quartet said a Sri Lankan military bomb attack on Thursday inside the rebel political capital of Kilinochchi had hit a house, killing five people.
"The explosion also damaged the Kilinochchi district hospital and caused patients to flee," the statement said, rejecting defence ministry claims that a pro-rebel website had doctored pictures to show that the hospital was hit.
Independent truce monitors confirmed that the hospital had been hit and that patients had fled. Sri Lankan authorities have not allowed foreign journalists access to the area, although there is no formal censorship in the country.
The defence ministry said supersonic jets hit two locations of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the eastern district of Batticaloa and the north-western district of Mannar on Friday.
"Intelligence sources confirmed the Tigers have suffered seriously due to these attacks and these bases were used to launch attacks on the security force's detachments at Mannar and Batticaloa," the ministry said.
It said in a statement that sporadic attacks took place against security forces across the embattled regions. Police said a civilian was also gunned down by suspected militants in the northern district of Vavuniya.
The ministry accused the LTTE of gearing up for a major offensive following the failure of the latest peace talks in Geneva last weekend and ahead of their leader's birthday later this month.
The ministry said the Tigers had stepped up artillery and mortar attacks against security forces since the collapse of the talks.
Government forces hit back on Thursday with air strikes against the Tigers' northern stronghold of Kilinochchi.
The LTTE said the strikes came after international backers of the peace process asked the LTTE not to initiate military action.
Both the government and the Tigers have pledged not to initiate military action. They say they have only been acting in self defence.
"LTTE political wing leader S. P. Thamilselvan said such a blatant attack in the middle of Kilinochchi city defies everything the international community has been requesting," the LTTE said in a statement.
The Tigers made no comment on the defence ministry allegation that they were preparing to launch a major offensive.
However, just before the failure of the Swiss talks, Thamilselvan said the international community must pressure Sri Lanka to restore humanitarian supplies to the Jaffna peninsula or the country would return to "real war".
The government said the LTTE had sent more of its fighters to the island's strife-ridden east during the two-day talks in Geneva.
"The situation created by the Tiger terrorists (indicates) they will launch their attack in the east prior to the birthday of their leader on the 26th," the ministry said.
Tiger chief Velupillai Prabhakaran turns 52 on November 26. His birthday coincides with the rebels' "Heroes' Week", which commemorates the 18,500-plus guerrillas killed in the three-decade-old conflict for a separate homeland for the Tamil minority in the Sinhalese-majority nation.
The first Tiger activist to be killed by security forces was shot and wounded on November 21, 1982, and died a few days later on November 27, the date that Prabhakaran delivers his annual policy statement.