Sri Lankan forces battled Tamil Tiger insurgents from three sides Monday, pushing deeper into rebel-held territory in its bid to end this island nation’s quarter-century civil war, the military said.

Sri Lanka’s separatist rebels have asked Britain and France to continue pushing for a cease-fire in the island’s civil war after the two European nations’ foreign ministers failed to secure a halt in the fighting to allow civilians to evacuate.

Sri Lankan forces shelled a makeshift hospital in the war zone Saturday, killing 64 civilians despite a pledge to stop using heavy weapons in its battle with the Tamil Tigers, a rebel-linked Web site said.

A health official says artillery shells have hit a makeshift hospital in Sri Lanka’s war zone, killing at least 64 people.

Sri Lanka’s president rejected Thursday a cease-fire appeal from France and Britain, saying his government was working to protect civilians but that his forces would not end their fight against the Tamil Tigers.

The Tamil Tigers’ political chief says the beleaguered rebel group will not surrender to advancing Sri Lankan forces and denies holding thousands of civilians as human shields.

The visiting French and British foreign ministers urged Sri Lanka to accept a cease-fire Wednesday in its war with ethnic Tamil rebels, saying it needed to act quickly to save the lives of civilians in the war zone.

Sri Lankan forces pounded rebel territory with a fierce artillery barrage Tuesday, a day after the government pledged to stop using heavy weapons to prevent civilian casualties, a rebel-linked Web site and a doctor in the region said.

The Sri Lankan military pressed ahead Tuesday with its offensive against the beleaguered Tamil Tigers, breaking through a defensive fortification and killing at least seven rebels, the military said.

Under intense international pressure to prevent further civilian deaths, the Sri Lankan government said Monday it would immediately stop airstrikes and artillery attacks in its war against the Tamil Tiger rebels.