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Israel readies more troops for Lebanon conflict
By Nayla Razzouk
AFP
BEIRUT
Petroleumworld.com 07 28 06
Israel was poised Friday to intensify its deadly offensive against Lebanon, calling up thousands more reservists after claiming it had won the green light from the world to crush Hezbollah.
But as warplanes continued to pound targets across Lebanon and battles raged for a key border town, Israel said it would limit ground offensives after nine soldiers were killed Thursday in the heaviest losses in 16 days of warfare.
At least 11 people were killed in Lebanon as warplanes bombarded Hezbollah strongholds in the south and east, bringing the death toll to 420 people in Lebanon alone as the conflict entered its 16th day.
"Yesterday in Rome we in effect obtained the authorisation to continue our operations until Hezbollah is no longer present in southern Lebanon," Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon said, referring to a 15-nation conference in the Italian capital that failed to agree on a ceasefire call.
However, Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, said Israel had misread the outcome.
"It is their interpretation and it is wrong," said the minister, who held talks in Israel Thursday and was due in Beirut Friday.
World powers remain at odds over how to end the conflict, despite the mounting death toll and warnings that Lebanon is facing a humanitarian catastrophe, with much of its infrastructure in ruins, hundreds of thousands of thousands fleeing their homes and increasing shortages of food and medicines.
Washington, Israel's closest ally, infuriated Arab opinion by blocking calls at the Rome meeting for an immediate ceasefire and instead calling for efforts to reach a "sustainable" truce.
US President George W. Bush said he was "troubled" by the destruction Israeli strikes have caused but rejected any "fake peace" that does not tackle the conflict's root causes.
The UN Security Council expressed shock over an Israeli attack on a UN observer post in Lebanon which killed four peacekeepers, but made no condemnation in its statement, due to US refusal.
"The security council is deeply shocked and distressed by the firing by the Israeli Defense Forces on a United Nations observer post in southern Lebanon on July 25," said the statement passed unanimously by the 15-nation council.
Tuesday's attack at Khiam in southern Lebanon killed unarmed military observers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland.
At an emergency meeting, Israel's security cabinet decided to intensify air strikes but restrict its more risky ground operations to setting up a border buffer zone of a few kilometres (miles) in south Lebanon.
Israel has however insisted there was no question of another occupation of its northern neighbour, with memories still raw of the quagmire that resulted from its 1982 invasion.
The cabinet also decided to call up three divisions of reservists, which could mean the deployment of as many as 30,000 more troops.
Army chief Dan Halutz said "enormous" damage had been inflicted on Hezbollah and that hundreds of fighters had been hit. Hezbollah says it has lost 30 of its men, while 51 Israelis have been killed, the majority of them soldiers.
Israel insists it will not halt its assault until two soldiers captured by Hezbollah on July 12 are freed and the militia is disarmed, but the most powerful army in the Middle East has met with bitter resistance from Shiite militants.
Fierce fighting continued as Israeli forces tightened their grip Thursday on the flashpoint border town of Bint Jbeil, Hezbollah's main military base near the border where eight soldiers were killed a day earlier. A ninth was killed in clashes in a nearby border village seized by Israel at the weekend.
The army has warned thousands of inhabitants of the border area to leave.
"Everyone who is still in south Lebanon is linked to Hezbollah," Ramon said.
Overnight Thursday Israel continued its assault with dozens of air raids in the Bekaa Valley, east of the capital. Police in the Kilya-Dalafa region said there had been no casualties.
Despite the lack of a ceasefire call at the Rome meeting, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said there had been agreement on the need for a multinational UN-mandated force for Lebanon.
She is expected to head back to the region, possibly at the weekend, after a trip to Asia.
A diplomatic source in Paris said France was to propose to its UN Security Council partners a resolution that would see the creation of a buffer zone on both sides of the border.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora had told the Rome conference that his country was being "cut to pieces" just as it was rebuilding after a devastating 15-year civil war.
And Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said Arab countries were disappointed the talks had failed to meet Arab demands for an immediate truce.
In a sign of further discord among world powers over a response to the Israeli offensive, Britain Thursday said it could protest to its arch-ally Washington after reports emerged that it had used a Scottish airport as a staging post for new arms deliveries to Israel.
In its first reaction to Israel's dual assaults on Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, Al-Qaeda's number two Ayman al-Zawahiri warned the network would carry out attacks against Israel and its US backers in revenge.
"We cannot watch these rockets raining down their fire on our brothers in Gaza and Lebanon and remain inactive and submissive," Zawahiri said in a videotape aired by Al-Jazeera.
But the bloodshed continued in Lebanon, where at least 11 people, including a Nigerian domestic worker and a gendarme, were killed. Israel said its aircraft carried out over 120 strikes against Hezbollah targets across Lebanon, including rocket launchers, command centres and ammunition depots.
Dozens more civilians, including a large number of children, are still buried underneath the rubble of houses destroyed in air strikes around Tyre, according to rescue workers.
Hezbollah launched another 40 rockets into northern Israel, damaging buildings including a factory but causing no casualties, the army said.
In a flickering sign of some relief for Lebanese trapped by Israel's air and sea blockade, aid convoys began arriving to try to offset what the UN food body warned could be a "major food crisis".
In the Gaza Strip, where Israel is engaged in another assault to retrieve a third captured serviceman, three people including a 75-year-old woman were killed by Israeli shells, medics said.
A total of 143 Palestinians have now died since Israel launched its offensive after the soldier's seizure on June 25.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said there were efforts under way "which lead us to believe that he will be released soon."
But the armed groups holding him denied Abbas's comments.
"There is nothing new concerning this file," said a spokesman for the armed wing of the ruling Hamas movement.
In Damascus, Vice President Faruq al-Shara said Syria would continue to support the right of the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples "to resist the Israeli occupation."
But Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz said Israel did not intend to open a front with archfoe Syria, which it accuses of providing Hezbollah with arms and training.
AFP 28 0317 GMT 07 06
Copyright ©2006 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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