Israel resumes airstrikes
Israeli defence minister lays out plans for larger offensive
Jul. 31, 2006. 08:49 AM
THOMAS WAGNER AND KATHY GANNON
ASSOCIATED PRESS
JERUSALEM - The Israeli air force carried out strikes Monday in southern Lebanon despite an agreement to halt raids for 48 hours after nearly 60 Lebanese civilians were killed in an Israeli bombing, the army said.
The airstrikes near the village of Taibe were meant to protect ground forces operating in the area and were not targeting anyone or anything specific, the army said.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah guerrillas attacked an Israeli tank in southern Lebanon, wounding three soldiers, the military said. The attack occurred near the villages of Kila and Taibe on border, where Israeli ground forces have been fighting Hezbollah guerrillas for nearly two weeks.
Israel Radio also reported that Hezbollah rockets hit the northern town of Kiryat Shemona. No casualties were reported in the rocket attacks, the radio said.
Hours before the fighting started up again, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged the U.N. Security Council to arrange for a cease-fire agreement by week's end that would include the formation of an international force to help Lebanese forces control southern Lebanon.
But Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz made clear in a speech to parliament that Israel would not agree to an immediate cease-fire and had plans to expand its operation in Lebanon.
"It's forbidden to agree to an immediate cease-fire," Peretz told parliament, as several Arab legislators heckled him and demanded an immediate halt to the offensive. "Israel will expand and strengthen its activities against the Hezbollah.''
Israel's top ministers were to discuss expanding the army's ground operation at a meeting later Monday, while thousands of reserve soldiers trained for the possibility that they will be sent into Lebanon to participate in the battle, now 20 days old.
It was unclear whether the senior ministers would approve a broader ground assault at their meeting, defense officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Israel had announced the suspension of airstrikes for 48 hours starting at 2 a.m. Monday. But Hezbollah legislator Hassan Fadlallah had questioned Israel's motivation, telling Lebanese television it was just "an attempt to absorb international indignation over the Qana massacre.''
The bombing of the Lebanese village of Qana on Sunday led to demands around the world for an immediate cease-fire.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Rice over the weekend that Israel would need 10 to 14 more days to finish its offensive, and Justice Minister Haim Ramon told Army Radio on Monday that he did not think the fighting was over yet.
"I'm convinced that we won't finish this war until it's clear that Hezbollah has no more abilities to attack Israel from south Lebanon. This is what we are striving for," Ramon said.
The stunning bloodshed in Qana increased international pressure on Washington to back an immediate end to the fighting and prompted Rice to cut short her Mideast mission to return home Monday.
In a nationally televised speech before leaving Israel, Rice said she will seek international consensus for a cease-fire and a ``lasting settlement" in the conflict between Lebanon and Israel through a U.N. Security Council resolution this week.
"I am convinced that only by achieving both will the Lebanese people be able to control their country and their future, and the people of Israel finally be able to live free of attack from terrorist groups in Lebanon," Rice said.
An Israeli army spokesman left open the possibility that Israel might still hit targets to stop imminent attacks on the country, despite the airstrike suspension. He also made clear the Israelis could end the suspension depending on "operational developments'' in Lebanon.
The army said that the temporary cessation of aerial activity would allow the opening of corridors for Lebanese civilians who want to leave south Lebanon for the north and would maintain land, sea and air corridors for humanitarian assistance.
By early afternoon Monday, roads from villages into the port city of Tyre and heading north along the coast were packed with thousands of refugees in pick-up trucks and cars. With many of the main roads too shattered for use, cars took to dirt side roads, still waving white flags out their windows or covering the vehicles roofs with white sheets.
Lebanese Red Cross teams escorted by U.N. observers went to the village of Srifa to dig up more than 50 bodies believed still buried under rubble since Israeli strikes wiped out an entire neighborhood on July 19. The bodies have began decomposing, the Red Cross said.
The largest death toll from a single Israeli strike before Sunday was around a dozen, and the Qana attack, where at least 34 children and 12 women died, stunned Lebanese. Heightening the anger were memories of a 1996 Israeli artillery bombardment that hit a U.N. base in Qana, killing more than 100 Lebanese who had taken refuge there from fighting. That attack sparked an international outcry that forced a halt to an Israeli offensive.
Hezbollah vowed retaliation on its Al-Manar television, saying: ``The massacre at Qana will not go unanswered." It hit northern Israel on Sunday with 157 rockets — the highest one-day total during the offensive — with one Israeli moderately wounded and 12 others lightly hurt, medics said.
Israel apologized for the deaths and promised an investigation, but said Hezbollah had fired more than 40 rockets from Qana before the airstrike, including several from near the building that was bombed. Foreign Ministry official Gideon Meir accused Hezbollah of ``using their own civilian population as human shields.''
More than 750,000 Lebanese have fled their homes in the fighting. But many thousands more are still believed holed up in the south — many of them too afraid to flee on roads heavily hit by Israeli strikes.
The attack on Qana brought Lebanon's death toll to more than 510 and pushed American peace efforts to a crucial juncture, as fury at the United States flared in Lebanon. The Beirut government said it would no longer negotiate over a U.S. peace package without an unconditional cease-fire.
At the United Nations, the Security Council approved a statement expressing "extreme shock and distress" at the bloodshed and calling for an end to violence, stopping short of a demand for an immediate cease-fire.
In a jab at the United States, U.N. chief Kofi Annan told the council in unusually frank terms that he was "deeply dismayed'' his previous calls for a halt were ignored. "Action is needed now before many more children, women and men become casualties of a conflict over which they have no control," he said.
After news of the deaths emerged, Rice telephoned Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and said she would stay in Jerusalem to continue work on a peace package, rather than make a planned Sunday visit to Beirut. Saniora said he told her not to come.
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