Thread: Mideast battles rage ahead of cease-fire

By RAVI NESSMAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

JERUSALEM -- Israel's Cabinet became the final party to sign on to the U.N. cease-fire deal Sunday, while Israeli planes blasted Beirut and ground troops battled Hezbollah in south Lebanon seeking to batter the militant Islamic group in the hours before fighting stopped. Hezbollah hit back with its heaviest rocket barrage of the war on northern Israel.

The guns were supposed to fall silent at 8 a.m. (1 a.m. EDT) Monday, according to the United Nations, ending a month of combat that has killed more than 900 people.

But implementation of the hard-won agreement already was in question Sunday night when the Lebanese Cabinet indefinitely postponed a crucial meeting dealing with plans to send 15,000 soldiers to police Hezbollah's stronghold in southern Lebanon.

Lebanese media reported that the Cabinet, which approved the cease-fire plan unanimously Saturday, was sharply divided over demands that Hezbollah surrender its weapons in the south. That disagreement was believed to have led to the cancellation of Sunday's meeting.

Lebanese leaders made no public comments.

The deployment of the Lebanese army along Israel's border, with an equal number of U.N. peacekeepers, was a cornerstone of the cease-fire resolution passed Friday by the U.N. Security Council. The forces are supposed to keep Hezbollah fighters out of an 18-mile-wide zone between the border and Lebanon's Litani River.

In the final hours before the planned start of the cease-fire, fighting escalated dramatically.

Some 30,000 Israeli soldiers fought fierce battles with guerrillas in Lebanon's south.

A day after 24 of its soldiers were killed, Israel's army said five died in the latest fighting. Hezbollah reported one of its fighters killed, but did not say when.

Israeli jets pounded a Hezbollah stronghold in south Beirut with at least 23 missiles, most coming in a two-minute period Sunday.

An Associated Press photographer who reached the area saw the body of a child being removed from the wreckage. TV pictures showed heavy damage appearing to stretch for several hundred yards in all directions in the neighborhood of medium-rise apartment buildings.

Israeli planes struck the area again late Sunday, Lebanese security officials said, but no damage was immediately reported.

Two Israeli air raids on a village in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley later killed at least seven people and wounded nearly two dozen, civil defense official Ali Shukur said.

The strikes destroyed three houses in the village of Brital, about nine miles from the Hezbollah stronghold of Baalbek, and more people were feared trapped under the rubble, he said.

Residents said one of the homes housed a Hezbollah office. A raid on the same village last week left seven people dead and wounded nearly two dozen people.

Jets also attacked gas stations in the southern port city of Tyre. The strikes killed at least 15 people, Lebanese officials said.

Hezbollah fired more than 250 rockets at northern Israel, the worst daily barrage since fighting started July 12. Missiles killed an Israeli man and wounded 53 people, rescue officials said. Cars were set afire in the northern city of Haifa, billowing black smoke into the sky.

Israeli officials appealed to residents of the north who fled the rockets not to return before the government determined the situation was safe.

As the fighting persisted, Israel's Cabinet held a stormy debate on the cease-fire, with minister Ophir Pines-Paz criticizing the government's decision to expand its ground offensive ahead of the truce. The Cabinet eventually approved the agreement 24-0, with one abstention.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the cease-fire agreement would ensure that "Hezbollah won't continue to exist as a state within a state."

In addition to authorizing the beefed-up international force in southern Lebanon, the Security Council resolution calls for the Lebanese government to be the only armed force in the country, meaning Hezbollah would have to be disarmed.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said the agreement, if implemented, "will lead to a significant change in the rules of the game in Lebanon."

"I'm not naive. ... I live in the Middle East, and I know that sometimes not every decision is implemented. I'm aware of the difficulties. Yet with this I say with full confidence that the Security Council decision is good for Israel," she said.

Officials said Israeli troops would begin leaving southern Lebanon as soon as the Lebanese army and the international force started to deploy in the area.

The Lebanese government approved the U.N. plan Saturday, and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah signaled acceptance. But Hezbollah has resisted previous calls to disarm and its refusal to follow through this time would threaten the deal.

The fighting erupted July 12 when Hezbollah guerrillas attacked an army patrol inside Israel, killing three soldiers and capturing two others. Five more Israelis were killed later in the day trying to rescue their comrades.

Israel then launched an air and ground offensive, and 4 1/2 weeks of combat has killed at least 789 people in Lebanon - mostly civilians- and 152 Israelis, including 113 soldiers.

Among the dead soldiers this weekend was Staff Sgt. Uri Grossman, the 20-year-old son of renowned Israeli novelist and peace activist David Grossman. He was killed by an anti-tank missile Saturday, the army said Sunday.

Livni said Israel would not stop trying to win the captured soldiers' release, but would not accept a link between their freedom and Hezbollah's demands that Israel free Lebanese prisoners.

With Israeli troops remaining in south Lebanon for the time being, the potential for more clashes after a cease-fire was high. Israel's weekend push to the Litani River meant dozens of Hezbollah fighters were caught behind Israeli lines and some of them were almost certain to attack.

Military officials said they would not sit passively if that happened.

"If we're fired upon, or if Israel's fired upon, then we'll act against the fire," said Maj. Gen. Benny Gantz, the head of Israel's ground forces. "You can't move from black to white easily - there will be a period of gray."

Nasrallah, Hezbollah's leader, said Saturday that his guerrillas would abide by the cease-fire resolution, but warned it was "our natural right" to fight any Israeli troops remaining in Lebanon.

Israeli politicians criticized the government's handling of the fighting and its claims of success. Dovish lawmaker Yossi Beilin and hawkish legislator Benny Elon both called Sunday for the creation of a commission of inquiry after the fighting ended.

While Defense Minister Amir Peretz said Israel had emerged victorious, the U.N. plan was seen by many Israelis as at best a draw with Hezbollah. Some felt Israel - unable to subdue a guerrilla force - had lost.

The deal could buy a period of calm, though many worry that more fighting is sure to come. Neither the Lebanese army nor U.N. forces can be counted on to challenge Hezbollah and prevent the Iran-supplied guerrillas from rearming, military experts and commentators said.

Amos Yadlin, head of Israel's military intelligence, told the Cabinet that the capability of the Lebanese government was unclear and Hezbollah was sure to continue to get arms from Syria and Iran, according to Israel's Channel Two TV.

"Hezbollah has been weakened but not beaten," Channel Two quoted him as telling the meeting. "The chance of a future conflict with Hezbollah is very high."

But Livni said the cease-fire should "lead in the end to the disarming of Hezbollah."

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Talk about waiting until the last minute!
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/nation...on_Israel.html

TYRE, Lebanon (CNN) -- Thousands of civilians forced from their homes by 34 days of fighting poured back into war-ravaged southern Lebanon Monday, hoping that a fragile cease-fire would not crumble.

Despite four clashes between Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the cease-fire agreement -- which went into effect at 8 a.m. local time (1 a.m. ET) -- "appears to be generally holding."

But both sides said they weren't backing down. (Watch Lebanese return to ruins -- 2:29)

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday that Israel would continue to go after Hezbollah.

"We will continue to pursue them everywhere and at all times," he said in a speech to the Knesset. "We have no intention of asking anyone's permission." (Full story)

Israel has said it will not leave southern Lebanon until international forces are in place to avoid a "vacuum."

Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said the militia would consider Israeli troops legitimate targets until they leave, The Associated Press reported.

Two Hezbollah ministers in the Lebanese Cabinet announced Sunday the organization would not disarm south of the Litani River, as called for by the U.N. cease-fire resolution, two sources told CNN.

Monday, Nasrallah declared his militia's conflict with Israel "a strategic and historic victory" for Lebanon.

Earlier, Olmert said Israel's key immediate aims were achieved, but added that the conflict "did not start yesterday, nor will it finish in the foreseeable future. It's a long, hard, arduous, complex fight."

In spite of the uncertain future, highways into southern Lebanon were packed with displaced civilians, driving through bomb craters with mattresses piled high on their cars, returning to the area which bore the brunt of the fighting over the past 34 days. (Watch tensions remain as cease-fire begins -- 1:09)

Video showed one man kissing the ground as he returned home.

Israelis were more cautious, according to AP.

Although no rockets were fired into northern Israel Monday, few Israelis who fled the war were seen returning, and Israel's government advised them to stay away for now to see whether the truce held, AP reported.

Stores that had been closed for weeks began to reopen in Haifa, Israel, and traffic lights began working again in Kiryat Shmona, the AP said, but there was no mass influx of refugees.

But in southern Lebanon some 1,200 cars had crossed the main route from Beirut to Nabatiye in just an hour, a U.N. team reported. Along the Syrian border, some 4,500 people had crossed back into Lebanon, another U.N. team said.

Some took advantage of a newly repaired bridge over the Litani River, just north of Tyre, which is also speeding up the arrival of humanitarian aid.

The Lebanese army set up checkpoints along the main roads in an effort to control traffic.

CNN's Ben Wedeman reported from Tyre that people who had spent days or weeks in cramped, uncomfortable shelters, with food and water running low, were anxious to get to their homes and find out what had happened to them.

Lebanese security sources told CNN at least 11 returning refugees, including children, had been injured by unexploded ammunition lying around towns and villages in southern Lebanon. The AP reported at least one child was killed and 15 people were wounded by ordnance that exploded as they returned to their homes

Lebanon's Interior Ministry issued a statement urging civilians to stay away from their homes until army engineers could inspect them for unexploded cluster bombs or artillery, AP reported.

And the Israel Defense Forces continued to warn residents not to travel south of the Litani "until Lebanese army and UNIFIL forces assume responsibility for the area, in accordance with U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701."

Those forces will move in once Hezbollah forces disarm or move out.

"IDF forces are still operating on a defensive basis as Hezbollah terrorists are still in the area," an IDF statement said.

Hours after the cease-fire took effect, senior military representatives from the Lebanese and Israeli armies met separately with the head of U.N. forces in southern Lebanon to discuss how to implement the agreement, according to a U.N. statement.

The meetings with UNIFIL chief Gen. Alain Pellegrini took place at a U.N. position at a southern border crossing near Ras Naqoura, Lebanon, around noon (5 a.m. ET), the U.N. said.

The U.N. statement said the talks were "open" and "fruitful."

Israel reports four incidents since cease-fire
Just hours into the cease-fire, the Israeli military reported four clashes between Hezbollah and Israeli ground forces in which four Hezbollah fighters were killed.

In one incident, Israeli forces shot an armed man who approached Israeli troops in the village of Farun, the IDF said.

Earlier, Israeli forces near the village of Hadata identified an approaching group of three Hezbollah gunmen and opened fire, hitting one, the IDF said.

There were no details on the other two incidents.

In the meantime, Israel promised to keep a tight rein on the region with military officials saying the army will continue enforcing the air and sea embargo on Lebanon.

Israel, Lebanon count their dead
Olmert said Monday that the death toll in more than a month of fighting stands at 159 Israelis, including civilians and soldiers. Earlier, IDF reported 167 deaths, including 114 military personnel and 53 civilians, and said 865 people had been wounded.

The IDF said its troops had killed more than 530 Hezbollah fighters, releasing the names of 180 of them. But Lebanon said most of the 890 people killed before Sunday's bombardments were civilians. Lebanese Internal Security Forces also reported more than 3,800 wounded, most of them civilians.

Nearly 4,000 Hezbollah rockets hit northern Israel since July 12, according to Israeli police.

Monday's cease-fire is part of a peace plan approved by the U.N. Security Council on Friday. It calls for Lebanese government troops and a U.N. peacekeeping mission to move into southern Lebanon as Israeli troops withdraw, taking control of the Israeli-Lebanese border from Hezbollah.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/...ain/index.html