HOSTILITIES IN THE MIDEAST: DIPLOMACY; Praising Lebanon for Backing Peace Bid, Rice Returns to Israel to Press for Cease-Fire
By STEVEN ERLANGER and HELENE COOPER; Steven Erlanger reported from Jerusalem for this article, and Helene Cooper from Doha, Qatar. Hassan M. Fattah and Jad Mouawad contributed reporting from Beirut.
Published: July 30, 2006
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice returned to Israel on Saturday evening to press for a substantive agreement that could lead to a more rapid cease-fire and the insertion of an international force along the Lebanese border with Israel.
Ms. Rice, on her way back from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, praised the Lebanese government, which includes two Hezbollah ministers, for agreeing on the outlines of a possible cease-fire package.
As she spoke of ''fairly intense'' negotiations to come with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel, there was a sense here that President Bush, after his meeting in Washington with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, had suddenly decided to give Israel a shorter period in which to hammer Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon.
Ms. Rice is working to draft a United Nations Security Council resolution that would allow for the insertion of 15,000 to 20,000 international peacekeepers along the Lebanese border with Israel and along Lebanon's border with Syria, to prevent the rearming of Hezbollah. The force would also work with the Lebanese Army to enable it to begin patrolling the border itself.
On Saturday night, Ms. Rice had dinner with Mr. Olmert, but American officials said they would not describe the discussion.
On Monday, there will be a meeting at the United Nations to discuss which nations might contribute to such a force. American officials said they might seek a Security Council resolution authorizing the force as early as Wednesday. The United States has been isolated in its refusal to call for an immediate cessation of hostilities between Israel and Lebanon, arguing that the conditions were not ripe for a sustainable cease-fire.
But the international cry for a halt to Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon has been growing, especially after Israel hit a United Nations post, killing four United Nations observers. Israel denied the accusation by Secretary General Kofi Annan that the post was deliberately hit, but with the death toll in Lebanon reported by officials there to be nearing 450 people, mostly civilians, pressure on the United States has been growing to give Mr. Olmert an earlier deadline.
After days of heavy fighting, Israel pulled thousands of ground troops out of the contested southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbail on Saturday, but continued to hit it with artillery and rockets.
Maj. Gen. Udi Adam, the head of the Israeli Northern Command, said troops are still fighting around the town. ''We didn't intend to capture Bint Jbail. The objective -- still -- is to destroy as many infrastructures and terrorists in the area as possible. Bint Jbail is pretty much in ruins.''
He said that the Israelis control the area and added, ''We have no intention of getting stuck in one spot.''
A senior Israeli official said Israeli troops had destroyed the intricate network of tunnels and underground barracks and storage facilities that Hezbollah had built around Bint Jbail.
The Israeli official, who spoke under government rules that he not be identified, described how Hezbollah fighters would move through the tunnels to emerge and fire antitank missiles at Israeli soldiers and armor. The official said Israeli forces had discovered significant intelligence material, including Hezbollah war plans, maps and communications.
The official said Saturday that the military had killed about 300 Hezbollah fighters, including some senior commanders, since fighting began more than two weeks ago. That differs greatly with Hezbollah's insistence that only a few dozen of its fighters have been killed, and appears to clash with the Lebanese government's death toll, though Israel has refused to comment on estimates of civilian deaths in Lebanon.
Officials in Israel say that 19 Israeli civilians and 33 soldiers have been killed.
Hezbollah's television station, Al Manar, broadcast a statement by the group's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, in which he threatened to continue rocket attacks against Israel and called for unity and patience from the Lebanese, saying that Israel had suffered ''serious defeat'' in its incursion in Bint Jbail and other southern Lebanese towns.
Brig. Gen. Alon Friedman, of Israel's Northern Command, told Israel Radio that Hezbollah's use of long-range Syrian rockets against Afula on Friday was evidence of its increasing distress. He said Hezbollah may be having difficulty launching its shorter-range rockets, although at least 90 hit northern Israel on Saturday, mostly in Nahariye and Maalot.
Another northern general, Brig. Gen. Ido Nehushtan, said heavy fighting was taking a toll on Hezbollah's fighters. ''We're crippling Hezbollah,'' he said. ''From the military point of view, this campaign could go on for many weeks. A sustainable peace is the crucial point.''
According to Lebanese television, the main border crossing point between Syria and Lebanon was closed Saturday evening after an airstrike near the border on the Lebanese side. The airport and all ports have been shut for more than two weeks, effectively isolating Lebanon from the outside world.
In preparation for Ms. Rice's visit, Mr. Olmert held a meeting on Saturday with Defense Minister Amir Peretz and the Israeli chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz.