A woman is carried away by a rescue worker in the battered village of Bent Jbeil in southern Lebanon yesterday. - Reuters
BEIRUT (Reuters):
Israel
rejected mounting international pressure yesterday to end its war against Hezbollah
and launched a new incursion into Lebanon, as world powers squabbled over the
urgency of a ceasefire.
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said at the end of a trip to Israel that a ceasefire could be achieved this week. But despite an international outcry over an air strike on Sunday that killed 54 civilians, most of them children, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said there would be no ceasefire for now.
"The fighting continues. There is no ceasefire and there will not be any ceasefire in the coming days," Olmert told local officials, drawing sustained applause.
A U.N. official said a meeting scheduled for today on a new peacekeeping force for Lebanon had been delayed "until there is more political clarity" on the path ahead in the 20-day-old war.
Behind-the-scenes
talk
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, whose country is a main backer of Hezbollah, said he would meet French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy in Beirut yesterday evening for talks on the crisis. Douste-Blazy said it was important to maintain contacts with Tehran to try to resolve the conflict.
Civilians fled battered villages in southern Lebanon after Israel said it had agreed partially to halt air strikes for 48 hours, and aid convoys headed into the area to deliver supplies.
Rescue workers found 49 bodies buried for days in collapsed buildings or inside destroyed vehicles, medical sources said.
The Israeli military said it had launched a new ground incursion into Lebanon in the Aita al-Shaab area. Hezbollah said its guerrillas were fiercely resisting the advance.
Besides its announcement of a partial 48-hour suspension of bombing, Israel said it was giving a 24-hour window to allow aid workers to reach the worst hit areas and residents to flee.
More
bombs
But Israeli jets bombed targets in southern Lebanon, and the United Nations said access had not improved.
"Let's be clear about this. There was fighting today in south Lebanon and there were Hezbollah rocket attacks. We don't have a cessation of hostilities and we don't have a cessation of aerial bombardments," spokesman Khaled Mansour said.
At the United Nations, U.N. emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland said Israel had given no information on the scope and timing of any pause in the bombing.
Israeli artillery shells hit two villages. An air strike on a Lebanese army vehicle killed one soldier and wounded three.
Isreali
strikes
At the main border crossing into Lebanon from Syria, Israeli drones fired at two trucks and a third truck was destroyed by a warplane, security sources said. Four Lebanese customs officials and the three drivers were wounded.
The U.S.'s Rice said a ceasefire could be forged this week. But Israel said the war was not over.
"If an immediate ceasefire is declared, the extremists will rear their heads anew," Defence Minister Amir Peretz told a heated parliamentary debate in which four Israeli Arab lawmakers were escorted out for heckling. One called Peretz a murderer.
Despite its pause in air raids from early yesterday, Israel said it may still use aerial strikes to target Hezbollah leaders and rocket launchers and back up ground operations.
