Britain dramatically broke ranks with United States President George Bush on Saturday night over the Lebanon crisis, publicly criticising Israel’s military tactics and urging America to “understand” the price being paid by ordinary Lebanese civilians.
The remarks, made in Beirut by the British Foreign Office minister, Kim Howells, were the first public criticism by this country of Israel’s military campaign, and placed it at odds with Washington’s strong support.
The Observer can also reveal that British Prime Minister Tony Blair voiced deep concern about the escalating violence during a private telephone conversation with the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, last week. But sources close to Blair said Olmert had replied that Israel faced a dire security threat from the Hezbollah militia and was determined to do everything necessary to defeat it.
Britain’s shift came as Israeli tanks and warplanes pounded targets across the border in southern Lebanon on Saturday ahead of an imminently expected ground offensive to clear out nearby Hezbollah positions, which have been firing dozens of rockets onto towns and cities inside Israel.
Downing Street sources said on Saturday night that Blair still believed Israel had every right to respond to the missile threat, and held the Shia militia responsible for provoking the crisis by abducting two Israeli soldiers and firing rockets into Israel. But they said they had no quarrel with Howells’s scathing denunciation of Israel’s military tactics.
Speaking to a BBC reporter before travelling on for talks in Israel, where he will also visit the missile-hit areas of Haifa and meet his Israeli opposite number, Howells said: “The destruction of the infrastructure, the death of so many children and so many people: these have not been surgical strikes. If they are chasing Hezbollah, then go for Hezbollah. You don’t go for the entire Lebanese nation.” The minister added: “I very much hope that the Americans understand what’s happening to Lebanon.”
Only hours earlier, Bush used his weekly radio address to place the blame for the crisis squarely on Hezbollah and its Syrian and Iranian backers. He said that his Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, who is due to leave for the Middle East today, would “make it clear that resolving the crisis demands confronting the terrorist group that launched the attacks and the nations that support it”.
Blair is scheduled to meet Bush in Washington at the start of a US visit on Friday. Senior diplomats said that it was highly unlikely there would be a major diplomatic move to restrain Israel’s planned southern Lebanon incursion at least until then.
An advance force of tanks and about 2Â 000 troops moved across the border on Saturday, although some of the soldiers later pulled back into Israel. The advance was backed by a fierce barrage of air strikes, including a half-tonne bomb dropped on a Hezbollah outpost. Israel focused much of its fire on the village of Maroun al-Ras, on the crest of a hill less than a kilometre across the border. It was swathed in a thick swirl of smoke.
Specially armour-plated D-9 bulldozers have also been brought in to level networks of foxholes and underground bunkers dug by Hezbollah.
Israel’s army chief of staff, Dan Halutz, told reporters in Tel Aviv on Friday that any military incursion would be limited in scope. “We will fight terror wherever it is, because if we do not fight it, it will fight us. If we don’t reach it, it will reach us,” he said. “We will also conduct limited ground operations as much as needed in order to harm the terror that harms us.”
Israeli Radio broadcast renewed warnings on Saturday to civilians to flee the area by 7pm local time on Saturday, but reports emerged of Lebanese casualties, including a seriously injured woman who was taken to a hospital in the northern Israeli town of Safed.
An adviser to Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz told said: “We are finally going to fight Hezbollah on the ground. The Israeli people are ready for this, and the Sunni Muslim world also expects us to fight Shia fundamentalism. We are going to deliver.”
But he added: “We have no intention of conquering and holding territory. We plan to clean a strip a mile from our border of Hizbollah bunkers and rocket-launching sites … We will go in and then we will go out.”
The Israeli air force dropped leaflets on southern Lebanon this week telling residents to leave to avoid getting harmed in the fighting. Among the hundreds of thousands of people fleeing, there were few able-bodied men of military age.
Ali Suleiman (50) from a village near the coastal city of Tyre, said his eldest son had joined Hezbollah. “When he dies I will send another son and another and another. Tell Mr Blair, Muslims are not afraid — not of bombs or ships or hunger. We get our power from God.”
Hezbollah has operated freely in the border region since Israel withdrew six years ago, and is believed to have amassed an arsenal of around 12Â 000 rockets. More than a week of air strikes have done little to prevent Hezbollah from firing rockets at areas in northern Israel, including Haifa. On Saturday more than 65 rockets fell — a dramatic increase from the previous 24 hours. Twelve Israelis were injured.
Britain’s decision to break ranks publicly with the Americans will cause deep concern in Jerusalem, and a senior Israeli diplomat was at pains on Saturday night to play down any suggestion of a rift.
He said it would be wrong to interpret Olmert’s response to Blair’s telephone call as a rebuff. “The tone was very positive. We agree on all major aspects of this crisis and are greatly appreciative of Britain’s position.”
The Israeli leader’s comments, the source said, merely reflected his “absolute determination to deal with Hezbollah and to see that the UN resolutions requiring it to be disarmed are finally carried through”. He said Olmert had insisted Israel was hitting only targets related to Hezbollah.
Senior British sources stressed that they continued to hold Hezbollah, and its Syrian and Iranian supporters, responsible for igniting the crisis. They added that both the Syrian and Iranian ambassadors to London had been called into the Foreign Office last week to drive that message home. – Guardian