Hezbollah guerrillas killed up to 13 Israeli soldiers in fighting in Lebanon on Wednesday and world diplomats met in Rome but stopped short of calling for an immediate end to the 15-day-old war.
Foreign ministers at the crisis conference pledged to work urgently for a ”lasting, permanent and sustainable” ceasefire, but did not call for the fighting to stop immediately as Lebanon and its Arab allies had demanded.
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had insisted that no truce could be sought until conditions were right.
”We have to have a plan that will actually create conditions in which we can have a ceasefire that will be sustainable,” Rice told a closing news conference.
The US has backed Israeli demands for Hezbollah to pull back from the border and ultimately disarm.
In the latest fighting, Lebanese security sources said guerrillas ambushed an Israeli force advancing on the town of Bint Jbeil, 4km from the frontier.
Hezbollah sources said the Israeli force was cut off and most of its vehicles were destroyed. ”Our men can hear the screams of their wounded calling for help,” one source said.
Al Jazeera television said 13 soldiers had been killed. If confirmed, the toll would be the Israeli army’s worst one-day loss since it launched its Lebanon offensive two weeks ago.
In Rome, the ministers agreed a United Nations-mandated international force was needed to secure the Israel-Lebanon border.
They urged Israel to exercise ”utmost restraint” in its assault on Lebanon, launched after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12.
Gaza offensive
In the Gaza Strip, scene of another Israeli offensive, Israeli forces killed 16 Palestinians, including nine militants, a three-year-old girl and a handicapped man, in fighting across the territory.
Israel has killed 133 Palestinians in a month-long campaign to recover a captured soldier and stop rocket fire from Gaza.
Its war against Hezbollah has killed at least 418 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians. At least 42 Israelis have also died.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said it is important to include Iran and Syria to reach an agreement to end fighting in Lebanon. Rice has blamed the two countries, Hezbollah’s main allies, for stoking the conflict.
Israel, Iran and Syria were not invited to the Rome talks.
Hezbollah vowed not to accept ”humiliating” truce terms and to take its rocket strikes deeper into Israel.
Hours later, more than 125 missiles hit the port of Haifa and other parts of northern Israel, wounding dozens of people.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert strove to limit diplomatic damage from the killing of four UN observers in an air strike on their post in south Lebanon on Tuesday, telling Annan he was sorry at the deaths, but expressing shock at the UN chief’s suggestion the attack was deliberate.
China condemned the air raid, in which a Chinese observer was killed. The others were from Finland, Austria and Canada.
An Irish army officer in south Lebanon had warned Israel six times that air strikes threatened the lives of UN observers before Tuesday’s deaths, Ireland’s Foreign Ministry said.
Buildling flattened
UN officials said the raid flattened the building housing the observers. Initial UN assessments suggested Israel had used precision-guided munitions, diplomats in Jerusalem said.
Israeli bombing has forced an estimated 750 000 people to flee their homes. Many are still trapped in war zones.
”We lived in horror. Everybody was screaming, crying and praying not to die,” said Latifah Shehadeh after she fled with her two children from Aitaroun village to Sidon.
The first UN aid convoy left Beirut for the southern port of Tyre. The 10 trucks were carrying 90 tons of supplies, including enough medicine for 50 000 people for three months.
Three Jordanian military planes landed at Beirut airport carrying relief supplies. They were the first jets to land at the airport since Israeli planes bombed runways on July 13.
It was not clear if they would be able to evacuate badly wounded people as originally envisaged, airport sources said.
Israel, with tacit US approval, has said it will press on with its assault. It also plans to enforce a narrow no-go zone reaching 2km into south Lebanon with air strikes and artillery fire until international forces are deployed. — Reuters