Israel battered Lebanon on Friday, killing 11 people as waves of air raids struck villages in the hills behind the southern port of Tyre and hundreds of artillery rounds crashed across the border.
Security sources said at least eight people, including a Jordanian, died in over 40 air raids in the south. Three were killed in overnight air strikes in the eastern Bekaa Valley.
Despite growing world demands for an end to Israel’s war with Hezbollah guerrillas, United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice delayed a possible return to the region.
The pounding of villages, where some civilians remain trapped, followed a decision by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s security Cabinet to intensify air strikes and ground forays against Hezbollah, rather than launching a big invasion. Rice is likely to delay her departure from Malaysia until Saturday, said a senior State Department official, dashing prospects that she would return to the Middle East on Friday.
”She will go when it is the right time,” the official said. ”She will go when it is useful.”
Her bags were packed and ready to go when the schedule was suddenly changed, suggesting that negotiations had not reached a point where her presence could produce a halt to hostilities that have killed 456 people in Lebanon and 51 Israelis.
Rice came to Kuala Lumpur after a trip to Lebanon and Israel earlier in the week and a one-day conference in Rome that stopped short of calling for the violence to stop forthwith.
Israel has taken Washington’s refusal to demand an immediate ceasefire as permission to pursue an onslaught on Lebanon aimed at crippling Hezbollah guerrillas who set off the conflict by seizing two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12. Hezbollah has kept up rocket strikes on northern Israel and fought Israeli ground incursions, especially near the southern town of Bint Jbeil, where sporadic fighting continued on Friday.
A durable solution
An Israeli military source said the army believed it had killed at least 200 Hizbollah fighters in the conflict. The Shi’ite guerrillas have acknowledged only 31 dead. Hundreds of civilians casualties and a humanitarian crisis in Lebanon have fuelled world pressure for an instant ceasefire.
Washington insists on finding a durable solution first — one that eliminates Hezbollah’s capacity to menace Israel and thereby reduces the influence of its allies Syria and Iran.
United Nations Middle East envoy Terje Roed-Larsen said it would be hard to get a ceasefire agreed without involving Iran and Syria.
Asked if a quick ceasefire was possible, he told France’s Le Figaro newspaper: ”Frankly, no. Neither Israel nor Hezbollah are displaying any sign of accepting one right now. On the contrary, both have remained very belligerent.”
Larsen said it was too early to say if Iran and Syria could join peace efforts, adding that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan had spoken to the presidents of both countries.
US President George Bush meets British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Washington later on Friday. Blair is under pressure to distance himself from his US ally and join Arab and European nations in demanding that the Lebanon war stop now.
France and European Union president Finland made clear on Thursday they wanted an immediate truce. Bush said he wanted an early end to the violence, but not a ”fake peace”.
An overwhelming majority of Israelis continue to support the war in Lebanon and say the country should be even more forthright in its actions, a newspaper poll showed on Friday.
The survey showed that 82% of all Israelis and 92% of the Jewish population felt the operation against Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon was justified.
The conflict has largely overshadowed fighting in the Gaza Strip, where Israel launched an offensive a month ago when Palestinian militants captured a soldier in a cross-border raid.
Israeli aircraft attacked homes owned by Palestinian militants and a metal workshop in the Gaza Strip on Friday, wounding seven people, medics and witnesses said.
Dozens of Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles withdrew from areas east and north of Gaza City after a two-day operation against gunmen that killed 30 Palestinians, around half of them civilians, witnesses and Palestinian security sources said. – Reuters