Israeli forces thrust into southern Lebanon on Tuesday and pounded towns and villages, meeting fierce resistance from Hezbollah guerrillas who reportedly killed three soldiers.
Three weeks after the war erupted when Hezbollah snatched two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid, Israel’s security Cabinet agreed to step up its offensive, entailing a ground sweep 6km to 7km into Lebanon, a political source said.
Israel also said it would resume full air strikes in Lebanon early on Wednesday at the end of a partial, 48-hour suspension.
European Union president Finland, echoing international calls for a ceasefire, said Israel’s plans were unacceptable and would only fuel more Arab support for Hezbollah fighters.
An EU draft statement called for an immediate ceasefire but the United Kingdom, which has stuck by Washington in refusing to demand an immediate end to fighting, said it could not accept the statement’s conclusion, a UK official said.
At least 617 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Lebanon. The Health Minister puts the toll at 750 including bodies buried under rubble. Fifty-one Israelis have been killed.
Expressing ”utmost concern” at Lebanese and Israeli civilian casualties, the EU said in its draft statement: ”Disregard for necessary precautions to avoid loss of civilian life constitutes a severe breach of international humanitarian law.”
The southern Lebanese village of Qana mourned the deaths of at least 54 civilians, including 37 children, killed in an Israeli air strike on Sunday that sparked global outrage and fuelled international calls for a ceasefire.
”All those killed had no shrapnel or wounds on their bodies. They all died of suffocation. The debris fell on them — their colour was blue,” said Red Cross volunteer Bassam Mokdad. ”If I had been able to arrive earlier, I could’ve found people alive.”
Heavy fighting
Israeli artillery shells crashed down on the border area around the Lebanese village of Aita al-Shaab, where Hezbollah said it had destroyed a tank in battles with Israeli troops.
Al Arabiya television said three Israeli soldiers died there, which would be the first army fatalities since Israel lost nine soldiers on July 26. Hezbollah said it had inflicted 20 casualties in house-to-house battles at Aita al-Shaab.
Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon said about 300 of an estimated 2 000 Hizbollah fighters have been killed in three weeks of fighting. Hezbollah, which says it doesn’t hide its dead, has announced 43 deaths in that period.
The intense fighting came the same day as Israel’s Security Cabinet gave the green light to an expansion of its military operations in southern Lebanon, where troops are now on the ground in at least four separate areas.
”I reckon the time required for the [army] to complete the job, and by that I mean that the area in which we want the international force to deploy is cleansed of Hezbollah, will take around 10 days to two weeks,” Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told Army Radio.
Israel wants to push Hezbollah back and stop it blasting rockets over the border. However, an Israeli minister said there was no way its forces could destroy all the missiles, comments apparently aimed at lowering Israeli public expectations.
Israel has rejected calls for a truce as world powers differ over the urgency of halting the war, triggered by Hezbollah’s July 12 cross-border raid and capture of two Israeli soldiers.
Most Arab and European governments have insisted on an immediate end to fighting but Israel’s closest ally, Washington, has said any ceasefire must be part of a broader deal that ends the threat to the Jewish state from Hezbollah.
The United Nations has postponed discussion on mobilising an international force for Lebanon until at least Thursday, to wait for more progress towards a political solution.
France, which has been tipped to lead the new force, said it must be bigger than the 10 000 troops suggested by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, be sufficiently well armed and have precise guidelines when it comes to opening fire.
Israeli aircraft bombed eastern Lebanon near Syria on the second day of what it had said would be a 48-hour partial halt to air strikes, Lebanese security sources and witnesses said.
The raids were aimed at ”preventing the transferring of weaponry” to Hezbollah, the army said. Israel had said it would use air strikes against Hezbollah and to back ground forces.
The UN was forced to scrap two aid convoys planned for villages close to Lebanon’s southern border because it could not get security clearance from Israel. — Reuters