Hezbollah fired more rockets into Israel on Wednesday than on any previous day of the 22-day-old war, after helicopter-borne commandos attacked guerrilla targets in Israel’s deepest raid into Lebanon.
Air strikes in support of the helicopter raid in the Hezbollah stronghold of Baalbek in north-eastern Lebanon killed 19 people, including four children.
In Jerusalem, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Reuters that Israel would fight on until an international force reaches south Lebanon — even though no country has volunteered to send troops in the absence of a truce and a durable ceasefire agreement.
Olmert called for an international combat force to implement a United Nations resolution calling for Hezbollah to be disarmed, saying Israel had already destroyed much of the group’s military power.
Soon after he spoke, one of more than 180 rockets launched by Hezbollah landed just inside the West Bank after flying further than any fired at Israel in the past three weeks.
Israeli police and Hezbollah both said it was the highest number of rockets fired into Israel on one day since the war began. The barrage, which killed one person near the northern city of Nahariya, followed a two-day lull in such attacks.
Olmert said earlier that Hezbollah’s infrastructure had been ”entirely destroyed” in the Israeli offensive.
Asked about when a ceasefire could be agreed, White House spokesperson Tony Snow said: ”I don’t want to make a promise on it … but I think it’s safe to say days. Whether it’s the end of this week or goes into the beginning of next week, I don’t think I can say for sure.”
Battles raged between Hezbollah guerrillas and Israeli troops in south Lebanon, especially around the villages of Aita Shaab and Kfar Kila, where there was intense Israeli shelling and air strikes, a source in the UN peacekeeping force said.
The source said Israeli forces were present in five areas of the south and troops had landed by helicopter during the night near the south-eastern border village of Meis al-Jabal.
Lebanese security sources said the Israelis had captured a hilltop at al-Aweida overlooking several villages, including Kfar Kila and Adaiseh where fighting has raged this week.
Displaced civilians
Olmert listed the flight of civilians from the area as among the accomplishments of the Israeli military campaign.
At least 750 000 Lebanese, almost a quarter of the population, have been driven from their homes. ”How much longer will I live? If I’m to die, I prefer to die under the rubble of my house,” Hassan Khaleef (80), alone at home in the Lebanese village of Haboush near Nabatiyeh, told Reuters.
At least 643 people in Lebanon and 55 Israelis have been killed in the conflict, now in its fourth week. Lebanon’s health minister puts the toll at 762, including unrecovered bodies.
Israeli bombing has inflicted $2-billion of physical damage across Lebanon, the transport and public works minister said.
Several UN and Red Cross convoys bearing food and medical aid headed to hard-hit areas, but at least one was called off after failing to get Israeli clearance, aid officials said.
The UN World Food Programme said Israel had given the go-ahead for two tanker ships to deliver fuel to Lebanon.
The UN Security Council has yet to agree on a mandate for an international peacekeeping force and France said it would not attend a meeting of potential troop contributors on Thursday.
France has been touted to lead the force, but it wants a truce and an agreement on a framework for a permanent ceasefire before any troops deploy. That is at odds with the US-Israeli view that a ceasefire can wait until the force moves in.
Israel said its troops seized five Hezbollah militants in the night raid on Baalbek, which is 95km north-east of Beirut. Hezbollah denied those taken belonged to the group.
Security sources said two Hezbollah fighters were also killed. It was the first helicopter-borne assault deep inside Lebanon in the conflict that flared after Hezbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12.
At least 13 civilians were killed when Israeli warplanes hit Jammaliyeh, a village near Baalbek, and six died in air strikes elsewhere. A Lebanese army soldier was killed and two were wounded when their post in the south was bombed.
Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos met Lebanese leaders in Beirut. He also plans to go to Damascus as part of an apparent European bid to engage Hezbollah allies Syria and Iran — both shunned by Washington — in a solution for Lebanon.
France’s foreign minister met his Iranian counterpart in Beirut on Monday and praised Tehran’s ”stabilising role”. — Reuters