Israeli air strikes killed 14 villagers in south Lebanon on Tuesday as Beirut pleaded for a swift end to Israel’s war with Hezbollah guerrillas that has cost up to 1 000 Lebanese and 100 Israeli lives in four weeks.
Diplomats at the United Nations in New York said a vote on a resolution to end the war might not take place before Thursday as fighting in south Lebanon raged on.
”We are working to have a quick ceasefire or at the very minimum an end to acts of aggression,” said Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. ”Then displaced people can return to their homes.”
Israeli air raids killed 14 people and wounded 23 in the southern village of Ghaziyeh, rescue workers and hospital officials said. The bombs fell as mourners were burying 15 people killed by a raid there the previous day. They struck targets that were not in the immediate vicinity of the funeral.
Three Israeli soldiers were killed fighting guerrillas, raising Israel’s military and civilian death toll to 100 in the war ignited by Hezbollah’s capture of two soldiers on July 12.
Dozens more Hezbollah rockets landed in northern Israel on Tuesday, but there were no reports of casualties.
At least 979 people have been killed in Lebanon and the authorities say dozens more are still buried under rubble.
Despite global alarm at the rising casualties, days of intensive efforts at the UN Security Council to bring about a ceasefire and lasting peace have proved difficult.
Israel has vowed to expand its military offensive if no diplomatic solution emerges soon.
Lebanon has objected to a US-French draft resolution and Arab envoys were to press Beirut’s case at the UN for an amendment that would demand a quick Israeli withdrawal so the Lebanese army can take over the south from Hezbollah.
The Beirut government, in which Hezbollah has two ministers, has proposed to send 15 000 troops to the south if the Israelis withdraw, a plan welcomed warmly by France.
”It demonstrates the desire of all the parties in Lebanon to enable the Lebanese government to exercise its sovereignty over all its territory,” Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said.
”Interesting step”
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert described the plan as an ”interesting step”, but said his security Cabinet would discuss on Wednesday a possible expansion of military operations in Lebanon, where 10 000 Israeli troops are already on the ground.
Israel has insisted the troops will stay until a robust international force arrives to keep Hezbollah at bay.
Lebanon is angry that the UN has done nothing to halt the war — partly because Washington refuses to demand a ceasefire until the threat Hezbollah poses to Israel is removed.
Beirut has won some support from Russia as well as France, both of which hold veto power on the Security Council.
”It is obvious to us that a draft that is not favourable to the Lebanese side should not be adopted,” said Moscow’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin, saying this would only prolong the war.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said a UN resolution could be clinched on Wednesday, but that it would not include a demand for an immediate Israeli pullout as Lebanon wants.
United States President George Bush has said such a withdrawal could enable Hezbollah, backed by Syria and Iran, to rearm.
Siniora almost wept as he described Lebanon’s plight to Arab foreign ministers meeting in Beirut on Monday, but his emotion won little sympathy from Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.
In a speech to Israel’s Parliament, she told him to ”wipe his tears and to begin acting in order to produce a better future … first of all for the civilians for whom he cries”.
Roads in south Lebanon were virtually empty after the Israeli army warned that those who travel risked being bombed.
The Israeli army had told residents south of the Litani river, about 20km from the border, not to drive after 10pm local time on Monday. The open-ended ban exempts only aid convoys agreed in advance with Israel, the army said.
Fallen masonry was still hampering a search for bodies or survivors in a Beirut suburb struck by an air raid on Monday.
Brigadier General Darwish Hobeika, head of Lebanon’s civil defence, told Reuters 17 bodies had been recovered and a score of people were still missing in rubble in the Shiyah district.
Israeli bombing and the ban on vehicle movement have hurt efforts to help civilians displaced or trapped by the fighting.
Robin Lodge, spokesperson for the UN World Food Programme, said UN peacekeepers were seeking Israeli assurances that it would be safe to repair a bombed bridge on the road to Tyre.
”So far such assurances are not forthcoming,” he said. ”Tyre is currently cut off.” — Reuters