Israel’s army thrust deeper into Lebanon on Saturday and its commander said he would keep fighting Hezbollah guerrillas, despite a United Nations Security Council demand for a ”full cessation of hostilities” in the month-old war.
Air strikes killed up to 20 people in Lebanon, hours after the council adopted a resolution aimed at ending the conflict.
At least four Hezbollah rockets were fired into northern Israel, causing two casualties, Israeli police said. Hezbollah’s daily rocket barrages have typically numbered more than 100.
Israel expanded its ground offensive in the south, even though Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he backed the UN vote and was expected to ask his Cabinet to approve it on Sunday.
”We are fighting Hezbollah and will continue to fight it until a ceasefire is decided, but more than that, until it is decided what the mechanism for implementing [that ceasefire] is,” Lieutenant General Dan Halutz told reporters.
”We will continue to operate until we achieve our aims,” Israel’s top general added.
A UN envoy said earlier the UN expected the Israeli assault to wind down in one to two days and an expanded international force to begin deploying in a week to 10 days.
”We are not starting from zero,” Alvaro de Soto, the UN special envoy for the Middle East peace process, said of preparations for an international force.
”We have building blocks in place as part of stand-by arrangements with a number of countries with earmarked contingents,” he told Reuters in Jerusalem.
The UN resolution authorises up to 15 000 UN troops to move into south Lebanon to enforce a ceasefire. France is widely expected to lead the force, an expanded version of existing UN peacekeepers in the south, but with a more robust mandate.
Relief officials said Israel was still denying permission for aid convoys to reach distressed civilians in south Lebanon.
Israeli troops pushed west to Ghandouriyeh, a village 11km inside Lebanon, their furthest penetration yet, security sources said. Hezbollah said it had ambushed them there and was fighting the Israeli advance on several fronts.
Air strikes across Lebanon
An Israeli army spokesperson said more than 30 soldiers had been wounded in the fighting. The army said it had killed more than 40 Hezbollah fighters in the last 24 hours and destroyed several rocket launchers.
Air strikes in the south killed up to 15 people in the village of Rshaf and four civilians in Kharayeb, security sources said. Raids in the Bekaa Valley killed one civilian.
Israeli bombs also hit Beirut’s suburbs, roads in the north, electricity pylons near Sidon, the Beirut-Damascus highway and the southern city of Tyre, witnesses and security sources said.
The UN resolution said Hezbollah must halt all attacks and Israel must stop ”all offensive military operations”.
Lebanon’s Cabinet, which contains two Hezbollah ministers, was expected to approve the resolution later in the day.
At least 1 061 people in Lebanon and 124 Israelis have been killed in the war that began after Hezbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12.
The planned UN force will monitor the withdrawal of Israeli troops and help the Lebanese army maintain a ceasefire.
The resolution stipulates that after fighting stops, Israel must withdraw all its forces from Lebanon at the earliest opportunity, in tandem with a UN-Lebanese troop deployment.
It also calls for a zone between the Litani river and the Israeli border ”free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons” other than those of the UN-Lebanese forces, implying a Hezbollah withdrawal or disarmament.
Hezbollah agreement to this would be a concession that the group had resisted since Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000.
But the group will also claim victory. It still holds the two Israeli soldiers it captured and has shown it can survive the onslaught of one of the world’s mightiest armies.
Israel can also claim it has won because the UN resolution would remove Hezbollah from the border. The resolution could make it harder for the group to rearm, but sets no deadline for Hezbollah to disarm in line with an earlier UN resolution.
Israel says it has damaged Hezbollah much more than its foe acknowledges. Civilians on both sides are the main casualties.
Aid agencies seeking access to an estimated 100 000 people trapped in the south said the UN vote had made no difference.
”We have not got concurrence from the Israeli army on any convoys at all, north, south or anywhere in the country,” said David Orr, spokesperson for the UN World Food Programme. — Reuters