Israeli bombs kill 13 in Lebanon

From correspondents in Beirut

07/28/06 "The Australian" -- -- INTENSE Israeli bombardment killed 13 people in Lebanon today amid uncertainty as to when US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would return to the region to push for a lasting solution to the crisis.
Waves of air raids struck hill villages near the southern port of Tyre and hundreds of artillery rounds crashed across the border from Israel, killing at least 10 people including a Jordanian.

Three people died in air strikes in the eastern Bekaa Valley, a stronghold of the Hezbollah guerrillas Israel is targeting.

Dr Rice, who had been due to end a visit to Malaysia on today, delayed her departure without saying why.

"I am going to return to the Middle East. The question is when is it right for me to return to the Middle East," she said.

Her change of schedule suggested there had been no breakthrough in diplomatic efforts to halt hostilities that have killed 458 people in Lebanon and 51 Israelis in 17 days.

France called again for the United Nations to demand an immediate ceasefire.

But UN Middle East envoy Terje Roed-Larsen told France's Le Figaro it would be hard to clinch a truce without involving Hezbollah's allies Iran and Syria, both opposed to Washington. He said no deal was imminent.

"Neither Israel nor Hezbollah are displaying any sign of accepting one right now. On the contrary, both have remained very belligerent."

The pounding of Lebanese villages, where some civilians remain trapped, resumed a day after Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's security cabinet opted to intensify airstrikes and ground forays against Hizbollah, rather than invade Lebanon. Heavy fighting and the destruction of roads in the south have created terrifying conditions for civilians, and a UN official said lack of clean water posed a fresh threat.

"Without proper sanitation children will get diarrhoea, they will get sick and they will die," said Daniel Toole, emergencies director at the United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF. He said the United Nations had only managed to transport kits to provide 1,000 families with fresh water so far.

Two Jordanian military aircraft carrying medical and other aid landed at Beirut airport, closed to other flights by Israeli bombing.

Dr 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.

A US State Department official described as "outrageous" the view expressed by Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon that the Rome talks had given Israel a green light to bomb Lebanon.

Israel has taken Washington's refusal to demand an immediate ceasefire as tacit permission to pursue an onslaught intended to cripple Hezbollah guerrillas who set off the conflict by seizing two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12.

An Israeli military source said the army believed it had killed at least 200 Hezbollah fighters in the conflict. The Shi'ite guerrillas have acknowledged only 31 dead.

Hundreds of civilian 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.

President George W Bush will hear a plea for a speedy UN resolution on Lebanon and dispatch of a peacekeeping force when he meets British Prime Minister Tony Blair later today.

"We do need to step up a gear, we want to increase the urgency, the pace of diplomacy," said a spokesman for Mr Blair.

Mr Blair, who has echoed Mr Bush's line on Lebanon so far, is under domestic pressure to change tack and join Arab and European nations in demanding that the war stop now.

© The Australian