Israel Softens Conditions for Cease-Fire

By Ravi Nessman
The Associated Press

Monday 17 July 2006

Jerusalem - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday that the fighting in Lebanon would end when two Israeli soldiers were freed, rocket attacks stopped and the Lebanese army deployed along the border. But he appeared to scale back from previous demands for Hezbollah to be dismantled.

Delivering an impassioned speech to Israel's parliament after six days of fierce fighting, Olmert said Israel would have no mercy on militants who attacked its cities with rockets.

"We shall seek out every installation, hit every terrorist helping to attack Israeli citizens, destroy all the terrorist infrastructure, in every place. We shall continue this until Hezbollah does the basic and fair things required of it by every civilized person," he said. "Israel will not agree to live in the shadow of the threat of missiles or rockets against its residents."

Israeli officials have said publicly that Israel would not stop fighting until Hezbollah, a Shiite militia that controls much of south Lebanon, is dismantled. On Monday, Olmert said Hezbollah should be moved away from the border. His comments seemed to be a softening of Israel's earlier position, which could increase chances of a cease-fire.

"We shall struggle for the implementation of the conditions laid down by the international community ... the return of the hostages Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, a total cease-fire, the deployment of the Lebanese army in all of south Lebanon and the removal of Hezbollah from the region," he said.

Israeli officials said earlier Monday that Olmert had conveyed Israel's position to Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, who is attempting to broker the cease-fire deal.

As he spoke, a UN delegation also trying to mediate an end to the fighting arrived in Israel from Beirut.

"We hope that we will be able to see our way toward ... a de-escalation of the crisis," said Vijay Nambiar, head of the delegation. He said he would pass on information gathered in the Lebanese capital to Israeli officials, but declined to elaborate.

The fighting began when Hezbollah kidnapped the soldiers in a cross-border raid. Since then, Israel has pounded Lebanon with airstrikes and Hezbollah has fired barrages of rockets and missiles into Israeli towns and cities.

"We are not looking for war or direct conflict, but if necessary, we will not be frightened by it," Olmert said.

He also praised the Israeli people for being strong and united in the face of the rocket bombardment that has sent about half a million Israelis into bomb shelters. He recited a Jewish prayer for the soldiers and said he had pictures of the three captured soldiers - the two in Lebanon and another held by militants in Gaza - in his office.

"We shall do everything with all our might to bring them home," he said, but added that Israel could not make a deal that would lead to further kidnappings.

The lengthy speech was Olmert's first major address since the fighting in Lebanon began last week.

He spoke at length about many of those killed and said that Israel was fighting for them.

"When missiles are launched at our residents and our towns, our answer will be war waged at full strength, with all determination, courage and sacrifice," he said.

Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon on Monday destroyed at least one long-range Iranian missile capable of hitting Tel Aviv, military officials said.

Israeli aircraft targeted a truck carrying the weapons before they could be launched, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of military regulations. The force of the blast sent at least one missile flying into the air, but it fell nearby.

During nearly a week of fighting, Hezbollah militants have fired missiles up to 25 miles into Israel. But officials have raised concerns the guerrilla group could strike Tel Aviv, about 80 miles south of the border with Lebanon.

President Bush bluntly expressed his frustrations with Hezbollah's actions, suggesting Syria could use its influence with the guerrillas.

Annan and British Prime Minister Tony Blair called for sending international forces to southern Lebanon. Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow would consider dispatching troops, and the European Union announced it was considering a peacekeeping force as well.

Overnight attacks by Israeli warplanes and big guns killed 17 people and wounded at least 53, Lebanese security officials said. The death toll since fighting began July 12 after Hezbollah captured the Israeli soldiers has climbed above 200 - 209 in Lebanon, 24 in Israel.

Israeli government spokesman Asaf Shariv said ground troops entered southern Lebanon, attacked Hezbollah bases near the border and quickly returned inside Israel.

A large explosion was heard Monday evening across Beirut in the heavily hit southern suburbs where Hezbollah's headquarters is located. In the south, nine civilians were killed, including two children, when an afternoon strike hit a bridge at the entrance to the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanese security officials said.

An Israeli missile also targeted a building housing the offices of Al-Manar, Hezbollah television, in the southern market town of Nabatiyeh, wounding seven people.

Hezbollah Katyusha rockets landed in the Israeli town of Atlit, about 35 miles south of the border and six miles south of the port of Haifa. Nobody was hurt. Later, guerrillas fired three rocket barrages into Haifa, destroying a three-story building and wounding at least three people, Israeli medics said.

Guerrilla rockets killed eight Israelis in an attack on Haifa Sunday in what was believed to be Hezbollah's deadliest single attack on Israel.

A Lebanese TV station showed video of an object falling to the ground in the Jamjour district near the Hezbollah stronghold of southern Beirut, but the Israeli army said reports that it was an Israeli aircraft were false.

A Lebanese security official said the object was a fuel tank dropped by an Israeli aircraft over Kfar Chima, a town near southern Beirut. After it dropped the fuel tank, the aircraft fired two missiles at three cargo trucks in the area, killing four people and wounding two others, he added, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Israel said its planes and artillery struck 60 targets in Lebanon overnight in retaliation for Sunday's 20-rocket barrage on Haifa, Israel's third-largest city and one that had not been hit before the latest fighting.

Israel also kept up pressure in the Gaza Strip as it searched for a kidnapped soldier, bombing the empty Palestinian Foreign Ministry building for the second time in less than a week in what it said was a warning to the ruling Hamas party.

Israel launched the offensive on June 25 after Hamas-linked militants carried out a cross-border attack on a military outpost, killing two soldiers and capturing one. Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas joined the fray last week, attacking a military patrol in northern Israel, killing eight soldiers and capturing two.

Israeli officials accused Syria and Iran of providing Lebanese guerrillas with sophisticated weapons, saying the missiles that hit Haifa had greater range and heavier warheads than those Hezbollah had fired before.

Speaking on the margin of the Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, Blair said the fighting would not stop until the conditions for a cease-fire were created.

"The only way is if we have a deployment of international forces that can stop bombardment coming into Israel," he said.

Annan appealed to Israel to spare civilian lives and infrastructure. The G-8 nations, who had struggled to reach a consensus on the escalating warfare between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, have expressed concern on the "rising civilian casualties" and urged both sides to stop the violence.

Bush cursed Hezbollah's actions in a discussion with Blair before the G-8 leaders began their final lunch.

"See the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this s--- and it's over," Bush said. He also suggested that Annan call Syrian President Bashar Assad to "make something happen."



Go to Original

Two Leaders Urge Peacekeeping Force for South of Lebanon
By Jim Rutenberg and John O'Neil
The New York Times

Monday 17 July 2006

Strelna, Russia - British Prime Minister Tony Blair and United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan called today for an international "stabilization force" to quell the fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah militia, while President Bush pungently suggested that Mr. Annan should pay more attention to reining in Hezbollah.

Mr. Blair and Mr. Annan called for a deployment that would be far larger than the 2,000-member United Nations observer force currently stationed in southern Lebanon. Without such a force, "then I think it's very difficult to see how we restore calm," Mr. Blair said, according to Agence-France Presse.

American and Israeli officials gave a tepid response to the idea, with Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, telling the Knesset that a ceasefire could only come after Hezbollah returns two captured soldiers and that Lebanese, not international soldiers should be deployed along the border, The Associated Press reported.

Mr. Bush did not address the plan directly. But he expressed his unhappiness about Mr. Annan's overall approach to the crisis quite bluntly and, unintentionally, quite publicly.

His words were picked up by an open microphone while he and Mr. Blair chatted during a lunch that followed Mr. Blair and Mr. Annan's joint statement on the final day of the Group of 8 summit here.

Leaning over the back of Mr. Bush's chair, Mr. Blair first brought up trade discussions, as the president chewed thoughtfully on a roll.

Mr. Bush then abruptly changed the subject to the Mideast, complaining about Mr. Annan's approach to the crisis, and for holding the view - which is shared by many of the leaders here - that Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah should halt the violence and then hash out their differences. The Americans have said that Israel would likely only stand down if Hamas and Hezbollah returned the soldiers they have kidnapped and ceased their shelling of Israeli towns.

"I don't like the sequence of it," Mr. Bush said. "His attitude is basically ceasefire and everything else happens."

He went on to say the UN should directly enlist the Syrians to intervene. "I feel like telling Kofi to get on the phone with Assad and make something happen," he said to Mr. Blair, referring to Syria's president, Bashir Assad.

"See, the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over," Mr. Bush said.

Mr. Blair reiterated his argument, made earlier in the day with Mr. Annan, for an international force to be dispatched to the area.

"I think the thing that is really difficult is you can't stop this unless you get this international presence agreed," Mr. Blair said. "You need to get this done quickly otherwise this thing will spiral out of control ..."

Mr. Bush interrupted to say, "Yeah, she's going. I think Condi's going to go pretty soon."

Mr. Blair then argued that it would be less risky for him to take the lead in a visit to the region instead of Ms. Rice, saying her presence could put America's prestige on the line. "If she goes out she's got to succeed as it were, where as I can just go out and talk," Mr. Blair said.

At that point, Mr. Blair appeared to notice the nearby microphone, and leaned over to turn it off.

Mr. Annan today said that the Security Council members would start working on a detailed proposal for the deployment of a stabilization force.

At the United Nations, the Security Council went into its third session on Lebanon in four days, but beforehand John R. Bolton, the American ambassador, discouraged talk of sending a multilateral force to the area.

Mr. Bolton said that three major questions had to be addressed first.

"Would such a force be empowered to deal with the real problem?" he said. "The real problem is Hezbollah."

The second, he said, was "Would it be empowered to deal with countries like Syria and Iran that support Hezbollah?"

The third was how a new force would be different or better than the existing United Nations force which has been there for 28 years and whether it would undercut past Security Council resolutions which have sought to strengthen Lebanese institutions.

Mr. Bolton was also asked why the United States was not backing an immediate ceasefire. "We could have a ceasefire in a matter of nanoseconds if Hezbollah and Hamas would release their kidnap victims and would stop engaging in rocket attacks and other acts of terrorism against Israel," he said.

Mr. Bolton said that any Security Council action on Lebanon should await the return of a three-man mission that Secretary General Kofi Annan dispatched Friday to report back on the crises in Gaza and Lebanon. United Nations officials said the team was due back in New York the end of the week.

The three, Middle East advisors Terje Roed-Larsen and Alvaro de Soto and Mr. Annan's political advisor, Vijay Nambiar, have met with Arab League officials and leaders of Egypt, Oman, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian authority in Cairo and with Fouad Siniora, Lebanon's prime minister, and the speaker of the Lebanese parliament, Nabih Berri, in Beirut.

Mr. Nambiar said in Beirut Monday that the team was now going to Israel and might return to Lebanon afterwards. It is also scheduled to go to Syria and the Palestinian territories.

"Our work will require the support and goodwill for my delegation from all the parties," he said. "But they should know that the consequences of failure could indeed be grave."

In Jerusalem, a government spokeswoman said that it was too soon to discuss a buffer force. "We're at the stage where we want to be sure that Hezbollah is not deployed at our northern border," said the spokeswoman, Miri Eisin.

On Sunday, during their meeting in St. Petersburg, the leaders of the Group of 8 countries blamed "extremist forces" and "those who support them" for the surge of Middle East violence. They urged Israel to exercise "utmost restraint" and expressed their "deepening concern for rising civilian casualties on all sides and the damage to infrastructure."

The leaders did not call for an immediate cease-fire but urged Hezbollah to restore peace by releasing captured Israelis and ending attacks on Israel, followed by the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the release of detained Palestinian legislators belonging to Hamas.

The seeming unity of that statement papered over deep divisions between the nations. Those disagreements were underscored today when the French prime minister, Dominque Villepin, headed to Beirut to express "solidarity" with its beleaguered government, according to Agence-France Presse.

At the lunch today at the vast Konstantinovsky Palace in this suburb of St. Petersburg, not all of what the open microphone, controlled by a Russian television service, was serious diplomacy.

In another segment Mr. Bush told an aide asking him about his upcoming remarks, "I'm just going to make it up, right here - I'm not going to talk too damn long like the rest of them."

He added, "Some of these guys talk too long." A foreign counterpart was heard to agree, but it was unclear who that was.

At the lunch were the leaders of the Group of 8 industrial nations - France, Germany, Japan, United States, Russia, Great Britain, Italy, and Canada – as well as those of China, India, and Brazil, among others.

At another moment, Mr. Bush was clearly itching to return to the White House, saying to someone, "Good job, gotta keep this thing moving - I gotta' leave at 2:15 - you'll want me out of town so to free up your security forces." .

"Gotta go home. Got something to do tonight," Mr. Bush said, then, apparently turning to Mr. Hu, adding, "How about you? When are you going home?"

Jim Rutenberg reported from Strelna, Russia and John O'Neil reported from New York for this article. Warren Hoge contributed reporting from the United Nations.