Israel may step up ground war

2006-08-09 09:11

Beirut - Israeli fighter jets waged deadly new bombing raids on swathes of Lebanon on Wednesday as the security cabinet mulled whether to widen the ground war to crush the Shi'ite Muslim Hezbollah.

With the conflict now in its 29th day, the UN Security Council was still scrambling to agree on a resolution to end the fighting.

Before dawn broke across Lebanon, Israeli warplanes struck in the north, east and centre of the war-ravaged country, hitting roads, bridges, fuel tankers and homes, police said.

Seven people, including a political member of Hezbollah, his wife and their five children, were killed when the four-storey apartment block where they lived collapsed after a bombing raid.

Amid the faltering international efforts to reach a ceasefire solution, the Israeli security cabinet was due to meet to discuss widening its ground assault.

Reserve units were heading to the border to beef up the estimated 10 000 troops already operating in Lebanon, while buses ferried residents from the Israeli border town of Kiryat Shmona.

Defence Minister Amir Peretz has ordered the army to prepare to expand its operations against Hezbollah in a bid to reduce their rocket-launching capabilities.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert fears however that a wider offensive could lead to higher troop losses and complicate diplomatic efforts to resolve the deadliest cross-border conflict in a quarter century.

Battling to revive resolution

Four Israeli soldiers were killed in fighting on Tuesday around the flashpoint Lebanese border town of Bint Jbeil and a neighbouring village, the army said on Wednesday, claiming to have killed 20 Hezbollah fighters.

The latest deaths bring to 65 the number of Israeli military personnel killed since Hezbollah captured two soldiers in a deadly cross-border raid on July 12, triggering the massive onslaught against Lebanon.

Thirty-six Israeli civilians have also been killed by Hezbollah rocket fire on the north of the country.

On Tuesday, France and the United States were battling to revive a UN Security Council resolution aimed at ending the conflict, but an Arab League delegation warned there would be civil war if Israel's troops did not leave Lebanon.

"It is most saddening that this council stands idly by, crippled and unable to stop the bloodbath, which has become the bitter daily lot of the unarmed Lebanese people," Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani told a special council meeting.

France's UN ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere said: "The question for us is to produce the best possible text and take into account all concerns, so there will be a new text."

Israel's UN ambassador Dan Gillerman told the Security Council there has to be a "strong, robust and effective international force" in southern Lebanon to counter Hezbollah.

Gillerman told reporters Israel would withdraw from Lebanon "the minute there is a political solution and the minute there is a viable force in place".

- AFP