New Israeli blitz on Lebanon

FLIGHT FROM TERROR: A woman runs past a destroyed building, still in flames, after it had been attacked by Israeli warplane missiles, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon yesterday. At daybreak yesterday, Israeli warplanes pounded Beirut's southern suburbs with eight airstrikes, stepping up bombardment of the Hezbollah stronghold. It was not immediately clear what was targeted. Picture: AP

US supports UN resolution calling for halt in fighting

PRIME Minister Fuad Siniora made a tearful plea yesterday for an end to the near four-week-old Lebanon conflict as more civilians were killed in a new blitz of Israeli air strikes across the country.

Warplanes bombed houses, bridges and roads in southern and eastern Lebanon as Israeli military commanders vowed to expand their massive offensive, with little sign of international agreement at the United Nations on a peace plan.

The deadly raids came as Washington urged the quick passage of a UN resolution calling for a full halt to fighting which has left more than 1000 people dead in 27 days.

Top Israeli officials warned they would continue the offensive to cripple the fundamentalist Shiite Muslim Hezbollah movement, regardless of any ceasefire negotiated at the UN.

Siniora said he refused to let Lebanon be a “punch bag” for Israel and made an emotional appeal for an end to the killings, as Arab foreign ministers threw their support behind a seven-point plan proposed by Siniora to bring a halt to 27 days of warfare as an alternative to a draft resolution before the UN Security Council.

The Security Council had been expected to adopt a resolution jointly drafted by France and the United States by today, but diplomats said they could no longer say when a vote would take place after Lebanon demanded revisions. The draft calls for a “full cessation of hostilities” and the deployment of an international force in a buffer zone in south Lebanon.

Siniora’s plan calls for an Israeli withdrawal, the expansion of the UN peacekeeping force sent to the area after a previous invasion in 1978, the deployment of the Lebanese army to the border and the disarming of Hezbollah.

US President George W Bush said the UN resolution was needed “as quickly as possible,” while Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it “may take a little time” to ease Israeli and Lebanese concerns about the resolution.

Police said 33 people were killed across the country, many caught in the rubble of trapped buildings. As dawn rose over the capital, Israeli fighter-bombers pounded Hezbollah’s stronghold in the southern suburbs with bombs and air-to-ground missiles, sending clouds of smoke into the air over areas that had already been largely reduced to rubble.

Warplanes also struck houses in villages around Sidon, bombed roads linking the region with Syria, including the highway leading to the main border crossing, and hit targets in the Bekaa Valley.

Israeli troops were also engaged in clashes with Hezbollah in a bid to eradicate the Shiite fighters from the border area and halt rocket attacks that killed 15 people on Sunday alone, the deadliest single day for Israel.

Another 36 civilians have been killed in a barrage of Hezbollah rocket fire from across the border since the offensive began. Five more were injured yesterday when a new volley of rockets landed in northern Israel. But with world powers unable to agree on a way to end the bloodiest cross-border fighting in a quarter century, Israel vowed it would plough on until it crushed Hezbollah. — Sapa-AFP