Truce unlikely to end war

JERUSALEM – The Israeli Cabinet voted Sunday to accept a U.N.-declared cease-fire, even as Israeli military forces and Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon launched some of their most intense barrages of the war in anticipation of this morning’s deadline. The Lebanese government and Hezbollah agreed to the cease-fire Saturday.

Prospects for an immediate halt in the fighting appeared unlikely as Hezbollah’s leader said his militia would keep fighting as long as Israeli troops remain in southern Lebanon, and Israeli officials insisted they would not withdraw their soldiers until an international force and the Lebanese army take control of the border area. It is expected to take two or three weeks to assemble the international military force in Lebanon.

Israel pummeled the southern suburbs of Beirut with heavy bombardments that rattled the entire city, while Hezbollah fired 220 rockets – one of its largest volleys yet – into Israel, killing an 83-year-old man and pelting the port city of Haifa with multiple strikes. The ground combat in southern Lebanon was also some of the most violent of the war as Israeli forces struggled to dominate as much territory as possible before the cease-fire deadline at 8 a.m. today. At least 17 people were killed Sunday in Lebanon.

The Israeli Cabinet debated the U.N. resolution for nearly five hours, with some members criticizing the government’s decision to expand ground combat just before the cease-fire was scheduled to begin.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told reporters after the Cabinet meeting that the U.N. resolution, if enacted, “will change the rule of the game.” But, she added, “I am not naive. … This is the Middle East and I know that not every resolution is implemented.”

Israeli military officials were meeting with U.N. observation forces, called UNIFIL, “to fine-tune the details of the cease-fire,” according to Defense Minister Amir Peretz.

At a press briefing at the military’s northern command headquarters in Safed near the Lebanese border, Peretz said even after the cease-fire deadline, “there is no situation in which Hezbollah fires at IDF forces that we will not retaliate.”

The U.N. resolution calls for 15,000 foreign troops and 15,000 Lebanese troops to be deployed in southern Lebanon.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, meeting with Israeli officials in Jerusalem, said at least 4,000 foreign troops could be ready to move into southern Lebanon “in a very, very short time” but declined to specify a timetable.

Throughout the weekend, Israeli forces ratcheted up the fighting. On Saturday, 24 soldiers were killed – Israel’s heaviest single-day toll in the war. On Saturday, at least five more were killed and soldiers struggled all day to recover the bodies of five troops killed Saturday when Hezbollah fighters shot down their CH-53 Sikorsky helicopter. The helicopter crew included the first female Israeli soldier to be killed in combat, a 28-year-old reserve air force mechanic.

Most of the soldiers were killed by Hezbollah anti-tank missile fire.

Israeli warplanes pursued their bombing campaign Sunday without letup, mounting an intense raid on the southern suburbs of Beirut. About 15 thundering explosions jarred the city in the early afternoon. The explosives leveled an area of several hundred square yards in a residential part of the Dahiya suburbs, controlled by Hezbollah and largely inhabited by the Shiite Muslims who are its main constituency.

Beirut residents who had been buoyed by news of the U.N. cease-fire agreement and ventured out for a late Sunday lunch were shaken back to the reality of more fighting. Patrons of one restaurant fled from the terrace where they were eating and pointed to a large, white cloud rising from the southern suburbs. “Come on, let’s go back home,” one woman said dejectedly to her companion, and the terrace was suddenly empty.

Another series of blasts rattled windows at sunset.

The explosive power of the bombs and their concentration in one area suggested Israeli jets were seeking to kill Hezbollah leaders hiding in an underground bunker, Lebanese said. Hezbollah swiftly issued a communique saying its chief, Hassan Nasrallah, and other senior officials were not in the area at the time of the bombing and were unharmed.

The number of dead and wounded was not known, police said, because Hezbollah activists were in charge of the area.

Airstrikes also reportedly hit the Ghandour chocolate factories in a hilly region southeast of Beirut overlooking the airport.

Israeli jets struck Tyre, a seaside city in the south, blasting two gas stations and destroying a nearby house. A woman, her three children and her housekeeper were killed, police told local reporters, and a Lebanese soldier was killed in a separate strike.

Six people were killed in airstrikes in the Bekaa Valley to the northeast. A missile destroyed a truck, killing two, and another strike crashed into the village of Ali al-Nahri, killing three more. A soldier was killed in another Bekaa air raid, officials reported.

In the village of Tibnine, about six miles west of the Israeli border, hospital officials issued an urgent appeal for help, saying 390 patients were in danger from Israeli shelling.

The Lebanese government has tallied nearly 800 people killed since the war began July 12 with a Hezbollah commando raid into northern Israel, killing and kidnapping Israeli soldiers. The overwhelming majority of victims have been civilians killed in Israeli bombing.

The Israeli military reported 114 soldiers and 41 civilians have been killed in the conflict.

Ferocious combat with Hezbollah fighters was preventing the Israeli forces from achieving their goal of controlling all of the territory from the Litani River to the Israeli border, a swath that ranges from 14 to 20 miles wide.

Hezbollah reported sustained Israeli shelling against Al Khiam, a guerrilla stronghold about three miles southeast of the Israeli-occupied town of Marjayoun. In Aita al-Shaab, a much-contested village just above the border near Bint Jbeil, the Shiite movement said its militia fighters ambushed Israeli troops advancing down the borderside road, damaging six tanks and four bulldozers.

Other fighting was reported in the vicinity of Al Ghandourieh to the north, where Israeli troops were trying to recover the bodies of five crew members who perished when their helicopter was shot down Saturday night, Hezbollah said.

Al Ghandourieh lies on the main road west from Marjayoun toward Tyre, about three miles south of the Litani River. Hezbollah resistance in and around the villages has became a major obstacle to Israeli troops. Three people were killed in an airstrike just north of the river in the same vicinity, Lebanese television reported.