Israeli troops met fierce resistance from Hezbollah guerrillas Thursday as they crossed into Lebanon to seek tunnels and weapons for a second consecutive day. Israel, meanwhile, refused to rule out a full-scale invasion.

Israeli warplanes also launched new airstrikes on Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, shortly after daybreak Thursday, followed by strikes in the guerrilla's heartland in the south and eastern Bekaa Valley.

The strikes came a wave of bombings Wednesday killed as many as 70 people, according to Lebanese television, making it the deadliest day since the fighting began on July 12.

Russia sharply criticized Israel over its onslaught against Lebanon, now in its ninth day, sparked when Hezbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers. The Russian Foreign Ministry said Israel's actions have gone "far beyond the boundaries of an anti-terrorist operation" and repeating calls for an immediate cease-fire.

At least 306 people have been killed in Lebanon since the Israeli campaign began, according to the security forces control room that collates casualties. In Israel, 29 people have been killed, including 14 soldiers. The U.N. has said at least a half million people have been displaced in Lebanon.

In developments on the evacuation of Lebanon, U.S. Marines landed in Beirut Thursday to help Americans onto a Navy ship bound for Cyprus in the second mass U.S exodus from the battle-torn country.

About 40 U.S. Marines arrived at a beach just north of Beirut in a landing craft and picked up 300 Americans who they ferried to the amphibious assault ship USS Nashville just off the coast. The Nashville is supposed to sail for Cyprus with about 1,000 Americans.

Hundreds of people, some with shirts draped over their heads to protect themselves from the sun, gathered on the beach. A U.S. Embassy official, speaking through a megaphone, pleaded for patience, reassuring the crowd that all those who registered to be evacuated would be assisted.

"We are frustrated and disappointed, but we are O.K.," said Bob Elazon, an Illinois resident who complained that the U.S. evacuation was badly organized.

Elazon, who left his native Lebanon 34 years ago, was with his 20-year-old daughter, Anna, who was visiting the country for the first time. His wife departed just before the fighting erupted.

Meanwhile, the first plane carrying U.S. evacuees landed outside Baltimore early Thursday, and eager family members waited to greet the 145 Americans aboard the charter flight from Cyprus.

Some 900 Americans arrived in Cyprus early Thursday aboard a luxury cruise ship - the first mass U.S. evacuation from Lebanon since the Israeli airstrikes started more than a week ago.

It was among dozens of cruise ships evacuating thousands of foreigners from Lebanon. Some 8,000 of 25,000 U.S. citizens in Lebanon have asked to leave. So many people were leaving Lebanon that boats were forced to line up outside Beirut harbor and had to wait before docking in Cyprus.

Israel's series of small ground forays across the border have aimed to push back Hezbollah guerrillas who have continued to fire rockets into northern Israel despite more than a week of massive Israeli bombardment against them - raising the question of whether air power alone can suppress them. Guerrillas fired 25 rockets into Israel on on Thursday, which caused no casualties.

But the guerrillas have been fighting back hard on the ground, wounding three Israeli soldiers Thursday a day after killing two. On Thursday, an Israeli unit sent in to ambush Hezbollah guerrillas had a fierce gunbattle with a cell of militants.

In another clash, just across the border from the Israeli town of Avivim, guerrillas fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli tank, seriously wounding one soldier. Hezbollah said in a statement that its guerrillas destroyed two Israeli tanks as they tried to enter the Lebanese border village of Maroun al-Ras, across from Avivim.

Israel has mainly limited itself to attacks from the air and sea, reluctant to send in ground troops on terrain dominated by Hezbollah.

But an Israeli army spokesman refused to rule out the possibility of a full-scale invasion. Israel also broadcast warnings into south Lebanon on Wednesday telling civilians to leave the region, a possible prelude to a larger Israeli ground operation.

"There is a possibility - all our options are open. At the moment, it's a very limited, specific incursion but all options remain open," Capt. Jacob Dallal, an Israeli army spokesman, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The Lebanese government is under international pressure to deploy troops in the south to rein in Hezbollah guerrillas - but even before the fighting many considered it too weak to do so without deeply fracturing the country.

An Italian paper quoted Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora on Thursday as making his strongest statement yet against the Shiite militant group. But Saniora's office quickly said he was misquoted.

The Milan-based newspaper Corriere della Sera quoted him as saying in an interview that Hezbollah has created a "state within a state," adding: "The entire world must help us disarm Hezbollah. But first we need to reach a cease-fire," Saniora told

But Saniora issued a statement denying the statement. He said he told the paper that the international community must help press Israel from Chebaa Farms, a small border area that Lebanon claims and Hezbollah points to as proof of the continued need for armed resistance.

Saniora told the paper that "the continued presence of Israeli occupation of Lebanese lands in the Chebaa Farms region is what contributes to the presence of Hezbollah weapons. The international community must help us in (getting) an Israeli withdrawal from Chebaa Farms so we can solve the problem of Hezbollah's arms," the satement said. There was no immediate comment from the Italian paper.

A day earlier, Saniora issued an urgent appeal for a cease-fire, saying his country "has been torn to shreds." On Wednesday, warplanes pounded areas in the south where Hezbollah operates - but civilian residential neighborhoods bore the brunt, with dozens of houses destroyed.

Dallal said Israel had hit "1,000 targets in the last 8 days - 20 percent were missile launching sites and the rest were control and command centers, missiles and so forth."

Brig. Gen. Ido Nehushtan insisted the Israeli army never targets civilians but has no way of knowing whether civilians are in an area they are striking. "Civilians might be in the area because Hezbollah is operating from civilian territory," Nehushtan said.

He said that Hezbollah has fired more than 1,100 rockets at civilian areas in Israel since the fighting erupted and that 12 percent - or about 750,000 people - of Israel's population currently live in areas that can be targeted by the guerrilla group.

Israel said its airstrikes so far have destroyed "about 50 percent" of Hezbollah's arsenal - and it has been trying to take out its top leaders.

Wednesday evening, the Israeli military said that aircraft dropped 23 tons of explosives on on what the military believed was a bunker used by senior Hezbollah leaders in the Bourj al-Barajneh neighborhood of Beirut between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m.

Hezbollah said none of its members were hurt in the strike and denied a leadership bunker was in the area, saying a building under construction to be a mosque was hit.

Hezbollah has a headquarters compound in Bourj al-Barajneh that is off limits to the Lebanese police and army, so security officials could not confirm the strike.

Israel's U.N. Ambassador Dan Gillerman told CNN on Thursday said his country would not issue a statement about the attack until it is sure of all the facts. But he added, "I can assure you that we know exactly what we hit. ... This was no religious site. This was indeed the headquarters of the Hezbollah leadership."

Israeli ground troops fought Hezbollah guerrillas inside Lebanon on Thursday as the Israeli army said a full-scale invasion of its northern neighbour is still a possibility to destroy Hezbollah's military capacity.

Missiles from Israeli warplanes destroyed houses overnight in the southern Lebanese village of Zebdine. (Lefteris Pitarakis/Associated Press)

Israel says two of its soldiers died in the clash. Two Hezbollah fighters also died, according to the militant group.

Capt. Jacob Dallal, a spokesman for the Israeli army, said Thursday that the military operation against Hezbollah is not over by any means.

"At the moment, it's a very limited, specific incursion, but all options remain open," Dallal said.

An Israeli military radio station has warned hundreds of thousands of residents of southern Lebanon to leave "immediately," prompting speculation that a big ground operation to secure a buffer zone might soon begin.

Thursday's action marked the second day in a row that Israeli troops moved into Lebanon, part of a continuing offensive that began after Hezbollah militants captured two Israeli soldiers on July 12.

Since then, Israeli forces have been bombing and shelling Hezbollah targets daily in the suburbs of Beirut and southern Lebanese towns. Hezbollah has responded with dozens of rocket attacks on northern Israeli cities and towns.

No release of soldiers: Hezbollah

In an interview with Al-Jazeera, Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said the two captured Israeli soldiers would not be released without indirect negotiations for an exchange of prisoners. Nasrallah also said recent Israeli bombings and air strikes did not harm his organization.

"I can confirm without exaggeration," he said, "that the leadership structure of Hezbollah has not been hurt. All this Israeli talk that they hit 50 per cent of our rocket capabilities and warehouses, this talk is wrong and nonsense."

The Al-Jazeera correspondent who interviewed Nasrallah said he did not know where he was taken to film the Hezbollah leader. Israeli commentators have said one of the prime objectives of Israel's military campaign is to kill or capture Nasrallah.

At least 335 killed

The offensive has killed at least 306 people in Lebanon and 29 in Israel, where the death toll includes 14 soldiers. The United Nations said at least half a million people have been displaced in Lebanon.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said "hostilities must stop" between Israel and Hezbollah. In comments to the UN Security Council, he slammed Israel's "excessive use of force" against Lebanon and Hezbollah's "provocative" attacks.

"There are serious obstacles to reaching a ceasefire or even to diminishing the violence quickly," Annan said.   The Russian Foreign Ministry also criticized the Israeli offensive, saying its actions have gone "far beyond the boundaries of an anti-terrorist operation." It also called for a ceasefire.

In other developments on Thursday:

• Hezbollah claimed to have destroyed two Israeli tanks near the Lebanese border village of Maroun al-Ras.
• Israeli jets struck houses believed used by Hezbollah in the Lebanese town of Hermel, wounding three.
• Fighter jets destroyed a five-storey building allegedly used by Hezbollah in the city of Baalbek.
• Israel dropped leaflets in south Lebanon warning trucks they will be suspected of carrying weapons and could be targets.
• Two Israeli Apache helicopters collided near the border with Lebanon in what's thought to be an accident; five military personnel were injured.

Action in Gaza Strip

Israel also continued its military campaign in the Gaza Strip Thursday, which began last month when the militant group Hamas captured an Israeli soldier during a cross-border raid.

Israeli aircraft fired a missile at Palestinians in a refugee camp in the territory, leaving at least one person dead and five others injured.

The Israeli army says the strike was aimed at Palestinian militants who were planning to fire rockets into Israel. The Associated Press said some of the injured were civilians, although one was a man wearing military fatigues.

Early on Friday, Israeli tanks and ground forces withdrew from the area of the refugee camp in northern Gaza. Israeli forces remain deployed south of the Palestinian enclave.

Since it began on June 28, the Israeli campaign to free the soldier captured by Hamas has left 110 Palestinians dead, at least half of them militants, according to Israeli sources.

 Syria is willing to engage in dialogue with the United States to solve the confrontation between Hizbollah and Israel, Deputy Foreign Minister Fayssal Mekdad said on Sunday. Syria is ready for dialogue with the United States based on respect and mutual interests," he told Reuters in an interview.

Mekdad, an influential player in Syrian foreign policy, said Syria could "facilitate communication" to help end the crisis but that Hizbollah made its own decisions.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton said it was "hard to see" benefits from a Syrian-American dialogue and repeated U.S. calls for Syria to pressure Hizbollah to release two Israeli soldiers and stop targeting Israel with rockets.

Hizbollah fighters captured the two soldiers in a cross border operation on July 12, sparking Israeli reprisals that have killed around 365 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians.

Diplomats said Syria was unlikely to pressure Hizbollah to release the soldiers and disarm, as demanded by Western powers and a U.N. resolution, unless Damascus is guaranteed a role in any settlement that could help it regain its own occupied land.

Mekdad said the immediate solution to the conflict lies in a ceasefire brokered by international powers to be followed by diplomacy to address Hizbollah's demands, including a prisoner exchange and the return of Shebaa Farms.

"Israel has held some of these people in captivity for around 40 years. Releasing them fulfils a requirement of international law," he said.

OCCUPIED LAND

A Baath Party member close to the ruling inner circle said Syria considered the Israeli offensive on Lebanon "an attempt to reshape the politics of the Middle East."

The root of the crisis, Mekdad said, was Israel's occupation of Arab land, including Shebaa Farms, an area near the Golan Heights still under Israeli control after Israel pulled out of south Lebanon in 2000.

Lebanon and Syria say Shebaa Farms is Lebanese. The United Nations considers it Syrian land occupied by Israel in 1967.

"The basis must be found for a just and comprehensive peace and the return of the occupied land in Golan, Palestine and south Lebanon," Mekdad said.

"America and Israel are mistaken to think that destroying Lebanon will bring peace. What Israel is doing with U.S. involvement will only produce more violence and hatred."

Asked if Syria could see Hizbollah disarmed at one point, Mekdad said this was only possible with a peace deal that gives back Arab territory occupied by Israel in 1967.

"We do not decide for Hizbollah, but want a process for all the people of the region to live with dignity," he said.

Syria, a main backer of Hizbollah, has not been invited to an emergency meeting on the crisis in Rome next week, chaired by The United States and Italy.

The Baathist government's ties with the West deteriorated after last year's assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.

UN emergency relief chief Jan Egeland has condemned Israeli air strikes that have devastated much of Beirut, saying the massive bombings violate humanitarian law.                                                    Egeland, who was on a relief mission to Lebanon, visited the city on Sunday and called for an end to the violence on the twelfth day of Israeli strikes on Lebanon and Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israel.

"It's terrible. I see a lot of children wounded, homeless, suffering. This is a war where civilians pay a disproportionate price in Lebanon and northern Israel. I hadn't believed it would be block by block leveled to the ground," Egeland told reporters.

"A disproportionate response by Israel is a violation of international humanitarian law."

The crisis started when Lebanon-based Hezbollah militants entered northern Israel on July 12 and attacked an army post, killing eight soldiers and capturing two others. Israel retaliated with days of air strikes and on Saturday, sent troops, tanks and bulldozers across the border.

Hezbollah militants are estimated to have fired more than 1,000 rockets into northern Israel during the conflict ??? many of them recently acquired missiles that have a much longer range.

At least 375 people have been killed in Lebanon, including at least eight Canadians who died when Israel bombed a village in southern Lebanon. Israel's death toll stood at 36 on Sunday, with 17 people killed by Hezbollah rockets and 19 soldiers killed in combat.

"If it continues like this, there will be more and more civilian casualties," Egeland warned.

More than $100M in aid needed: Egeland

He estimated it would cost more than $100 million to aid the hundreds of thousands of people who have had to flee their homes to escape the violence.

Egeland called upon the international community for aid.

The number of displaced people has grown to 600,000, according the World Health Organization.

Israel to ease naval blockade

Israel has announced it will ease its naval blockade, allowing aid supply ships to dock in Beirut. Officials also defined a route of safe passage from the capital to the northern city of Tripoli.

But in southern Lebanon, where the Israeli bombardment has been heaviest, officials said supplies of fuel, food and medicine were quickly diminishing.

"There are no supplies reaching us, not from other nations, nor from the Lebanese government," said Abdul-Rahman al-Bizri, the mayor of the port city of Sidon.

The first International Red Cross relief convoy on Friday made a six-hour journey over damaged road from Beirut to the southern city of Tyre. It included 24 tonnes of food and other emergency items, to be distributed to 4,000 civilians in and around the city.

UN warns of 'major humanitarian disaster'

About 200,000 Lebanese have fled to neighbouring Syria ??? which has also been one of the key backers of Hezbollah over the years, along with Iran.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Saturday warned that delivering aid to the refugees in Syria could be difficult and had the potential to turn into a "major humanitarian disaster"

The Red Crescent aid agency in Syria said it had only been able to help about 10 per cent of the refugees who have arrived in the country.

Will Israel stop after defeating Hezbollah in Beirut? Damascus is only a cab ride away ?
Israel's relentless, almost Biblical destruction of Lebanon continues.

Ignoring the ancient law of an eye for eye, Israel's modern version seems to be 10 Arabs killed for every Jew who is slain.

As of this writing 500,000 Lebanese are refugees and some 300 have died, including a family of eight Canadians.

Israel's losses so far: 14 soldiers and 15 civilians.

In the last example of collective punishment against civilians outside Palestine -- Slobodan Milosevic's terrorizing of Kosovo -- NATO intervened to halt the killing and ethnic cleansing, and prosecuted war criminals.

Now, UN Human Rights Commissioner, Canada's Louis Arbour, warns the destruction of Lebanon and the shelling of Israeli cities constitute "war crime(s)." Blasting civilian targets and collective punishment are grave crimes under the Geneva Conventions and both Israel and Hezbollah are guilty.

Switzerland, the Conventions' guardian, recently warned Israel it was violating the Conventions by destroying vital civilian targets in Palestine such as water, sewage, power stations, bridges and telecommunications. Hezbollah's rockets have killed Israeli civilians and damaged civilian facilities as well.

Previously, Israel and its foes have traded prisoners or their remains in arranging peace deals. Israel has a highly honourable tradition of always getting its soldiers back.

In 2004,Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah -- now hunted by Israel hit squads -- swapped the remains of Israeli soldiers for hundreds of Palestinians, Hezbollah fighters, and Lebanese hostages held in Israeli prisons.

Israel could have arranged a similar swap after the usual ritual bombing. But this time, the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers and murder of eight others by Hezbollah provides a possible launching point for the Bush administration's pro-Israel neoconservatives and Israel's military to broaden the present crisis. It could lead to activation of long-held U.S.-Israeli plans to go after Syria and Iran.

Hezbollah's Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, who triggered this crisis, saw it as a way of getting thousands of Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners back from Israel and raising his stature as the only Arab daring to stand up to Israel. Fragile, isolated Syria, with obsolete military forces, appears the next target of Bush's Mideast crusade. It's only a taxi ride from Beirut to Damascus.

Ethnically unstable

Israeli strategists have long believed sharp military raps on Damascus would shatter the ethnically/religiously unstable nation. This would remove Israel's nearest enemy, and allow it to turn Lebanon into a protectorate. But Israel will be unable to destroy Hezbollah's political infrastructure or 3,000 fighters by shelling and bombing alone. Israel may be planning commando attacks or a full-scale invasion of Lebanon . Chances of a major invasion are growing. Israeli troops have been probing into southern Lebanon, suffering, in the process, the same casualties encountered when battling Hezbollah fighters in the 1980s.

Israeli strategists are said to be considering setting up a 30-km deep "security zone" in Lebanon to protect Israel from rocket fire. Quel deja vu! Israel has twice before invaded Lebanon and set up "security zones."

As I witnessed these events, each "security zone" quickly became a zone of insecurity for Israeli troops, where they suffered punishing casualties. But here we go again, or, a full invasion of Lebanon will bring Israeli forces dangerously close to Syria's borders. In the end, however, Israel is no more likely to destroy Hezbollah than it was the PLO or Hamas.

If Syria is crushed and a western puppet regime implanted in Damascus, the road to Tehran lies open. U.S. ground forces are too bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan to tackle Iran.

But Israel might supply commando, air and perhaps armoured forces for a tempting but risky dash on Tehran.

U.S. midterm elections are nearing and the Republicans are in dire straits. Bush urgently needs a military triumph in what he now calls "the new front in the war on terrorism."

Israel wants the U.S. to destroy Iran's nuclear infrastructure, as it did Iraq's, before the ardently pro-Israel George Bush leaves office. And Israel's new government wants to show voters it's even tougher than its now-incapacitated former PM, Ariel Sharon.

A minor skirmish could well turn into a major conflict.

Top Saudi Arabian officials met with their U.S. counterparts on Sunday in an effort to end the carnage in Lebanon.We are requesting a ceasefire to allow for a cessation of hostilities," Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said after meeting U.S. President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington, D.C.

"I found the president very conscious of the destruction and bloodshed the Lebanese are suffering," he said.

Saud gave Bush a letter from Saudi King Abdullah asking for a ceasefire.

The White House had no comment following the meeting, but there is no indication the U.S. is ready to call for a ceasefire in the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militants, which is in its 12th day.

American leaders blame Hezbollah for the fighting, which has claimed at least 375 Lebanese and 36 Israelis. Israel began air and ground attacks on July 12 after Hezbollah killed eight Israeli soldiers and captured two more in a cross-border raid.

The U.S. has insisted that Hezbollah must stop firing rockets at Israel and return two captured Israeli soldiers.

Pressure from Arab states

The U.S. also wants moderate Arab states to pressure Syria to stop supporting Hezbollah. That would make it easier to ask Israel to stop its attacks, and make it harder for Hezbollah to continue assaults on Israel.

Reports from Cairo said both Saudi Arabia and Egypt are leaning on Syria. But Arab countries that seek to rein in the militants have to be careful so they are not seen as doing the bidding of the United States.

Rice made it clear Friday that a lasting peace requires weakening Hezbollah, and media reports said the U.S. wants to give Israel enough time to beat Hezbollah militarily before pushing for a ceasefire.

A ceasefire "allowing terrorists to launch attacks at the time and terms of their choosing" would simply guarantee more violence, Rice said.

Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz said on Sunday the attacks on Lebanon will continue until Hezbollah is pushed back from position along the Israel-Lebanon border.

Israel would accept NATO-led troops

Peretz also said that Israel would accept international troops, preferably led by NATO, along the border.

"Israel's goal is to see the Lebanese army deployed along the border with Israel, but we understand that we are talking about a weak army and that in the mid-term period, Israel will have to accept a multinational force," Peretz told German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, according to officials from Peretz's office.

Syrian plan rejected

Syria floated a ceasefire plan Sunday, but John Bolton,  the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, rejected it.

"Syria doesn't need dialogue to know what it needs to do. They need to lean on Hezbollah to get them to release the two captured Israeli soldiers and stop the launch of rockets against innocent Israeli civilians," Bolton said.

The Sunday afternoon meeting took place just before Rice was to leave for the Middle East for a round of talks with Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

Those talks will be followed by a summit in Rome on Wednesday with foreign ministers from Israel, Lebanon, the European Union, the UN and a number of Arab states.

Syria says it is prepared to enter talks with the United States to try to resolve the crisis between Hezbollah ??? the Lebanon-based militant group that receives heavy backing from Damascus ??? and Israel.

Faisal al-Meqdad, Syria's deputy foreign minister, made the comment on Sunday amid a 12th day of violence, as Israel continued air strikes in Lebanon and Hezbollah militants kept on firing missiles into northern Israel.

John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, scorned Syria's proposal.

"Syria doesn't need dialogue to know what it needs to do. They need to lean on Hezbollah to get them to release the two captured Israeli soldiers and stop the launch of rockets against innocent Israeli civilians," he said.

Al-Meqdad called for international powers to broker a ceasefire in the context of a broader Middle East peace initiative. He also said they should address the demands that Hezbollah made after it triggered the conflict by crossing into Israel to raid an army outpost on July 12, killing eight Israeli soldiers and capturing two others.

Syrian Information Minister Mohsen Bilal echoed the sentiments, saying Syria would only support a peace package that included the return of the Golan Heights, captured by Israel in 1967. "Syria is working on achieving real, comprehensive, fair peace based on the withdrawal from all the occupied territories, including Golan," Bilal told the Spanish newspaper ABC in an interview.

The militants have said they would release the soldiers if Israel released Hezbollah militants being held in its jails.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was to embark on Sunday on a diplomatic mission in a bid to end fighting in the Middle East. She was also expected at an emergency meeting in Rome on Wednesday that will bring together Israel, Lebanon, the European Union, the United Nations and others interested in Middle East peace.

Syria ??? which has been one of Hezbollah's key backers, along with Iran ??? was not invited to the Rome meeting.

Isolate Israel, Iranian president urges

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmandinejad said Sunday that Israel had "pushed the button of its own destruction" by attacking Hezbollah guerillas in Lebanon.

"Arrogant powers have set up a base for themselves to threaten and plunder nations in the region," Ahmadinejad told a gathering of education officials in Tehran.

"But today, the occupier regime [Israel] ??? whose philosophy is based on threats, massacre and invasion ??? has reached its finishing line."

Ahmadinejad said Islamic nations and others should isolate Israel and its backers. He called on Israel and its allies to apologize.

Iran won't join battle: top Iranian general

A day earlier, the chairman of the joint chiefs of Iran's armed forces, Maj.-Gen. Sayyed Hassan Firuzabadi, said Iran would not join the fighting in the Middle East.

After Hezbollah's initial cross-border raid, Israel began pounding Lebanon with air strikes, including attacks Sunday on Beirut, Sidon and Tyre.

The conflict escalated on Saturday when Israel sent troops, tanks and bulldozers into southern Lebanon, but Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz has insisted that his country has no intention of re-occupying the territory that it left in 2000.

Hezbollah militants continued to launch volleys of rockets into northern Israel on Sunday, killing at least two people in one of the attacks on the city of Haifa.

Western diplomats said Israel favoured a NATO operation over a United Nations-led force. Israel has sharply criticised the existing UN peacekeeping force in south Lebanon as a failure.

Thousands of Israeli soldiers have massed along the northern border and residents of villages in southern Lebanon have been warned to evacuate. More than a dozen Hezbollah rockets slammed into the northern Israeli city of Haifa yesterday, killing two people and wounding 15 others.

While the Israeli air force continues to strike targets and missile launchers inside Lebanon, the ground campaign has not been expanded to include the prevention of Katyusha rocket attacks by Hezbollah.

The Israeli Defence Force announced yesterday that its troops had captured the border village of Maroun al-Ras, where seven of its commandos died in two skirmishes with Hezbollah guerillas last week.

In a wave of pre-dawn raids, fighter-bombers for the first time struck directly inside the main southern Lebanese city of Sidon.

There is growing criticism of Israel's offensive, which has left made hundreds of thousands refugees in their own country.

"The whole thing has to stop," UN relief co-ordinator Jan Egeland said. "It's no natural disaster but a man-made crisis. This is a senseless war. It should never have started. It should never have been carried out like it is now."

Mr Egeland was in Beirut yesterday to launch an appeal for aid for the half a million civilians displaced by what the UN says has created a "catastrophic" humanitarian situation.

He said the bombing where Hezbollah had its headquarters had breached humanitarian law.

Thousands of Lebanese civilians and foreign visitors are still known to be trapped along the border, despite warnings from Israel on Saturday telling residents of 14 border villages to leave before they were destroyed by bombardment.

The deepening humanitarian crisis prompted British Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells to condemn Israel's tactics and to question Washington's understanding of what was happening.

"The destruction of infrastructure, the death of so many children and so many people. These have not been surgical strikes," he said in Beirut. "If they are chasing Hezbollah, then go for Hezbollah. You don't go for the entire Lebanese nation."

The Israeli warnings also prompted a plea from Foreign Minister Alexander Downer for Australians in Lebanon to rethink their lukewarm response to evacuation ships laid on by the Federal Government.

"We can't keep the ships running indefinitely. It's very important that those who do want to leave ??? and after all, this is an emergency ??? should get down to the port today," he said.

NATO is really the US. So now we are going to have American troops in Iraq, and in Lebanon. States really think they are going to rule the world. Fortunatelly, they will run out of money long before that happens.

Anyways, NATO is still a good alternative over what is happening right now. NATO did settle things down in Kosovo and Bosnia, and now people can even go on vcations to those places, like my friend did. He is from Moncton, and has just returned from the Balkans and said he had a blast.

Israeli troops captured two Hezbollah guerrillas Monday during fierce fighting near Bint Jbeil, considered to be an important stronghold of the militants, Brig.-Gen. Alon Friedman said.

An Israeli soldier jumps from a tank during operations Monday to bring back soldiers wounded during fighting in southern Lebanon. (David Guttenfelder/Associated Press)

The two have been taken to Israel, where they will be detained and interrogated, Friedman added. They are the first Hezbollah fighters captured by Israeli forces since fighting began July 12, after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed another eight in a cross-border raid.

Two Israeli soldiers were killed and 20 were wounded in the latest battle, the military said.

It spread to the town Bint Jbeil, about four kilometres inside Lebanon, from the village of Maroun al-Ras just inside the border. Bint Jbeil has been called  the "capital of the resistance" by the Israelis for its support of Hezbollah when Israel occupied south Lebanon from 1982 to 2000.

In Bint Jbeil, most of the population of 200,000 is believed to have left before the fighting started. Dr. Hassan Nasreddine, a Red Cross doctor in the town on Sunday, said families had been crowding into schools, mosques and other empty buildings.

Israeli troops seized control of a hilltop in Bint Jbeil but were encountering resistance in the rest of the town, which was held by Hezbollah guerrillas, the Israeli military said.

The fighting comes as U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a surprise visit to the Lebanese capital of Beirut to meet with Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. She is on a diplomatic mission to the Middle East and has said a ceasefire is urgently needed but not on any terms.

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said in comments published Monday that he is open to talking about ways to end the crisis and a ceasefire is a priority.

In other developments Monday:

• An Israeli helicopter crashed in northern Israel after hitting an electrical wire while making an emergency landing. Both pilots were killed.

• In Beirut, families from neighbourhoods in the southern half of the city were packing their possessions and heading to safer places. As they left, refugees from south Lebanon were reported to be taking over the abandoned homes for temporary shelter.

  (CBC)

• Aid began to arrive in the port of Beirut after the Israeli navy lifted its blockade to allow passage of ships carrying humanitarian supplies. An Italian warship, for example, brought food, medicine, tents, blankets, water, generators and ambulances.

Israel, however, has not lifted its sea blockade of the southern port of Tyre.

Officials said they are trying to deliver aid to southern Lebanon, where it is badly needed, but roads have been bombed and Israel has not outlined a safe route to the area.

Despite the lack of a safe route, two convoys of supplies, including generators for hospitals, food, tarpaulins and hygiene kits, left Beirut on Monday for Tyre and the southern city of Marjayoun.

Thousands of people have fled Lebanon since fighting erupted on July 12.

The conflict has many fronts: Israel has pounded Hezbollah targets in Beirut and south Lebanon, Hezbollah has launched rocket attacks against northern Israel and, since last week, Israeli troops and Hezbollah have waged ground battles just inside Lebanon.

Beirut Blasted After Lull

There has been a series of large explosions in Beirut, the first Israeli strikes in the Lebanese city for nearly two days.

A grey cloud billowed up from the capital's southern district, a Hezbollah stronghold that has been heavily bombarded.

Elsewhere, Israeli troops sealed off the Hizbollah stronghold of Bint Jbail in fierce fighting in south Lebanon. The Israeli army confirmed it killed at least 20 Hizbollah fighters. 

Warplanes struck the market city of Nabatiyeh. In one house, a man and his wife and their son were killed, said the couple's daughter.

A senior army commander said Israel would only encircle Lebanese towns and villages near the border and did not plan a deeper push into the country.

At least 40 rockets were fired at northern Israel, and a teenage girl was killed and three other people were injured in the Israeli Arab town of Maghar.

Militants have also fired up to 16 rockets at the Israeli city of Haifa, injuring at least five people. One rocket fired hit a bus, another hit a house and two reportedly struck close to a hospital.

Jordan's foreign minister said Arabs meeting in Rome on Wednesday will insist on an immediate cease-fire and for the Lebanese government to take control over Hizbollah.

what Israel is doing right now is a crime against humanity. Hezballah are criminals also. So is the US Adiminstration for backing Israel, and "allowing it to bomb for another week".

UN is dropping the balls yet again. Just like in Dafur, or Rwanda. We live in a nasty world.

Israel's bombing of Gaza's only power plant and other infrastructure was a disproportionate use of force that has had profound humanitarian consequences, the United Nations' chief aid official said on Tuesday.

"This is very clear, a disproportionate use (of power)," Jan Egeland, the U.N. under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, told reporters as he toured the destroyed plant south of Gaza City.

"Civilian infrastructure is protected. The law is very clear. You cannot have any interpretation in any other way."

Israel bombed the $150 million facility late last month, as it launched a military campaign to try to recover a soldier captured by Palestinian militants in a raid from Gaza.

The 140-Megawatt reactor, which took five years to build, supplied about two-thirds of the electricity needed in the Gaza Strip, home to around 1.4 million Palestinians. It is expected to take at least 10 months to fix.

Since its destruction, much of Gaza has been without power and many are now dependent on electricity imports from Israel. While some families and businesses have generators, there is scarce fuel available in Gaza to run them.

WATER SUPPLY

Knocking out the power plant has also had consequences for Gaza's water supply since pumps rely on electricity.

"This plant is more important for hospitals, for sewage, for water, for civilians than for any Hamas or Islamic Jihad man with some kind of a missile on his shoulder," said Egeland.

"He doesn't need electricity as much as a mother trying to care for a child."

At the same time, the Norwegian diplomat said rockets being fired by Hamas and other militant groups into Israel had to stop and with it Israel's incursions into Gaza over the past month, designed to stop the rockets and find the captured soldier.

Since launching its operations in Gaza, Israeli forces have killed 121 Palestinians, about half of them civilians. Many buildings in Gaza have also been destroyed in missile strikes, including several government ministries.

The fighting opened the first of what have become two fronts for Israel, also battling Hizbollah militants in southern Lebanon since they captured two Israeli soldiers on July 12.

Egeland said the United Nations still needed to raise $250 million of the $385 million it has appealed for in humanitarian aid for Gaza and the West Bank in 2006.

"We are predicting food shortages, we are predicting widespread, deep poverty and potentially a humanitarian crisis unless we get more assistance," he said.

"The economy is dying. Nobody can produce or export anything at the moment. We as a humanitarian organisation cannot get in many of our supplies," he said, adding he would raise this issue in talks with Israel on Wednesday.

Egeland said fighting on both fronts had to stop immediately if a deepening crisis were to be averted.

"The international community has to work with the parties to break this vicious cycle of bitterness and violence," he said.

Aid workers have started supply runs into southern Lebanon but some villages remain cut off, the Red Cross said Tuesday, and a U.N. agency warned a food crisis was looming in areas worst hit by Israeli bombardment.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it had set up two southern bases, in the port of Tyre and the town of Marjayoun, and was sending medical assistance to border villages needing urgent help after two weeks of war.

"Things have not stabilised yet. There are a lot of people stuck in the south," Andreas Wigger, ICRC head of delegation in Lebanon, said.

While the United Nations says it is waiting for Israeli guarantees of safe passage before distributing aid to the south, the Red Cross started operations four days ago.

It is concentrating on 200 villages in the hills of southern Lebanon, where heavy bombardment has forced tens of thousands to flee and left others stranded. Many remain beyond its reach.

"Today we could not go to Rmaish, they are in dire need," he said, referring to a village barely a mile (2 km) from the border with Israel and close to Bint Jbeil, where Israeli and Hizbollah forces have fought fierce battles.

Wigger said the ICRC moved only with prior consent from the Israeli army. A truck carrying medical supplies from the United Arab Emirates was hit in eastern Lebanon last week, killing its driver, and six Lebanese Red Cross workers were injured when they were targeted in an air strike.

Speaking after taking a delivery of emergency medical aid from Washington, Wigger said the ICRC was bringing in supplies from Syria and had stocks in Cyprus which it hoped to ship to Lebanon soon.

Lebanon says more than 500,000 people have been displaced by the fighting and 150,000 more have left for neighboring Syria.

The United States said helicopters delivered two large-scale medical supply kits to Beirut on Tuesday.

Eight more medical kits were in Cyprus and were expected to be delivered in the next four or five days, said the assistant administrator for the United States Agency for International Development, Michael Hess.

Other planned U.S. assistance would include blankets, plastic sheeting, and some money to fund U.N. operations, Hess said in a telephone interview.

CROPS ABANDONED

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said a food crisis was looming as the fighting had destroyed roads and bridges and forced people to abandon their crops.

Lebanon relies on imports for around 90 percent of its cereal needs. Some of the few crops produced on the ground were in areas of heavy fighting, the FAO said in a statement.

"These factors combined provide the recipe for a major food crisis," Henri Josserand, Chief of FAO's Global Information and Early Warning System, said.

"Food, fuel and medical supplies have been disrupted by the fighting, and large parts of the country's infrastructure lie in ruins," he said.

The fighting, which started after Hizbollah guerrillas seized two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid, has killed 413 people in Lebanon, mainly civilians, and 42 Israelis.

U.N. emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland launched an appeal this week for $150 million to provide health, shelter, food, water and sanitation to hundreds of thousands of people in Lebanon over the next few months.

Aid agencies say they are still largely blocked from bringing supplies to Lebanon, despite Israel's pledge to allow relief shipments through its air and sea blockade.

Independent medical aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres said Lebanese teams had managed to ward off medical catastrophe for now, but local supplies were running low and pledges of aid will amount to little if they cannot get through.

"Access to civilians in the zones most at risk is practically impossible. This is unacceptable and risks having tragic consequences," said MSF director general Pierre Salignon.

Offers of aid have come from the United States, European Union, Kuwait, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates.

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah ordered the transfer of $1 billion to Lebanon's central bank to help support its battered economy. Earlier he ordered a separate $500 million donation to help rebuild Lebanon.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan today said he was "shocked" at Israel's "apparently deliberate targeting" of a UN post in Lebanon, in which up to four UN observers were killed.

Mr Annan described the strike as a "co-ordinated artillery and aerial attack on a long established and clearly marked UN post."

He said it took place "despite personal assurances given to me by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that UN positions would be spared Israeli fire."

"Furthermore, General Alain Pelligrini, the UN Force Commander in south Lebanon, had been in repeated contact with Israeli officers throughout the day on Tuesday, stressing the need to protect that particular UN position from attack.

"I call on the Government of Israel to conduct a full investigation into this very disturbing incident and demand that any further attack on UN positions and personnel must stop.

"The names and nationalities of those killed are being withheld pending notification of their families. I extend sincere condolences to the families of our fallen peacekeepers."

The Israeli army has been accused of using Palestinian civilians as human shields in an operation in northern Gaza.

According to the Israeli human rights group, B'tselem, six civilians including two minors were subjected to the illegal tactic during an incursion into the town of Beit Hanoun last week. There are piles of rubble leading up to the hole in Hazem Ali's house.

It's a week since Israel came into Beit Hanoun, but the gash in the side of his house is still raw, the soft inside of family life still visible through the lumps of concrete hanging from the wall. A broken bed; a few girders dripping onto it; an elegant wardrobe still standing against the back wall.

It was soon after dawn when the Israeli army bulldozed their way in. Hazem was still sleeping, taking a break from his job as an engineer with the local Palestinian news agency.

'Blindfolded'

It was his mother who met them in the hallway, Israeli soldiers in a Palestinian home. Behind her, Hazem and his two brothers emerged, one by one.

The three brothers were blindfolded, says Hazem, and their hands tied behind their backs. He shows me the wounds on his wrists from the plastic handcuffs - still sore and infected, but beginning to heal over.

He shows me where the soldiers positioned them: outside the entrance to his flat on the third floor, in the stairwell, facing down the steps."I think they put us here because they were expecting suiciders to come into the flat because none of the soldiers were on the stairs - they were all inside the flat. They put us here so we'll be shot first."

Inside the flat, the soldiers punched holes in the walls of his living room, and bedroom. Through them, snipers exchanged fire with Palestinian militants. Hazem and his brothers heard it all, but could see nothing.

Hazem says he had little idea at the time exactly how long he was kept there. All he remembers was listening to the heavy gunfire around him, and counting the calls to prayer as they echoed over the area: one at lunchtime, one at tea-time, and one in the evening as the sun set. Twelve hours in all.

He says he expected to die any second. He still can't understand why, as civilians, they couldn't be kept in a room somewhere inside the house, where they would have been safer. But they put us in the middle of the clashes, he says. "There was no need for that."

Court outlawed tactic

Allegations over Israel's use of human shields have surfaced before. The last time they made headlines was during Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank town of Jenin, four years ago.The army denied its personnel systematically used civilians as human shields during that operation, but it did issue an order outlawing the practice. As did the Israeli High Court.

But Yekhezel Lain, research director with the Israeli human rights group B'tselem says they are worried those guarantees are now being eroded. He says the cases in Beit Hanoun last week are the first of their kind since the High Court decision.

"This was a very blatant violation of the prohibition of the use of human shields," he tells me. "It was just soldiers hiding behind the back of civilians who were held with force in their homes."

B'tselem says it is investigating reports of other, similar incidents in Gaza during the past month. And it is worried that - having withdrawn from Gaza last year - the Israeli army may see the area as distinct from other Palestinian Territories.

The group is concerned about Israel establishing different rules in the case of the Gaza Strip where according to the state, there is no occupation any more - it's only a state of war, or armed conflict. The human rights group does not believe there is a difference when it comes to the protection of civilians.

The IDF told the BBC the claims in Beit Hanoun were being investigated, and that its soldiers were obliged to act in accordance with moral principles and the rules of engagement. Any misconduct, they said, would be looked into.

As he waits for news of his case in Beit Hanoun, Hazem Ali has got the builders in to fill the holes in his flat, re-glaze his windows and repair as much of the damage as he can.

His wife, meanwhile, is preparing for the birth of their first child. She is half Egyptian, and has been asking Hazem to move out of the Gaza Strip for months now. But he refuses to leave. There's no running away from Gaza, he says.

 

 

UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon contacted Israeli troops 10 times before an Israeli bomb killed four of them, an initial UN report says.

The post was hit by a precision-guided missile after six hours of shelling, diplomats familiar with the probe say.

UN-led crisis talks in Rome ended with no agreement to urge an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

Eight Israeli soldiers have died in ongoing clashes - the biggest loss in one incident since the conflict began.

Twenty-two soldiers were injured as Israeli troops tried to gain control of the town of Bint Jbail, a strategically located Hezbollah stronghold.

Mid-East crisis map Future scenarios How post was bombed Later, a massive explosion destroyed a several-storey building in the centre of Tyre housing the offices of a top Hezbollah commander lived. He was not there at the time. A senior Israel army general said he expected the fighting would continue for "several more weeks". More than 400 Lebanese and 42 Israelis have died in two weeks of conflict, which began after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on 12 July. In other developments: Hezbollah fired more than 100 rockets into Israel, injuring 31 people, security and medical sources say A Jordanian military plane arrived in Beirut to evacuate some of the most seriously wounded Lebanese civilians Ten lorries loaded with food and medical supplies arrived in the southern town of Tyre from the capital, Beirut Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah warned on TV that his organisation would begin firing rockets further south into Israel than Haifa More than 300 people - mainly US and Australian citizens - who had been caught in the fighting in southern Lebanon are due to leave from Tyre on a Canadian ferry on Wednesday evening Israeli regrets The four unarmed UN observers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland, died after their UN post in the town of Khiam was hit by an Israeli air strike on Tuesday. The UN report says each time the UN contacted Israeli forces, they were assured the firing would stop. A senior Irish soldier working for the UN forces had warned the Israelis six times that their bombardment was endangering the lives of UN staff, Ireland's foreign ministry said. Had Israel responded to the requests, "rather than deliberately ignoring them", the observers would still be alive, a diplomat familiar with the report said. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has expressed "deep regrets" over the deaths. Israel is conducting an investigation into the incident. It has rejected accusations made by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that the targeting of the UN position was "apparently deliberate". White House spokesman Tony Snow said "something went really wrong" to cause the deaths, but also said there was no reason to suggest the bombing was deliberate. The UN Security Council is meeting to discuss the incident. 'Utmost urgency' The Rome summit, called by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, brought together EU and Arab nations plus the US and Russia, but not Israel, Iran or Syria. Images from the Middle East as the conflict enters a third week In pictures The conference released a declaration expressing "determination to work immediately to reach with utmost urgency a ceasefire to put an end to the current hostilities". It also said a ceasefire "must be lasting, permanent and sustainable". The statement called for an international force with a UN mandate for south Lebanon, and the full implementation of existing UN Security Council resolutions calling for the disarming of militias and deployment of Lebanese troops in the border region. Mr Annan said it was important to work with the countries of the region, including Syria and Iran, to find a solution to the crisis. But Condoleezza Rice was critical of the role of both countries. "It's not a question of talking to Syria, it's whether Syria's prepared to act," she said. In an impassioned speech, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora warned that more people would die if the ceasefire was delayed, and called for a Lebanese-Israeli prisoner exchange as part of plan to end the fighting.

Three dirty bandages hide the worst of Zainab Jawad's swollen and bloodied nose. Her arm - fractured in two places - is strapped to her chest.

Stretched out on a hospital bed, the 8-year-old squeezes shut her brown eyes as she fights back sobs at Tyre's Najem Hospital.

On Sunday, Israeli bombs destroyed her family's home in the southern Lebanese village of Ayta Chaeb. Then rockets hit the car as they fled.

"What I remember most is the sound, the sound of the planes and I was scared because I thought there were so many," she says. "I fell asleep last night, but all I could hear in my sleep were planes."

Zainab's aunt is in the next bed. Her mother, Usra, and 4-year-old brother, Mohammed, are in a room nearby. The boy's leg is in a cast to his hip. His mother's leg is in traction after steel pins were installed in several places.

When the bombing started, Usra and her three sisters fled with the two children. They were headed for Basariya, north of Tyre, but 3km from the port city rockets hit their car. Two sisters, both teachers, were killed.

Jawad Najem, a surgeon at the hospital, says patients admitted on Sunday were burn cases that resulted from phosphorus incendiary weapons.

The Geneva Conventions ban using white phosphorous as an incendiary weapon against civilian populations and in air attacks against military forces in civilian areas. The Israeli military says its use of weapons "conforms with international law".

It also says it warned all residents to leave areas that have been targeted.

"The IDF (army) operates solely against terrorist organisations and terror infrastructure. The responsibility for endangering (the) civilian population rests on the Hezbollah terror organisation," the military said in a statement.

Najem said he had also treated a 14-year-old boy, Mahmoud Sarour, for phosphorus burns to his face. His 8-month-old sister, Maryam, also suffered similar burns to her neck and hands when an Israeli rocket hit her family's car just 1km from the hospital.

Talks between key Middle East players in Rome on a plan for ending the 15-day-old conflict in Lebanon Wednesday failed to reach agreement on an immediate cease-fire.

The stormy meeting, which saw the United States pitted against European and Arab leaders, resulted in calls for a truce but little concrete action to end the fighting that has killed more than 300 civilians.

The meeting called for the formation of a U.N.-authorized force to help the Lebanese government exert its control over southern Lebanon. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the international community will be discussing the formation of that force in "the next few days."

She said such a force needs to be "strong and robust to bring about peace."

There were also agreements on humanitarian aid and reconstruction.A statement read by Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema -- who co-chaired the talks with Rice -- said the conference had agreed "immediately to reach with the utmost urgency a cease-fire that puts an end to the current violence and hostilities." (Text of Rome statement)

But with the United States resisting demands for an immediate cease-fire, insisting that a cessation of hostilities must be part of a wider plan to permanently disarm Lebanese Hezbollah militants, there was no crucial cease-fire deal.

Rice said she had been moved by an impassioned plea by Lebanon's Prime Minister Fouad Siniora to "stop the killing" but said the U.S. favors long-term efforts to end "spasms of violence" in the region.

Siniora, who said his country was being "cut to pieces" by the Israeli retaliation against Hezbollah, said he came to Rome hoping for a plan on reaching a cease-fire.

He said "some progress" had been made and urged the international community to press forward on actions that would end the Israeli military campaign and leave his government in control of the entire country, including the south, which is now controlled by Hezbollah.

The Israeli government, which was not invited to the Rome meeting, said Wednesday it hopes the "international community will act immediately to strengthen the Lebanese Army" so that it can take charge of south Lebanon.

In its statement, Israel said it wants a U.N. resolution calling for Lebanese militias to be disarmed and a G8 statement calling for the release of all abducted soldiers.

"Israel is forced to continue to defend its citizens because of the failure to implement these resolutions until now," the statement read.

Tensions were raised during the discussions -- involving United States, the United Nations, European Union countries, Arab states such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia as well as Canada, Russia, Cyprus and Turkey --by the deaths of four U.N. military observers in an Israeli attack on a U.N. outpost. (Full story)

The incident, claimed as a mistake by Israel, has been condemned by the international community, with Annan describing it as "apparently deliberate."

With the violence still ongoing, participants said they agreed to continue discussions, but CNN's John King said there was a sense among European and Arab leaders that the United States was buying time for Israel in its offensive against Hezbollah.

One source involved in the talks said everyone but the United States wanted to press ahead with an immediate cease-fire, but Rice argued that taking that approach would leave Hezbollah in place and still armed with its rockets.

Rice also expressed concern over what she said was Iran and Syria's involvement in the conflict, while Annan said that future dialogue should involve Tehran and Damascus.

A senior U.N. diplomat described the mood in the talks as somber. He said everyone but the United States wanted cessation of fighting to make room for more negotiations and humanitarian aid.

"This wouldn't require much contact between parties, and you can build on this for a political dialogue, but the United States wants formal cease-fire as part of a comprehensive deal, return of soldiers, etc.," the source said.

There was agreement on humanitarian and reconstruction packages, but those can't be implemented with the fighting continuing.

Rice's appearance in Rome came after visits to Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territories, carrying the outline of a proposal calling for a plan that would extend the Lebanese government's control over southern Lebanon.

The plan included up to two international military forces with the charge of ending the fighting and keeping the peace.

The U.S. deal would include a prisoner swap, a withdrawal of the Israeli army now in southern Lebanon, and transfer of the disputed Shebaa Farms area to Lebanon.

Siniora called on Israel to return the Shebaa Farms area to Lebanon and to provide a map of mine fields planted in southern Lebanon by Israel.

Gee... and like Hiz-gonna-die didn't throw the first 12 bombs which killed children.

Humm...

Biased oneandonly?

Give us BOTH sides.

 we are not allowed to point out that israel is in the wrong  

Some 200 left-wing activists marched outside the house of IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz at the Tzahala neighborhood in Tel Aviv Saturday evening, to protest the killing of civilians in Gaza on Friday.

Protesters march near Halutz's house (Photo: Niv Kalderon)

 

The demonstrators chanted slogans such as "Tzahala residents, there's a murderer in your neighborhood," and raised signs calling on the government to "put a stop to the murder of civilians" and stating, "Halutz is a killer, the intifada shall prevail." Activists also shouted, "neighbors, ask Halutz why he's killing children and how many."

 

Dana Olmert, the daughter of Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, also took part in the demonstration.

 

About 30 policemen arrived at the place to maintain order, but allowed the rally to proceed uninterrupted. Some of the neighborhood's residents, however, were less pleased with the disturbance and squirted water on the protesters from inside their houses.

 

Letter to Olmert: Stop war crimes

 

Five human rights organizations sent a letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and defense Minister Amir Peretz, calling on them to act immediately in order to put an end to the killing of Palestinian civilians in the territories, and to "uproot the elements that contribute to this killing."According to the letter, while it is Israel's duty to take all necessary measures in order to protect its citizens, it is however unacceptable for a sovereign state to employ illegal methods, which in some occasions constitute war crimes.

 

The groups stressed in the letter that one of Israel's obligations, according to humanitarian international law, is to minimize the ramifications of military operation on the civilian population, and to secure the wellbeing and safety of the Palestinian civilians even during battle. 

A Canadian was among four United Nations peacekeepers killed yesterday in southern Lebanon when an Israeli air strike reduced a UN observer post to rubble, sparking condemnation and a full investigation.

"I am shocked and deeply distressed by the apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defence Forces," UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said from Rome, where today he will attend a meeting of diplomats trying to end the fighting.

"This co-ordinated artillery and aerial attack on a long-established and clearly marked UN post at Khiyam occurred despite personal assurances given to me by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that UN positions would be spared Israeli fire."

Israel expressed regret for the bombing and promised a full investigation, but denied it was targeting the UN.

"I am shocked and deeply distressed by the hasty statement of the Secretary-General," Israel's ambassador to the UN, Dan Gillerman, said, calling Mr. Annan's words "premature and erroneous."

Canadian officials would not comment last night or identify the dead Canadian, who is believed to have been a member of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry -- the same regiment that makes up the bulk of the force fighting in Afghanistan, where 20 Canadians have died. The other dead UN peacekeepers are from China, Finland and Austria.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has drawn criticism for his support of Israel's actions during the now-15-day-old conflict with Lebanon and for calling the Israeli response to the capture of two soldiers and continued Hezbollah rocket attacks "measured." The Prime Minister's office refused to comment last night.

The Israeli bomb made a direct hit on the building and shelter of the UN observation post near the eastern end of the border with Israel, said Milos Struger, a spokesman for the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL.

Two bodies had been recovered last night, but the others remained buried in rubble.

Canada is not part of UNIFIL, but has at least seven Canadian Forces members in the area as part of the UN Truce Supervision Organization, which monitors the Middle East.

There had been at least 14 other incidents of strikes close to the now-destroyed UN position during the previous 48 hours of fighting. "The firing continued even during the rescue operation," Mr. Struger said.

At least three other UN positions suffered hits from Israeli bombs, according to the UNIFIL, which was created in 1978 to confirm Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, restore the international peace and security, and help the Lebanese government restore authority in the area.

Yesterday's incident threatened to open an international rift as diplomats from at least 20 countries, including Canada, prepared for today's meeting in Rome to seek a solution to the Israel-Lebanon crisis.

Saudi and Egyptian leaders warned that the Arab world would not stand by indefinitely and watch Lebanese civilians die, as U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wrapped up a whirlwind tour of the Mideast and moved on to crisis talks, leaving tacit approval for the Israeli operation in Lebanon to continue for now.

Ms. Rice, in Jerusalem yesterday to build support for a package believed to include a ceasefire, prisoner release and a multi-national peacekeeping force, as well as gain co-operation from Israel to get humanitarian aid to southern Lebanon, spoke again of the need for an "enduring" ceasefire in Lebanon that will take time to broker. She did, however, suggest the United States will not wait much longer for a solution to ongoing violence in Gaza and expressed "admiration" for Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.

As the conflict enters its third week, a surprise statement from Saudi's King Abdullah provided warning that anger over violence in Lebanon was reaching a critical point in Arab nations. Previously, Saudi Arabia had called for a ceasefire but also criticized Hezbollah.

"No one can predict what will happen if things get out of control," Saudi's state-controlled media quoted King Abdullah as saying. "Saudi Arabia warns everybody that if the peace option fails because of Israeli arrogance, there will be no other option but war."

The death toll in the conflict now totals at least 422 in Lebanon -- the vast majority of which are civilians -- and 42 Israelis, including 18 civilians. A 15-year-old girl in a Druze village in northern Israel was killed by a Katyusha rocket yesterday, one of nearly 100 that hit over the course of the day.

Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz yesterday said that with debate over a multinational force continuing, Israel will maintain a security zone in southern Lebanon. Its forces have now surrounded the southern towns of Bint Jbail and Maroun al-Ras.

"There will be a security zone, which will be under the control of our forces if there is not a multinational force," Mr. Peretz said. "If there is not a multinational force that will get in to control the fences, a multinational force with an enforcement capability, we will continue to control [Hezbollah] with our fire toward anyone who will get close to the defined security zone."

A senior army commander also said that Israel's ground operations in Lebanon would be limited to surrounding border towns and would not include a deeper invasion.

"The intention is to deal with the Hezbollah infrastructure that is within reach," Colonel Hemi Livni told Israel Army Radio. "That means in southern Lebanon, not going beyond that."

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said he would not accept any "humiliating" conditions for a ceasefire and warned that the war with Israel would enter a "new phase," threatening to fire rockets deeper into Israel, beyond the northern port city Haifa, which has been subjected to hundreds of Hezbollah barrages.

"In the new period, our bombardment will not be limited to Haifa," Mr. Nasrallah said in a televised address. "If matters develop, we will choose the time when we will move beyond -- beyond Haifa."

In Lebanon, the Israeli bombardment continued, as air strikes on Beirut's suburbs -- halted Monday for Ms. Rice's visit -- resumed and heavy strikes were reported in Tyre.

The International Committee of the Red Cross reported opening two aid centres in southern Lebanon, in Tyre and Marjayoun, but said other areas of the south remained impassable. And a food crisis is looming.

Some attention was also directed on the ongoing violence in Gaza yesterday, where an Israeli strike killed one militant and injured eight other Palestinians. UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland called Israel's earlier bombing of the strip's only power plant a "disproportionate use of force" and called for an end to Israeli operations there.

notme wrote:

 we are not allowed to point out that israel is in the wrong  

I don't for a moment believe Israel is in the wrong; with an entire region (the WHOLE Middle East) sworn to the destruction of the Jews and their land, I think they have a right to mass bomb anyone who threatens them.

The children's blood is on the heads of the Lebanese government for allowing Hizbullah to attack FIRST.

They are STILL attacking.

War is a terrible means to solve issues.

I simply believe that we should be reading Conservative material as well as Liberal media.

Both.

 israel should not be there it was invented in 1949 and since then has been fighting with their neighbords  

 

why ?

 

 

is it because of some hidden agenda with the Us to get all the land down in case they get oil greedy ...

or is it sometihng else 

If Israel refuses to wage war in a proper way (is that even possible?) then God will see to it that Israel is judged.

I don't condone Israel's actions fbecause they are ISRAEL; I simple see an entire Arab world wanting to kill them.

Not right.

 i see what you are saying but are they the true Israel   

see if they were they would have been save by jesus but most jews are still waiting for the coming of jesus so to me

it make me question that is it the real Israel or one invented by the devil

What bothers me is the massive stockpile of nuclear weapons that Israel is sitting on and haven't been made to disarm. (helps being allies with the US) Israel's fight is becoming more and more desperate and they even had a plan for a "new middle east" before this all started. It's scary to think about just how fast this can escalate. Now with North Korea saying that they will not hesitate to retaliate if they're sanctioned, attacked or invaded things are getting far too tense over there.

 iam now afraid but i have to agree with you faulty on this one

 

what is going to happen 

 

remember Israel is the 51 tates of the US

I think it may be time to invest in a bomb shelter. I don't think a VERY serious major war is too far off.

 it would have to be a nuclear bomb shelter

Maj. Paeta Hess-von Kruedener, or "Maj. H.v.K." as he signed his e-mails, loved his work as a career soldier with a gusto that was his trademark.

Family, friends and former colleagues prayed for the best and braced for the worst as they waited for word on the UN observer's fate in one of the most precarious regions in the Middle East.

The worst was all but confirmed Wednesday, as Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Hess-von Kruedener is missing and presumed dead after an Israeli bomb flattened a clearly marked UN post in southern Lebanon. The blast Tuesday killed three other unarmed observers.

The incident "underscores the dangers that our Canadian Forces members face, in all the roles they undertake, to serve our country with distinction and honour and provide assistance to citizens in countries far from our shores," Harper said in a statement.

Hess-von Kruedener, believed to be in his mid-40s, leaves behind his wife Cynthia and two grown children, a daughter and stepson, said a National Defence spokesman.

Efforts to clear rubble from the area dragged through Wednesday. By the evening, there was still no word from Hess-von Kruedener, and he was presumed killed.

Cynthia Hess-von Kruedener said Wednesday night through a spokesman that she wants Canadians to pray for her husband.

"She would prefer that Canadians would pray somehow for his safe return," Maj. Bernard Dionne told The Canadian Press.

"We have recognized he is missing and presumed dead but we have no confirmation. She doesn't like the fact that the media mostly are reporting that he would be dead."

The incident is shaping up to be a major international embarrassment for Israeli leaders, who say the observer station was hit by accident.

But a preliminary UN report released to The Associated Press says the peacekeepers called the Israeli military 10 times in the hours leading up to the fatal strike, asking them to stop nearby bombings.

The debacle did not appear to soften Harper's support for Israel's powerful show of force.

"I think this event is obviously a terrible tragedy," he said. "But that doesn't change the right of a country to defend itself against terrorists and violent attacks."

Canadian officials will work with the UN and the Israeli government to find out what happened, Harper added. He also questioned why the UN didn't pull its observers out of what he called a virtual war zone.

Israel has been shelling and air-striking southern Lebanon for two weeks in retaliation for rocket attacks and the abduction of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah militants.

Hess-von Kruedener described in a July 18 e-mail to CTV the growing chaos surrounding his UN post in Khiam, a dusty village about 10 kilometres from where the Israeli, Lebanese and Syrian borders intersect.

The patrol base has been repeatedly caught in deadly crossfire since it was built as an observer post in 1972. What I can tell you is this: we have on a daily basis had numerous occasions where our position has come under direct or indirect fire from both artillery and aerial bombing," he wrote.

"The closest artillery has landed within two metres of our position and the closest 1,000-pound (450-kilogram) aerial bomb has landed 100 metres from our patrol base."

"This has not been deliberate targeting, but has rather been due to tactical necessity."

Hess-von Kruedener had been an infantry officer with the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry for 20 years.

He served in Cyprus, the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), and twice in Bosnia before joining the UN Truce and Supervision Organization last October.

He had three months remaining on the one-year mission.

His job, along with other international members of Observer Group Lebanon's Team Sierra, was to report any violations of the now-abandoned ceasefire along the Lebanese-Israeli border.

Harry Bloom, eastern vice-president of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry Association, spent a year in the early 1970s patrolling the exact terrain where Hess-von Kruedener served.

"It's rocky, it's hilly, it's dangerous," Bloom said. "The area has always been dangerous for travellers."

Bloom, now retired at 66, said he wasn't surprised by news that an Israeli bomb had hit the post - and he doesn't believe it was an accident.

"I agree with (UN Secretary General) Kofi Annan's comment that it seemed to be an intentional hit. It would have to be. The outposts are so well-identified with blue and white paint and flags. A pilot cannot mistake that outpost for anything else."

Bloom described repeated "altercations" with Israeli forces when he was stationed there.

"They would fire from behind us, knowing that returned fire would land in our outpost. So to me, it's not a surprise. Not at all."

He also explained why he thought Israel would attack unarmed UN observers.

"The UN is no great friend as far as the Israelis are concerned," Bloom said in an interview from his home in Orleans, Ont., east of Ottawa.

"When the Israelis do anything on that ceasefire line, the UN is there. The Israelis don't necessarily like someone watching them."

Regimental Warrant Officer Pete Palmer, based with the Princess Pats in Edmonton, recalled Hess-von Kruedener as "one of the most fit, gung-ho types of soldiers."

"He was demanding of both professionalism and knowing your job, and also being able to lead by example. He was in excellent physical condition."

Palmer and Hess-von Kruedener went on gruelling training exercises together when they were stationed in Winnipeg in 1991, he said.

"He performed his duties well."

In Beirut, Lt.-Col. Shane Brennan, the army head of the Canadian evacuation mission, recalled Hess-von Kruedener's airborne exploits.

"He was a jumper. He worked in the parachute training centre for a while. It was the last place he worked before this mission."

"He was always very fit. He had a positive attitude, but he was not afraid to speak his mind. He was a bit of a character who was always pushing the limits of what he was doing."

"Like many soldiers, he was very proud to serve his country and to do a good job."

Israeli warplanes and artillery hammered Lebanon again on Thursday and the Beirut government said up to 600 people may have been killed in Israel's 16-day-old campaign against Hizbollah guerrillas.

Israel's inner cabinet chose to pursue a strategy of air strikes and limited ground incursions, rather than a full-scale invasion of Lebanon, to halt Hizbollah rocket fire on its towns.

Lebanese Health Minister Mohammad Khalifeh said hospitals had received 401 bodies of people killed during the war launched by Israel after the Shi'ite guerrillas captured two of its soldiers and killed eight in a cross-border raid on July 12.

"On top of those victims, there are 150 to 200 bodies still under the rubble. We have not been able to pull them out because the areas they died in are still under fire," he told Reuters.

At least 437 people, most of them civilians, have been confirmed killed in Lebanon, according to a Reuters tally. Fifty-one Israelis, including 18 civilians, have been killed.

Bodies still lie in the streets in some isolated Lebanese border villages, where fighting has trapped terrified civilians, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said.

"In every fight, we are sheep for the slaughter," said Hafez Ebeid, 65, who had fled his border village of Marwaheen to the relative safety of Sidon, the biggest city in the south.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's security cabinet decided against a major expansion of the ground war at a meeting called a day after nine Israeli soldiers were killed in Lebanon, the army's heaviest one-day loss in the conflict.

Israel's army does not want to get bogged down in south Lebanon only six years after it pulled out under Hizbollah fire.

1,400 ROCKETS

Dozens of Hizbollah rockets landed in northern Israel on Thursday, wounding four people. More than 1,400 rockets have hit the Jewish state since the conflict began.

The United States has given Israel the green light to pursue its assault on Lebanon by refusing to call for an immediate ceasefire or to allow the U.N. Security Council do so.

France said it was disappointed that an international conference in Rome on Wednesday had failed to call for an immediate end to hostilities and urged U.N. Security Council foreign ministers to meet early next week to work on a ceasefire resolution.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who visited Beirut and Jerusalem this week, said she would return to the Middle East if she believed she could clinch a lasting peace in Lebanon.

Her comments, made on arrival in Malaysia for a regional security conference, underlined Washington's intention not to press Israel to stop fighting until Hizbollah guerrillas, backed by Iran and Syria, had been significantly weakened.

"I am willing and ready to go back to the Middle East at any time that I think we can move toward a sustainable ceasefire that can end the violence," Rice told a news conference.

With anger among Arabs and Muslims mounting over Israel's offensives in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, al Qaeda declared it would not stand by, and urged Muslims to fight.

"How can we remain silent while watching bombs raining on our people?" asked the group's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri.

Apart from the dead, the Lebanese Health Ministry said 1,788 people had been seriously wounded in the fighting.

An ICRC report said one of its delegates had found about 700 people, including 300 children, sheltering in a mosque in Blida, a village near the embattled southern town of Bint Jbeil.

BURIED IN RUBBLE

Other villages, running short of basic supplies, were living in fear. "Dead bodies had not been removed from the streets and others were still buried in rubble," the ICRC said.

Israeli planes destroyed radio masts north of Beirut and hit trucks in eastern Lebanon, killing three drivers, security sources said. Warplanes and artillery also blasted targets in the mainly Shi'ite south, killing a motorcyclist.

An opinion poll published on Thursday showed 95 percent of Israelis still believed the offensive in Lebanon was justified.

The Lebanon conflict has largely overshadowed separate fighting in the Gaza Strip, which shows no sign of abating.

Israeli attacks killed three people, including a 75-year-old woman, in Gaza on Thursday, medics said, a day after clashes in which 24 Palestinians died. Israel has killed 146 Gazans in a month-long offensive to recover a soldier seized by militants.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he believed a solution was "imminent" in the case of Corporal Gilad Shalit, captured on June 25 near the Gaza Strip. He was speaking after talks in Rome with Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi.

The armed wing of the Hamas militant group dismissed Abbas's comment.

"Nothing has changed in the case of the Israeli soldier," said Abu Ubaida, spokesman for the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, one of the three factions that captured Shalit.

The wife of the Canadian UN observer believed to have been killed in Lebanon this week says she feels her husband is still alive and wants people to pray for his safe return.

"I'm begging for a miracle and I'm asking the world to pray," Cynthia Hess-von Kruedener said at a news conference on Thursday in Kingston, Ont., where she lived with Maj. Paeta Hess-von Kruedener, 43.

The soldier and three other observers from Austria, China and Finland had taken cover in a bomb shelter under a building marked as a UN post when they were attacked. Hess-von Kruedener is missing and presumed dead.

But his wife believes otherwise.

"If there's one person that could survive this that would be my husband. He's had extensive training, and I'm very confident in him and so are his co-workers," Cynthia Hess-von Kruedener said.

She blamed Israel for the attack, which involved precision guided missiles, saying she believed it was intentional.

She called on the United Nations to expand its search perimeter beyond the bombed bunker site, saying that it's possible her husband had fled the area and needed help.

Hess-von Kruedener also criticized the media for reporting that her husband was dead.

"He is presumed [dead] ??? you can presume away all you want ??? but nothing has been confirmed," she said.

Canadian UN observer an eager soldier

Hess-von Kruedener, known as Wolf to his friends and colleagues, was an eager soldier with many friends, said Capt. Bernard Dionne, a public affairs officer at Canadian Forces Base Kingston.

"He was actually an instructor here not too long ago, so we've known him well," Dionne said. "We're certainly close as well to his family through this difficult time."

Over his career, the Canadian soldier served as a UN observer in Cyprus, Congo and Bosnia.

In recent years, Hess-von Kruedener taught soldiers the skills needed to be a UN military observer at the Peace Support Training Centre in Kingston.

Last October, he joined the UN truce and supervision organization. His latest mission was slated to end in August.

Hess-von Kruedener also has two grown children, a stepson and a daughter from his first marriage.

The United Nations is removing unarmed observers from their posts along the Israeli-Lebanese border, a spokesman said Friday.

The decision comes three days after four UN observers, including a Canadian, were killed when an Israeli air strike destroyed their post near the eastern end of Lebanon's border with Israel.

"These are unarmed people and this is for their protection," UNIFIL peacekeeping force spokesman Milos Struger told reporters.

Meanwhile, Israeli warplanes continued to pound Lebanon Friday -- firing scores of missiles and reducing buildings to rubble across the southern part of the country.

Israeli artillery hit a convoy evacuating villagers from southern Lebanon, wounding a journalist and a driver.

An AP photographer in the convoy said the explosion occurred as the group of ambulances, evacuees and journalists was returning from the village of Rmeish, where it had picked up residents trapped there by the bombings.

Israeli jets also fired missiles at a three-story building near the Lebanon market town of Nabatiyeh, destroying the building and killing a Jordanian man who was hit by shrapnel in a nearby home, Lebanese security officials. Four children were wounded in the attack.

Israel destroyed two buildings in the village of Kfar Jouz near Nabatiyeh, and civil defence teams were struggling to rescue people believed buried in the rubble, witnesses said.

Warplanes pounded roads in southeastern Lebanon, a Lebanese army checkpoint in Ansar village and a castle in Arnoun village near the Lebanon-Israel border.

In addition, Israeli jets fired more than 30 missiles at suspected Hezbollah hideouts in hills and mountainous areas in the southern part of the country, security officials said.

Dozens of air raids struck villages in the hills behind Tyre and hundreds of artillery rounds crashed across the border from Israel, killing at least eight, witnesses told the Associated Press.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah guerrillas continued firing rockets into northern Israel, including a new long-range missile which wounded at least six people, police said.

The longer-range rocket landed in an open area near the town of Afula, about 50 km from the Lebanese border.

Aid agencies warning

Aid agencies warned Friday that aid workers were finding it impossible to get medical supplies and food safely to isolated villages in southern Lebanon due to the Israeli bombardment.

World Food Program spokesman in Beirut, Robin Lodge, said the UN food aid organization had been unable to move supplies to villages in the south.

"For security reasons we are not able to get the areas south of Tyre," he said. "We are keenly aware of the needs."

The UN estimates there are up to 800,000 people in Lebanon displaced by the fighting and bombing.

It said there are nearly 600 schools being used as shelters, with between 100 and 1,200 people in each school.

"There are a lot of people who live in confined areas. That can lead to diseases including diarrhea," World Health Organization spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said in Geneva.

A spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross said life was becoming "unbearably dangerous" for the thousands of civilians who have been trapped by the violence.

Displaced civilians

Lebanon's health minister says 600 Lebanese civilians have been killed since fighting broke out between Israeli forces and Hezbollah guerrillas two weeks ago.

The Israeli Army said 33 Israeli soldiers and 19 civilians had been killed in the fighting.

Israel launched its offensive in Lebanon on July 12, after Hezbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid.

Israeli forces opened an earlier offensive in the Gaza Strip on June 28, three days after Hamas militants attacked Israeli army post in southern Israeli, killing two soldiers and capturing another one.

Hezbollah and Hamas have both demanded the release of Hezbollah and Palestinian prisoners in return for freedom for the three Israeli captives, but Israel's government has refused.

On Thursday, Israel's cabinet authorized the army to call up 30,000 reserve soldiers in case fighting intensified.

Iran, Al Queda and Hezbulah have just threatened to attack Britan, the USA and Israel, calling on ALL Muslims WORLDWIDE to launch an "apocolypse"...I happen to read the Iranian news, CNN, Jerusalem Post, BBC etc etc each evening before bed.

I believe that to claim Israel is in the wrong is in ITSELF wrong.

Every Canadian, American, British and Jew should be concerned.

If it were up to the Muslims, we'd all be dead.

They themselves just said so.

maybe it because we started first

 

Bush, Blair call for multinational force to keep order in Lebanon

notme wrote:<