WORLD / Middle East

Diplomats seek cease-fire, Israel ready for 'weeks' of war
(AP)
Updated: 2006-07-19 11:14

Diplomatic efforts to stop the weeklong conflict between Israel and Lebanon gained momentum, but Israel said it was preparing to fight Hezbollah guerrillas for several move weeks and might send in ground forces.


A vehicle is seen among damaged buildings in southern Beirut July 18, 2006. Israeli warplanes struck Lebanon on Wednesday with thousands awaiting evacuation as the death toll mounted in a conflict that has entered its second week with no early end in sight.[Reuters]

At daybreak Wednesday, an undisclosed number of Israeli troops were operating just across the border, looking for tunnels and weapons, the military said, in what appeared to be a small-scale, routine operation.

Early Wednesday, explosions were heard in southern Beirut, and Beirut TV stations reported strikes in two towns and a bridge in southern Lebanon. No casualties were reported in the latest strikes.

On Tuesday Israeli warplanes struck an army base outside Beirut and other areas in south Lebanon, killing 17 people, and Hezbollah rockets battered towns across northern Israel, killing one person.

Hundreds of Europeans and Americans fled Lebanon aboard ships, and hundred of other foreigners prepared to evacuate in the coming days. However, evacuation of U.S. citizens 25,000 on a cruise ship was delayed a day. The ship docked early Wednesday, and boarding was to begin at dawn, as U.S. officer said.

Families in southern Lebanon, the site of most Israeli airstrikes, drove north on side roads, winding among the orange and banana groves and waving improvised white flags from their car windows.

In diplomatic efforts to end the fighting, which has killed at least 227 people in Lebanon and 25 in Israel, a U.N. mediation team met Tuesday with Israeli leaders a day after speaking with Lebanese officials in Beirut.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who met with the delegation, said a cease-fire would be impossible unless the soldiers captured by Hezbollah in a cross-border raid last week were released and Lebanese troops were deployed along the border with a guarantee that Hezbollah would be disarmed.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told diplomats that he does not oppose negotiations, but the solution must be based on freedom for the two soldiers and implementation of a Security Council resolution that calls for disarming Hezbollah and posting the Lebanese army on the border, according to a statement from his office.

Later Tuesday, meeting mayors from Israel's battered border communities, Olmert said Israel would not allow the previous situation of Hezbollah, armed with thousands of rockets controlling south Lebanon, to be restored.
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