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Diplomatic pressure rises, as more die

By TIMES WIRES
Published July 24, 2006

SIDON, Lebanon - Mideast diplomats were pressing Syria to stop backing Hezbollah as the guerrillas fired more deadly rockets onto Israel's third-largest city Sunday. Israel bombarded targets in southern Lebanon, hitting a convoy of refugees.

Israel's defense minister said his country would accept an international force, preferably NATO, on its border after it drives back or weakens Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. President Bush's chief of staff, Joshua Bolten, said Sunday that the administration would be open to an international peacekeeping force but does not expect U.S. forces to participate in one.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives in Israel today for talks with Mideast leaders. The United States backs Israel's refusal to talk about a cease-fire until it completes the military campaign against Hezbollah, but is under increasing pressure to help end the growing suffering and destruction in Lebanon.

A delegation from Saudi Arabia asked Bush on Sunday to push for a cease-fire.

"We requested a cease-fire to allow for the cessation of hostilities," the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, said after meeting in the Oval Office with Bush, Rice and other top officials.

U.S. officials were publicly cool to the request.

In the 12th day of fighting, guerrillas launched a new barrage of more than a dozen rockets against the Israeli city of Haifa, killing two people and setting an apartment building on fire. Israeli missiles struck a convoy of fleeing Lebanese, killing four people, including a journalist.

In the far south, fighting with Hezbollah raged around the Israeli military's foothold in Lebanon - the border village of Maroun al-Ras, where the Israeli army has maintained a significant presence since Saturday. Hezbollah reported three fighters killed.

With Israel and the United States saying a real cease-fire is not possible until Hezbollah is reined in, Arab heavyweights Egypt and Saudi Arabia were pushing Syria to end its support for the guerrillas, Arab diplomats in Cairo said.

Meanwhile, a campaign to get humanitarian aid into Lebanon was gearing up. Officials were trying to speed the delivery of food, medicines, blankets and generators down bomb-shattered roads to the south where they are needed most - though Israel has not defined a safe route to the region.

The top U.N. humanitarian official, Jan Egeland, called for at least $100-million in immediate aid but said billions of dollars would be needed to repair the damage from a conflict that has stunned Lebanon.

Egeland toured the rubble of Beirut's bombed-out southern suburbs, where Hezbollah had its headquarters. He condemned civilian casualties on both sides but called Israel's offensive "disproportionate" and "a violation of international humanitarian law."

At least 381 people have been killed in Lebanon, including 20 soldiers and 11 Hezbollah fighters, according to security officials. At least 600,000 Lebanese have fled their homes, according to the World Health Organization.

Israel's death toll stands at 36, with 17 people killed by Hezbollah rockets and 19 soldiers killed in the fighting, which began when the guerrillas snatched two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others in a cross-border raid July 12.

Lebanon's foreign minister, Fawzi Salloukh, said Sunday the two Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah are in "good health."

The bombardment across the south grew, with over 120 targets attacked, the Israeli military said.

A minibus was struck, knocking a hole in the roof and killing three people and wounding 16 - including 10 women and four children, said Hassan Nasreddine, an International Red Cross doctor who arrived at the scene soon afterward.

A photographer for a Lebanese magazine, Layal Nejib, 23, was also killed as her taxi approached the convoy and the missiles landed, said her driver, who escaped unharmed. She was the first journalist killed in the Israeli campaign.

An 8-year-old boy was killed in a strike on a village in the mountains above Tyre.

[Last modified July 24, 2006, 01:33:55]