Israel cabinet approves wider offensive, rejects ceasefire pressure

JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's inner security cabinet has given a green light to widen a ground offensive against Hizbollah guerrillas inside Lebanon, an Israeli official said.

Israel's military had recommended the expansion of the offensive, which could take Israeli soldiers several kilometres deeper into Lebanon than their current operations nearer the border.

"The security cabinet approved a widening of ground operations without any objections," the government official said.

It is now down to the army when or whether troops push deeper into Lebanon.

Israel has rejected mounting international pressure to end its war against Hizbollah and launched a new incursion into Lebanon, as world powers squabbled over the urgency of a cease-fire.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said at the end of a trip to Israel that a cease-fire could be achieved this week. But despite an international outcry over an air strike on Sunday that killed 54 civilians, most of them children, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said there would be no cease-fire for now.

"The fighting continues. There is no cease-fire and there will not be any cease-fire in the coming days," Olmert told a gathering of northern Israeli mayors, to sustained applause.

A UN official said a meeting scheduled for Monday on a new peacekeeping force for Lebanon had been delayed "until there is more political clarity" on the path ahead in the 20-day-old war.

Israeli forces have been trying to drive Hizbollah back from the border and end rocket attacks since the group abducted two soldiers in a raid on July 12, but operations have focused on air attacks.

Ground forces have faced tough opposition from Hizbollah fighters during incursions into south Lebanon and Israel has been wary of getting bogged down in territory from which it withdrew in 2000 after 22 years of occupation.

Last week, Israel called up at least 15,000 reserve soldiers to allow for a possible expansion of the offensive.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, whose country is a main backer of Hizbollah, was meeting French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy in Beirut on Monday evening for talks on the crisis. Douste-Blazy said it was important to maintain contacts with Tehran to try to resolve the conflict.

Civilians fled battered villages in southern Lebanon after Israel said it had agreed partially to halt air strikes for 48 hours, and aid convoys headed into the area to deliver supplies.

Rescue workers found 49 bodies buried for days in collapsed buildings or inside destroyed vehicles, medical sources said.

The Israeli military said it had launched a new ground incursion into Lebanon in the Aita al-Shaab area. Hizbollah said its guerrillas were fiercely resisting the advance.

No end to bombing

Besides its announcement of a partial 48-hour suspension of bombing, Israel said it was giving a 24-hour window to allow aid workers to reach the worst hit areas and residents to flee.

But Israeli jets bombed targets in southern Lebanon, and the United Nations said access had not improved.

"Let's be clear about this. There was fighting today in south Lebanon and there were Hizbollah rocket attacks. We don't have a cessation of hostilities and we don't have a cessation of aerial bombardments," spokesman Khaled Mansour said.

At the United Nations, UN emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland said Israel had given no information on the scope and timing of any pause in the bombing.

Israeli artillery shells hit two villages. An air strike on a Lebanese army vehicle killed one soldier and wounded three.

At the main border crossing into Lebanon from Syria, Israeli drones fired at two trucks and a third lorry was destroyed by a warplane, security sources said. Four Lebanese customs officials and the three drivers were wounded.

Divisions over Cease-fire

Rice said a cease-fire could be forged this week. But Israel said the war was not over.

"If an immediate cease-fire is declared, the extremists will rear their heads anew," Defence Minister Amir Peretz told a heated parliamentary debate in which four Israeli Arab lawmakers were escorted out for heckling. One called Peretz a murderer.

Despite its pause in air raids from early on Monday, Israel said it may still use aerial strikes to target Hizbollah leaders and rocket launchers and back up ground operations.

Olmert said a cease-fire could be implemented immediately after an international force arrived in Lebanon.

But French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said an international force could be deployed only once a cease-fire and a clear political road map had been agreed. France and Germany welcomed Israel's suspension of most air strikes but said it was not enough. Russia also demanded an immediate cease-fire.

But the United States, which blames Hizbollah for the war, is refusing to back calls for an immediate halt to the fighting. US President George W. Bush repeated that he wanted a sustainable end to the violence.

After the Qana raid Lebanon called off planned talks with Rice, telling her to secure an unconditional cease-fire first.

"As I head back to Washington, I take with me an emerging consensus on what is necessary for both an urgent cease-fire and lasting settlement. I am convinced we can achieve both this week," Rice told reporters in Jerusalem.

Hizbollah fired two shells into the northern Israeli border town of Kiryat Shmona on Monday, but nobody was wounded.

It was the first Hizbollah bombardment of Israel since Sunday evening - a distinct lull compared to the scores of rockets they had previously fired daily.

Israel launched its onslaught on Lebanon after Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12.

At least 598 people have been killed in Lebanon, although the health minister puts the toll at 750 including bodies still buried under rubble. Fifty-one Israelis have been killed.

- REUTERS