10 Israelis Killed In Hezbollah Attack
Hezbollah guerrillas pounded towns across northern Israel with an enormous barrage of rockets on Sunday afternoon, killing 10 people and wounding eight others in the worst rocket attack on the area since violence began July 12.
All the fatalities were caused by one of the rockets, which landed near the entrance to the communal farm of Kfar Giladi on the border. Television footage showed a soldier holding his head in grief. Channel Two television reported that nine reserve soldiers were among the dead.
"It was a direct hit on a crowd of people," Dan Ronen, the chief of the northern police command, told Army Radio. Ronen said the Katyusha barrage was the most intense so far of the 23 days of fighting with Hezbollah.
"There are many dead from one Katyusha. One too many," he said.
Black smoke rose over the town and convoys of police and rescue vehicles raced through the kibbutz of Kfar Giladi.
"This was the most difficult thing I could have imagined in my career. There are nine bodies here covered in blankets, around us cars are going up in flames," Army Radio reporter Hadas Shteif reported as she choked back tears. "On one side is the cemetery, on the other side are the nine young bodies waiting for burial."
A nearby forest burst into flames from the barrage and huge plumes of gray smoke rose into the air.
Witnesses reported the barrage was going on more than 15 minutes after it had begun. Police said at least 80 rockets hit Israel during the barrage.
Many of the rockets hit the nearby town of Kiryat Shemona, damaging a synagogue and sparking a series of fires, Mayor Haim Barvivai said, calling on all residents to remain in their shelters because more barrages were sure to follow.
The deadly strike was the worst attack in the fighting, surpassing the eight people killed in the city of Haifa on July 16. It brought the number of Israelis killed in the fighting so far to 89.
The attack came hours after the U.S. and France agreed on the framework for a U.N. Security Council resolution that seeks a full halt to the fighting in Lebanon.
The document charts a path toward a lasting peace along the border, with a cease-fire monitored by international troops, but ignores Lebanese demands for a timetable for Israel's withdrawal from the south and for Israel to lift a blockade of the country.
Despite the agreement, Justice Minister Haim Ramon said Sunday that Israel would continue its attacks on Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon.
Ramon, who is close to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said the draft resolution was good for Israel, but the country still had military goals to meet in Lebanon.
"Even if it is passed, it is doubtful that Hezbollah will honor the resolution and halt its fire," Ramon told Israel's Army Radio. "Therefore we have to continue fighting, continue hitting anyone we can hit in Hezbollah, and I assume that as long as that goes on, Israel's position, diplomatically and militarily, will improve."
The fighting in Lebanon began July 12, when Hezbollah guerrillas crossed the border and attacked an Israeli army patrol, killing three soldiers and capturing two others. In response, Israel launched a widescale offensive of airstrikes and ground attacks. Hezbollah also has fired thousands of rockets into Israel. At least 660 people have been reported killed in the violence.
Israel said it's offensive is aimed at weakening Hezbollah and pushing the militia away from the border so an international force and the Lebanese army can take its place.
Ramon said that even if the U.N. passed a cease-fire resolution, Israel would not withdraw from a buffer zone several kilometers (miles) deep in south Lebanon until the international force arrived.
"There is no doubt that until a multinational force arrives ... Israel will remain in the security zone it is in now, and no one can act against Israel," he said. "A cease-fire, if it comes, will be one that leaves Israel in a zone of [four to five miles]."
The draft U.N. resolution emphasized that Israel retained the right to defend itself, and Ramon said that would allow it to take pre-emptive action against guerrillas preparing to attack.
"If we see there are launchers who are going to fire Katyusha [rockets] at Israel, we have the right to respond," he said.
Mohammed Fneish, a Hezbollah member of the Lebanese government, said the guerrillas would not stop fighting until all Israeli soldiers left Lebanon.
Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres said the Iranian-backed Hezbollah was holding the Lebanese government hostage.
"Hezbollah wants Lebanon to be part of Iran's periphery like they are," he told Israel Radio. "It appears that the Lebanese government is screwed up, afraid, and anxious. They didn't start the war, I am sure they would be happy to end it."
Peres added that he felt it would take "weeks, not days" to end the fighting.
In other developments:
killed, including 489 civilians confirmed dead by the Health
Ministry, 28 Lebanese soldiers and at least 50 Hezbollah
guerrillas. The Lebanese government's Higher Relief Council said
907 Lebanese had been killed in the conflict.
Meanwhile, the fighting continued, and given the determination of both Hezbollah and Israel to look victorious when the conflict finally ends, the worst may still lay ahead. Hezbollah has threatened to rocket Tel Aviv, while Israel has indicated it might push farther into Lebanon in an all-out ground offensive, northward to the Litani River about 20 miles from the border.
U.S. President George W. Bush is "happy with the progress being made" at the United Nations, but knows cementing a cease-fire will not be easy, White House press secretary Tony Snow said.
"I don't think he has any delusions about what lies ahead," said Snow, who was with the president on his vacation at his private ranch in Crawford, Texas.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair praised the resolution as "an important first step in bringing this tragic crisis to an end."
"The priority now is to get the resolution adopted as soon as possible, and then to work for a permanent cease-fire and achieve the conditions in Lebanon and Israel which will prevent a recurrence," Blair said.
The Security Council convened later Saturday to discuss the draft. Diplomats said the document was likely to be adopted early next week at a meeting attended by the foreign ministers of the 15 council members.
The resolution's central demand was for "a full cessation of hostilities based upon, in particular, the immediate cessation by Hezbollah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations."
The document then charted a detailed path for the two sides to follow to achieve a lasting peace. It envisioned a second resolution in a week or two that would authorize an international military force for the Israel-Lebanon frontier.
Among those steps would be the creation of a large buffer zone in southern Lebanon free of both Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants, monitored by the Lebanese army and international peacekeepers.
The draft also called for Hezbollah to be disarmed and for Lebanon's borders to be solidified, especially in the disputed Chebaa Farms area, occupied by Israel since 1967.
Another element was an arms embargo that would block any entity in Lebanon except the national government from obtaining weapons from abroad. That was aimed at blocking the sale or supply of arms to Hezbollah from Iran and Syria, which are believed to be the militia's main backers.
The resolution would put significant pressure on Lebanon's government, which has all but ceded control of the south to Hezbollah. The government will have great trouble disarming the militia, especially because Hezbollah has ministers inside it.
While the draft seeks the "unconditional release" of the two captured Israeli soldiers, it is less forceful on Lebanese prisoners held by Israel. It only encourages efforts "aimed at settling the issue" of those prisoners.
The resolution would put significant pressure on Lebanon's government, which ceded control of the south to Hezbollah.
"This is not a resolution that provides the comprehensive solution," U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said. "I'm sure there are aspects of it that are displeasing to almost everyone but the point is this is a way to get started and that's what we hope to do."
The draft's chief goal is to ensure that southern Lebanon does not slip back into the same state it was in before Israel's offensive, which began after Hezbollah guerrillas raided northern Israel on July 12 in fighting that left eight soldiers dead and two captured.
"Who could imagine that such a drama could happen again?" French Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere said. "It would be irresponsible."
The U.S. and France had to compromise to get the draft adopted.
Washington backed off its demand for a package of immediate steps, including the deployment of the international force in conjunction with a cease-fire.
France gave up its desire for an unconditional halt to violence, agreeing for the resolution to give Israel the right to conduct defensive operations — a term that the Israeli military could interpret broadly in response to any Hezbollah attack.
The draft made no direct demand for the release of the two captured Israeli soldiers. It only emphasized the need to address the causes "that have given rise to the current crisis," including freeing the abductees.
The Security Council has made the same demands previously — most recently with resolution 1559 in September 2004 — but Hezbollah has refused to obey.
"What we're trying to do is lay in the foundation so that you can finally enact the provisions of U.N. Security Council resolution 1559," Snow told reporters in Texas.
It asked U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to play a key role in securing Israeli and Lebanese agreement to the principles for peace, giving him one month to work with the parties to come up with new proposals to implement the demands spelled out in resolution 1559 and elsewhere.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Welch also met with Lebanese officials in Beirut trying to pave the way for ending hostilities. He talked with Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a prominent Shiite who has been negotiating on behalf of Hezbollah.
While meeting fierce resistance in southern Lebanon, the Israeli army claimed progress. Commanders said Israeli troops had knocked out half of Hezbollah's long-range rockets and seized positions in or near 20 towns and villages as part its drive to carve out a five-mile zone along the border free of Hezbollah fighters.
"We plan to carry out the whole mission," Defense Minister Amir Peretz said. "Hezbollah must not have illusions that we plan to give in."