U.N. To Debate Mideast Peace Plan
The U.N. Security Council is to debate Monday a diplomatic solution to the Mideast war, beginning with a cease-fire and followed by a return of prisoners, a withdrawal of Israeli troops, the disarming of Hezbollah and deployment of international peacekeeping troops.
The phased-in cease-fire plan, says CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk, would also give the Lebanese army the job of protecting the border with Israel. The U.N., says Falk, will also be discussing an amendment presented by Lebanon Sunday which would require U.N. peacekeeping troops to hand over control of border territories to the Lebanese army within 72 hours of a ceasefire.
"The resolution is not dead in the water," says Falk, "but it needs some diplomatic life support and perhaps some revisions which take into account the Lebanese government position, to get a positive vote at the U.N."
Sunday, Hezbollah fired its deadliest rocket barrage to date, killing 15 Israelis, among them 12 soldiers heading for battle in Lebanon, and pounding Haifa, Israel's third largest city.
Three Israeli civilians were killed and dozens wounded in the Sunday attack on Haifa. Flames shot from damaged homes as firefighters tried to rescue panicked residents.
Israel hit back. Israeli warplanes attacked Beirut's southern suburbs at daybreak Monday, renewing bombardment of the Hezbollah stronghold a day after guerrilla rockets killed 15 Israelis in northern Israel.
The sound of four loud explosions in a spate of 20 minutes from the southern suburbs and the roar of raiding jets shook the Lebanese capital. The missiles kicked up smoke and dust in the sky.
Earlier on Sunday, warplanes attacked the Lebanese town of Qana and near the port of Tyre and destroyed the launchers that fired rockets on Haifa, the army said. Israeli ground forces destroyed seven long-range rocket launchers in the area of Tyre on Sunday, the military said. They encountered Hezbollah guerrillas and killed three.
Israel struck hard across Lebanon Sunday, killing 14 Lebanese, including five members of one family crushed in their home by an air strike. Warplanes attacked near Beirut and in southern Lebanon, where some villages were bombed continually for a half-hour, security officials said.
Both sides appeared to take advantage of the days before a cease-fire resolution, formulated by the U.S. and France, is put to a vote in the U.N. Security Council. The plan envisions a second resolution in a week or two that would authorize an international military force and creation of a buffer zone in south Lebanon.
Arab League foreign ministers are to meet in Beirut on Monday for a hastily convened session.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, speaking in Cairo, said the gathering "is a clear message to the world to show the Arab solidarity with the Lebanese people and in support of their demands."
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called the measure "the first step, not the only step," at a news conference in Washington. Israel has not commented, except to say the draft is important.
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While Hezbollah has not issued an outright rejection of the plan, its two main allies said it was without merit because it did not call for an immediate Israeli withdrawal, among other demands.
The U.S.-French proposal uses language that says two Israeli soldiers held by Hezbollah should be released unconditionally.The soldiers' capture July 12 triggered the war, including massive Israeli retaliation.
Hezbollah has said it will not cease fire until all Israeli soldiers have left Lebanon; some 10,000 Israeli soldiers are fighting several hundred Hezbollah gunmen in that area, trying to track and destroy rocket launchers. Rockets have been hitting Israel at the rate of 200 a day, CBS News correspondent Allen Pizzey reported. Israel says it won't leave until a multinational force has been deployed.
"If Israel were to stop its bombing campaign against Hezbollah in return for Hezbollah stopping its Katyusha rockets, it would mean a tie, and a tie in this sort of deadly game, a draw, is actually a victory for the underdog, for Hezbollah," Amir Oren, a Ha'aretz correspondent told CBS News.
Israel has refused to comment on the draft, but Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev told Associated Press Television, "We have to make sure that what will be negotiated at the United Nations ensures that Hezbollah will not be allowed to be resupplied by Iran or Syria."
Hezbollah has fired more than 3,000 rockets at Israel, including dozens on Sunday, Israeli officials said. Meanwhile, Israeli warplanes have struck hundreds of targets across Lebanon.
In the deadliest attack on Israelis in this war, a rocket landed Sunday among the reservists near the entrance to the communal village of Kfar Giladi on the Lebanese border. The rocket killed 12 soldiers and wounded five, one seriously, hospital officials said.
The attack was "a direct hit on a vehicle where there was a crowd. They were all wounded and scattered in every direction, some of them were in very bad condition," said Eli Peretz, a medic. "It was a very, very difficult scene. I have never seen anything like it."
Bloodied army boots were placed on a stone wall. The rocket scorch two parked cars.
Upon hearing of the slain reservists, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the weekly Cabinet meeting, according to a participant: "Lucky that we are dealing with Hezbollah today, and not in another two or three years."
Later Sunday, a rocket barrage hit the northern port city of Haifa, killing three civilians, injuring more than 40 and bringing down two buildings. A crowded residential district took five or six hits.
Sunday's deaths brought to 93 the number of Israelis killed, including 45 soldiers, the 12 reservists and 36 civilians. Israel's attacks on Lebanon have killed at least 591 people, including 509 civilians, 29 Lebanese soldiers and 53 Hezbollah guerrillas.
Israeli air strikes killed 14 Lebanese on Sunday, including 12 civilians, a Lebanese soldier and a Palestinian militant. In the southern town of Naqoura and several villages near Tyre, residents called rescue officials to report more people trapped under the rubble of crushed buildings, but crews could not retrieve the dead because of continued bombardment.
"We don't know how many and we can't get there," a civil defense official said.
Explosions rang across Beirut as warplanes fired more than six missiles into Hezbollah strongholds in districts just south of the capital.
Hezbollah announced the deaths of three of its fighters, but didn't say when. That would bring Hezbollah's total of fighters killed to 53, but Israeli officials said they confirmed 165 dead guerrillas, and even had their names, and estimated that another 200 had been killed. Israel said some 300 Hezbollah fighters remained in the area Israel was occupying in south Lebanon.
One air strike hit south Beirut just minutes after Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa touched down at a nearby airport. Missiles also struck in that area as Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem stood next to his Lebanese counterpart and declared Israel would never defeat the hardened guerrilla force.
Moallem said the cease-fire draft "adopted Israel's point of view only."
"As Syria's foreign minister I hope to be a soldier in the resistance," said Moallem, the first top Syrian official to visit Lebanon since Damascus ended a 29-year military presence in Lebanon last year.
Lebanon's parliament speaker and Hezbollah's negotiator, Nabih Berri, said the plan was unacceptable since it would leave Israeli troops in Lebanon and does not deal with Beirut's key demands, CBS News correspondent Lee Cowan reported, a release of prisoners held by Israel and moves to resolve a dispute over a piece of border territory.
"If Israel has not won the war but still gets all this, what would have happened had they won?" Berri said. "Lebanon, all of Lebanon, rejects any talks and any draft resolution" that do not address the Lebanese demands, he said.
The Lebanese government on Sunday asked the U.N. to revise the draft, demanding that Israel pull its forces out immediately with the end of hostilities.