As Israel's cabinet announced its acceptance of the UN-brokered truce, due to take effect from 5am GMT today, fighting escalated to an intensity not seen since the conflict erupted a month ago, write Michael Jansen in Beirut and Peter Hirschberg in Jerusalem
Israeli warships fired 18 shells in quick succession into the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital, Beirut. At least 32 Lebanese civilians were killed over the weekend.
Five Israeli soldiers were killed yesterday in clashes with Hizbullah and 24 were killed on Saturday as troops, tanks and armoured vehicles advanced deep into Lebanon in a massive ground push toward the Litani River, some 30 kilometres from the Israeli border.
The son of renowned Israeli novelist and peace activist, David Grossman, was one of the Israeli soldiers killed on Saturday, just three days after the author joined two other famous Israeli writers, Amos Oz and AB Yehoshua, in publicly urging the government to end the war with Hizbullah.
UN envoy Alvaro de Soto said the deployment of 15,000 Lebanese army troops alongside an equal number of foreign soldiers bolstering the existing UN peacekeeping force could take a week to 10 days. Until then, fierce fighting is likely to continue.
The European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, said yesterday that preparations were under way to deploy an initial 4,000 international troops quickly in southern Lebanon. "I've been speaking to several countries during the day and night and I think we will be able to guarantee that the force, as far as the Europeans are concerned, will be robust," he said.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern also indicated that the Government would be willing to commit Irish troops to the new UN peacekeeping force but warned that any Irish contingent would be small because of other international commitments.
Israeli government ministers, who voted overwhelmingly in favour of the UN resolution with only one minister out of 25 abstaining, publicly praised the terms of the ceasefire resolution, but in private expressed fears over whether it would be effectively implemented.
Israel tripled its forces in Lebanon over the weekend to 30,000 troops, with helicopters airlifting large numbers of soldiers to points deep inside south Lebanon.
Hizbullah also unleashed a massive rocket salvo yesterday, with over 250 missiles hitting northern Israel in what was the heaviest barrage of rockets since its July 12th abduction of two Israeli soldiers. One Israeli was killed and two were seriously injured in the rocket attack.
Asked why Israel had launched a massive ground push despite the UN ceasefire vote, Israeli officials said the operation was meant to weaken Hizbullah forces in south Lebanon as much as possible before the territory is handed over to the Lebanese army and peacekeeping force.
Israeli leaders fear a situation in which the arrival of an international force in south Lebanon is delayed and its troops become targets for Hizbullah fighters.
The leader of the Shia organisation, Hassan Nasrallah, said on Saturday that despite the ceasefire, Hizbullah would continue to attack Israeli troops as long as they remained on Lebanese soil.
Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni said yesterday that Israel would not allow its soldiers to become "sitting ducks" in Lebanon.
According to veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh who writes in the current issue of the New Yorker magazine, the US government was closely involved in planning the Israeli campaign in Lebanon, even before Hizbullah seized the Israeli soldiers in July. American and Israeli officials met in the spring, to discuss plans on how to tackle Hizbullah, with Israeli government officials travelling to the US in May to share plans for attacking Hizbullah, says the report.
Quoting a US government consultant, Hersh said: "Earlier this summer . . . several Israeli officials visited Washington, separately, 'to get a green light for the bombing operation and to find out how much the United States would bear'."