MIDDLE EAST: Prime minister Ehud Olmert said yesterday that Israel would not halt its three-week offensive in Lebanon until a "robust" international peacekeeping force had been deployed in south Lebanon. He also intimated that the outcome of the conflict would generate "new momentum" for his plan to withdraw from much of the West Bank.
Mr Olmert, who gave interviews to both Reuters and the Associated Press, also said that Israel had severely damaged Hizbullah's fighting capacity and that Syria was not a partner for solving the current crisis because it was a promoter of terror.
"Israel will stop fighting when the international force will be present in the south of Lebanon," Mr Olmert told AP. "We can't stop before because if there will not be a presence of a very effective and robust military international force, Hizbullah will be there and we will have achieved nothing."
The Israeli leader said the force should be deployed along Israel's border with Lebanon, as well as the Lebanon-Syria border, in order "to prevent the smuggling of arms from Syria to Lebanon as they are doing now". The force, he said, would have to implement a UN resolution calling for the disarmament of Hizbullah.
European countries, which will most likely constitute the international force, have been pushing for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire before such a force is deployed. But the US has backed Israel, insisting that an immediate ceasefire would simply reinstate the situation that existed on the eve of the fighting.
Mr Olmert said that the Shia group had been severely battered by the Israeli offensive. "The infrastructure of Hizbullah has been entirely destroyed. More than 7,000 . . . command positions of Hizbullah were entirely wiped out by the Israeli army. All the population which is the power base of the Hizbullah in Lebanon was displaced." Despite Mr Olmert's assertions, towns in northern Israel yesterday experienced the heaviest day of rocket fire since the fighting erupted on July 12th, with Hizbullah firing more than 200 rockets at Israel.
But Mr Olmert was insistent that once the fighting ended, Israel's deterrence will have been bolstered. "No missiles, no matter where they come from - Iran, Syria or Lebanon - can break the will of the Israeli people to defend their country and this is a lesson which will prevail long after the fire will cease in this part of the world." He also said he would not make a deal for the two Israeli soldiers being held captive by Hizbullah. "I expect the Israeli soldiers to be returned unconditionally," he said.
Rejecting suggestions that the fighting in Lebanon and Gaza had undermined his plan for a deep withdrawal in the West Bank, Mr Olmert said he believed the outcome of the conflict and the "emergence of a new order that will provide more stability and will defeat the forces of terror will help create the necessary environment that will allow me . . . to create a new momentum between us and the Palestinians."