MIDDLE EAST: Israel significantly expanded its ground operation yesterday in south Lebanon with troops fighting Hizbullah guerillas in a number of villages along the border, while government officials indicated that Israel would not agree to a ceasefire until an international peacekeeping force was deployed, writes Peter Hirschberg in Jerusalem
Three Israeli soldiers were killed in fierce close-quarter fighting in the village of Ayta a-Shab, about a kilometre inside Lebanon. Military officials said at least 20 Hizbullah fighters had been killed in several exchanges, taking place some three to six kilometres inside Lebanon.
After the cabinet voted in the early hours of yesterday morning to expand Israel's ground incursion, thousands more troops crossed the border into south Lebanon. "We have expanded the ground operation and we are not saying this is the last expansion [ of the ground operation]," said justice minister Haim Ramon.
Mr Ramon also said that Israel planned to renew its aerial offensive against Hizbullah as soon as the 48-hour suspension expired shortly after midnight last night. Israel had agreed to the temporary halt after dozens of Lebanese civilians, most of them children, were killed in an air strike on Qana on Sunday. "From 1am we will return to operating from the skies, the way we operated beforehand," said Mr Ramon. It was still unclear, however, how far north Israeli forces would push.
Ephraim Sneh, a Labor Party parliamentarian and former deputy defence minister, said Israeli forces might push as far as the Litani river, some 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the Israeli border. "This war must not end in a tie," he said. "The goals of this war cannot be achieved without using more force for a longer time." He believed Israel could "achieve the results in several weeks".
But with diplomatic pressure mounting on Israel to end its offensive - as well as on the US - it is not clear if the military will have that much time at its disposal. A more modest scenario being discussed yesterday by commentators was the possibility that the army would clear out Lebanese villages close to the border with Israel, which it says have been used as Hizbullah bases, and in the process carve out a two-kilometre-wide no-go zone.
Prime minister Ehud Olmert sounded yesterday like he was preparing the public for the end of hostilities, when he said there was "no way" anyone could promise Israelis that once the offensive was over, there "won't be missiles within range of the state of Israel". But, he added, Israel's fierce response to the cross-border skirmish on July 12th, in which Hizbullah snatched two Israeli soldiers and killed eight more, had changed the deterrent balance in the Middle East by demonstrating the heavy price to be paid by "anyone who wants to fire missiles at us".
Mr Olmert, who was speaking at a graduation ceremony at the National Security College near Tel Aviv, reiterated his refusal to agree to an immediate cessation of hostilities, saying: "every additional day is one that erodes the strength of this cruel enemy. Every additional day is one in which Israeli soldiers diminish their ability to fire rockets". But he did say that Israel was "at the beginning of a political process that in the end will bring a ceasefire under entirely different conditions than before".
For Mr Olmert that would mean the removal of Hizbullah militants from Israel's border and the deployment of an international force with enforcement powers, to ensure the Shia organisation did not return to the positions it held on the eve of the fighting. With such a force in place, Israeli leaders say, they would then be able to withdraw the army from south Lebanon.
Asked why the government would only agree to a ceasefire once an international force had been deployed, Mr Ramon said Israel feared a situation in which it would halt its offensive only to watch as weeks of negotiations on the nature of the force went by without it being deployed.