MIDDLE EAST: The war continued unabated in Lebanon yesterday despite optimism among Western diplomats and high-ranking Lebanese officials that the UN Security Council was about to agree on a resolution calling for a cessation of hostilities.
Israel bombed a bridge near Lebanon's northern border with Syria, killing 12 people and injuring 18 others. The aircraft returned 15 minutes after the initial bombing and attacked rescue workers, a frequent occurrence in this war.
Three more Lebanese were killed in other Israeli air raids. One Israeli soldier was reported killed in fighting in the south. Hizbullah fired more than 55 rockets into northern Israel, injuring seven people.
In more than a month of war, 1,026 Lebanese and 123 Israelis have been killed. The vast majority of Lebanese victims were civilians; the majority of Israelis soldiers.
Haret Hreik and Shiyyah, suburbs of Beirut which were specifically threatened in leaflets dropped late on Thursday, were heavily bombed at dawn yesterday and repeatedly throughout the day. The few remaining residents of these areas, many of them already refugees from the south, had been evacuated by government buses.
In new leaflets dropped late yesterday, Israel accused Hizbullah of lying about its casualties, naming 100 guerrillas it claimed to have killed in the fighting.
Lebanese prime minister Fouad Siniora met the US assistant secretary of state, David Welch, to elaborate on Lebanon's offer to send 15,000 troops to the south. Mr Welch also met the Shia Muslim speaker of parliament, Nabih Berri, who represents Hizbullah in negotiations.
In a television address this week, the Hizbullah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said: "The deployment of the Lebanese army is the best and most appropriate alternative to the deployment of international forces, whose chain of command and mission we know nothing about."
Mr Nasrallah also threatened "to transform our precious land of the south into a cemetery for the Zionist invaders". There has been no acknowledgement by Hizbullah that it would pull back to north of the Litani river, the understanding upon which the UN resolution was yesterday being negotiated.
Israel too sent mixed signals. Prime minister Ehud Olmert's order to launch an expanded ground offensive in southern Lebanon appeared to be an attempt to increase pressure on Beirut. Israel later said it would halt ground operations if it were satisfied with the UN resolution.
Israeli television quoted the foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, as saying that Israeli acceptance of a UN resolution "could not be taken for granted". Israel's Brig Gen Yossi Kuperwasser told Reuters that even if the Security Council plan were carried out, Israel retained the right to re-enter Lebanon if Hizbullah returned to the border area. "We cannot sit aside and allow something like that to happen again," he said. Hizbullah had mobilised the equivalent of an infantry division and was armed with state of the art weapons, he added.
Lebanese newspapers yesterday carried pictures of burning Israeli tanks, and many speculated that Israel was willing to end the war because it was losing on the ground.
The Hizbullah television station, al Manar, said the guerrillas sank an Israeli Super Dvora patrol and interdiction craft off the coast of Mansouri, just south of Tyre, killing or injuring its 12-man crew. Israeli officials denied the claim, but the Christian Lebanese television station LBC showed footage of smoke at sea where the ship allegedly sank.
This was Hizbullah's third claim to have hit an Israeli warship. On July 14th Hizbullah fired a Fajr II Iranian teleguided missile into the engine room of an Israeli frigate off Beirut, killing four sailors. Israel denied Hizbullah's claim to have hit another ship on July 31st.
Armoured Unifil vehicles yesterday escorted some 350 Lebanese soldiers and policemen whose barracks had been surrounded by Israeli troops in the southern Lebanese town of Marjayoun. Hundreds of civilians, desperate to escape the war zone, followed the convoy, which was delayed for several hours because of damaged roads.
A Security Council resolution cannot come too soon for Tyre, where most of the 100,000 civilians still estimated to be living south of the Litani river are concentrated. No relief convoys have been able to reach the city since the Israelis bombed the last makeshift bridge on Monday.