Reuters: Israel pounds Lebanon hours before U.N. truce

Israel pounds Lebanon hours before U.N. truce

By Alaa Shahine | August 14, 2006

BEIRUT, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Israel launched air strikes on southern Lebanon on Monday, pressing an offensive against Hizbollah in the hours before a U.N.-brokered ceasefire designed to end the month-long war takes effect at 0500 GMT.

Lebanese security sources reported fierce battles between Israeli troops and Hizbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon, as witnesses said Israeli warplanes struck areas near the city of Tyre. Israel has some 30,000 troops in south Lebanon.

Air strikes on the village of Brital near Lebanon's eastern border with Syria overnight killed at least nine civilians and wounded 33, medics said. More people were buried under rubble.

On Sunday, Israel's cabinet approved a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an end to the fighting and the deployment of a U.N. force of up to 15,000 to help enforce the truce. The Lebanese government has also agreed to the resolution.

Hizbollah launched its heaviest one-day rocket barrage on Israel since the start of the war. Israeli security officials said more than 250 rockets were fired, killing a man and wounding at least 91 people. Some hit the port city of Haifa.

Around 1,100 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 149 Israelis, including 109 soldiers, have been killed in the war, which was triggered when Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12.

Around 1,100 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 149 Israelis, including 109 soldiers, have been killed in the war, which was triggered when Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12.

"FRAGILE TRUCE"

Israeli officials said the Jewish state believed it would be entitled under the U.N. resolution to use force to prevent Hizbollah from rearming and to clear guerrilla positions out of southern Lebanon after the truce took effect.

Western diplomats and U.N. officials said they feared Israel's broad definition of "defensive" actions could lead to a resurgence in large-scale fighting and prevent the swift deployment of the U.N. troops, likely to be led by France.

Hizbollah has said its guerrillas would observe a truce once it began but reserved the right to fight Israeli soldiers still on Lebanese soil.

"It will be a fragile truce," said a Western diplomat, declining to be named.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni repeated Israel's position that its troops would pull out from southern Lebanon only when the U.N. force arrived. The United Nations has said the deployment could take up to 10 days.

The Lebanese government, which includes two Hizbollah ministers, postponed a meeting due to divisions on discussing the disarmament of Hizbollah, the only group to keep its weapons after Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war, a government source said.

The deployment of the Lebanese army in the south is another key part of the U.N. resolution adopted on Friday.

In the fighting on Monday, Israeli troops battled Hizbollah guerrillas near the border town of Marjayoun. An Israeli tank was on fire in the area, witnesses said.

The Israeli army said five soldiers were killed and 25 wounded in fighting on Sunday, while Lebanese security sources said Israeli air raids, including fierce attacks on Beirut's southern suburbs, killed at least 22 people.

The Israeli military reported its worst single-day death toll when 19 soldiers were killed on Saturday and five were feared dead after their helicopter was shot down.

The Israeli army said around 530 Hizbollah guerrillas had been killed during the war. Hizbollah has acknowledged only a few dozen dead during the war.

The Haaretz newspaper reported the government was willing to discuss a possible release of Lebanese prisoners in exchange for the freeing of the two captured Israeli soldiers.

The war in Lebanon coincided with an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip to free another captured soldier. More than 170 Palestinians, more than half of them civilians, have been killed in the military campaign in Gaza.

(Additional reporting by Jerusalem and United Nations bureaux)