World leaders delay cease-fire in Middle East

As violence continues to escalate in southern Lebanon and in Gaza, hopes that international pressure might lead Israel, Hezbollah and Hamas to issue calls for cease-fire suffered severe setbacks this week. Neither a visit to the region by US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice nor a conference of EU and Arab leaders, co-chaired by Rice in Rome, produced any tangible results. Meanwhile, an Israeli official suggested ground and bombing operations would continue for weeks. "I assume it will continue for several more weeks, and in a number of weeks we will be able to [declare] a victory," Major General Udi Adam, the head of Israel's northern command, said at a news conference on July 25. That night, four UN monitors in southern Lebanon were among those killed by Israeli missile strikes that hit their post in the town of Khiyam. Israel launched ground operations in southern Lebanon last weekend and has endured some casualties. Up to 14 Israeli soldiers were reported killed in heavy fighting in southern Lebanon on July 25. The message from Israeli army briefings on July 23 was that ground operations would be limited in time and space, but would use overwhelming firepower. Fighting has been heavy for days around the Lebanese border towns of Aitaroun, Maroun al-Ras and Bint Jbeil, which holds the largest Shia community in the border area. Hezbollah is a Shia group. Israeli warplanes bombed 100 targets in southern Lebanon on July 25 and one family of seven civilians was killed in a town 16 miles north of Bint Jbeil. Meanwhile, Israeli forces encircled the hilltop town of Bint Jbeil, with one commander describing it as the "capital of Hezbollah." Fighting on July 26 in Bint Jbeil, 2.5 miles north of the Israeli border, broke out as Israeli forces attempted to advance towards a hospital in the town, reports said. Lebanese security sources said the Israelis were ambushed as they approached the hospital and that some Israeli forces had been cut off and most of their vehicles destroyed. A senior Hezbollah official, Mahmoud Komati, said that Israeli forces had managed to seize a few points inside Bint Jbeil, which has a population of around 30,000, but had not yet taken the town center. The Israeli army said it had killed up to 30 Hezbollah fighters during an operation to dismantle the militia's command posts and destroy rocket launchers. Meanwhile, Hezbollah launched 130 rockets at Israel on July 26, its highest single-day total thus far. The Israeli offensive in southern Lebanon, prompted by a Hezbollah cross-border raid, has claimed more than 400 Lebanese lives, most of them civilian. More than 40 Israelis have also been killed, 18 of them by Hezbollah rocket attacks into Israel. It is estimated that 900,000 Lebanese civilians have been displaced since the fighting began. Israel said they had opened on July 25 four "humanitarian corridors" into Lebanon for international aid to service the hundreds of thousands in need, though due to destroyed bridges and highways, the flow of aid was described by relief officials as "a trickle." As the operation in Lebanon continued, Israel also stepped up air strikes and launched raids into Gaza Strip to stop rocket attacks and attempt to recover a soldier captured by militants on June 25. The attacks killed 14 Palestinians, including nine militants and a three-year-old girl, medics and witnesses said. At least 30 tanks and other armored vehicles pushed more than a mile into northern Gaza Strip overnight and the Israeli army said it was attacking gunmen. Troops clashed with militants on the edge of Jabalya, a stronghold of Hamas. On July 26, Israel bombed offices used by a Hamas-led force in Gaza City. The Israeli army has killed 133 Palestinians, around half of them civilians, since it began its assault. Fears that the conflict could spread across the region have intensified. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, a normally placid US ally, warned that "if the option of peace fails as a result of Israeli arrogance, then the only option remaining will be war, and God alone knows what the region would witness in a conflict that would spare no one." It was reported a week ago that EU, British and Israeli diplomatic sources had indicated that the US had given Israel a one-week window in which to inflict maximum damage on Hezbollah before it would join the international call for a cease-fire. Now, with the alleged window about to close, hopes for a US call to end to the carnage appear remote after Rice's inconsequential visits with Lebanese, Israeli and Palestinian heads of state. Urgent talks by senior US, European, UN and Arab officials in Rome ended in Rome on July 25 without agreement on calling for an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah militants. Prime Minister Siniora was clearly disappointed. He told a news conference that he had traveled to Rome hoping for an immediate end to an Israeli offensive that had brought his country "to its knees" and was killing scores of citizens every day. The mood in Rome had darkened ahead of the talks after it emerged that Israeli air strikes had killed UN monitors at an observation post in southern Lebanon. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who had said that the air strikes were "apparently targeted, said the following day he had accepted the apology of the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, who has said the attacks were a mistake. However, Annan questioned the long period of Israel attacks on the area around the UN post, which he said began early in the morning and went on until the evening. The Rome conference was attended by the US, Canada, Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Turkey, Russia, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, as well as the UN and the World Bank. Representatives of Israel and Hezbollah were not invited to the discussions. A senior Iranian official told reporters that the talks were destined to fail because of the exclusion of Hezbollah allies Syria and Iran from the talks. Iran also warned of a backlash across the Muslim world unless Israel's military forces were immediately reined in. Hamid Reza Asefi, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman in Tehran, said: "They should have invited all the countries of the region, including Syria and Iran, if they want peace. How can you tackle these important issues without having representatives of all countries in the region?"