Israel Calls 48-Hour Bombing Break as Rice Heads Home

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QANA, Lebanon — Israel yesterday agreed to a brief respite from bombing Hezbollah targets within Lebanon, following international outcry over an air attack that killed at least 57 Lebanese civilians, most of them children, in the village of Qana.

This was the highest daily loss of life so far in the conflict and widened the gap between Israel and its American and British supporters and the rest of international opinion.

Secretary-General Annan urged an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council to condemn the attack and called for an immediate cessation of hostilities.

Dazed, frightened, and angry, the survivors of the early-morning raid on a basement shelter told of the horror they had seen.

“The bombing was so intense that no one could move,” Ibrahim Shaloub, 26, one of a handful of survivors, said. “After the bombardment, there was dust everywhere. We couldn’t see anything. Rescue efforts could only start this morning. I succeeded in getting out, and everything collapsed. I have several members of the family inside, and I do not think there will be any other survivors.”

The bodies of 37 children were among those recovered from the rubble.

The bloodshed brought a premature halt to the diplomatic visit to the area by Secretary of State Rice. A scheduled stop-off in Lebanon was canceled after she was told she was not welcome, and she will return to Washington from Israel this morning.

Prime Minister Olmert expressed “deep sorrow” at the loss of life. But he said: “Israel is not in a hurry to have a cease-fire before we reach a situation in which we can say that we reached the central goals we set out for ourselves.”

Israel justified the attack by saying the village was a “safe haven” for Hezbollah militants and that civilians had been warned to leave. It claimed 40 rockets had been fired from the area, injuring five Israelis.

The attack on Qana, where more than 100 civilians were killed by Israeli fire in April 1996, provoked the strongest criticism yet of Israel’s conduct of the war.

The European Union presidency, held by Finland, issued a denunciation, saying it was “shocked and dismayed by the Israeli air strikes … there is no justification for attacks causing casualties among innocent civilians, most of them women and children.”

The fact that residents had been warned to leave was no excuse, it said, since Israel had earlier rejected a 72-hour halt in hostilities requested by the United Nations to open the way for a safe evacuation of civilians.

America continued to side with Israel in insisting that any cease-fire had to be “sustainable” — code for the neutralization of Hezbollah. But yesterday, Ms. Rice went as far as she has gone in calling for a cease-fire but still fell short of using the word immediate. “I think it is time to get to a cease-fire,” she said. “We actually have to try and put one in place.”

Prime Minister Blair, who has supported the American and Israeli position throughout, said the deaths were “absolutely tragic” but emphasized that diplomatic action should lead to a “genuine” cease-fire.

He said Qana “showed the situation cannot continue” and that a U.N. resolution to end the fighting must be passed now and, once passed, the hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah must immediately stop.

Mr. Annan called for an immediate cease-fire. “We must condemn this action in the strongest possible terms,” he said at the U.N. meeting in New York. France is circulating a resolution demanding “an immediate cessation of hostilities.”

It also calls for negotiations to create conditions for a lasting peace including the disarming of Hezbollah and the extension of the authority of the Lebanese state to its southern border. France is also at the heart of efforts to create an international stabilization force, mandated by the United Nations, that would go into south Lebanon and stand between the forces.

No deployment is likely to be made until the fighting stops, and on Saturday night that seemed a distant prospect.

Reports from Israel said Mr. Olmert had said another 10 days to two weeks were needed to degrade Hezbollah’s fighting ability.

He told his Cabinet: “We won’t end this battle, despite the tough results. This is the right thing to do. Hezbollah, like Muslim terror, threatens Western civilization.”

The offensive is proceeding slowly. Israeli ground forces pulled back over the weekend from the town of Bint Jbeil, which it had claimed to control. Hezbollah was still able to fire 130 rockets into Israel yesterday.

The Lebanese prime minister, Fouad Siniora, branded Israelis “war criminals” and, while no friend of Hezbollah, thanked its leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah. “We are in a strong position, and I thank the Sayyed [Nasrallah] for his efforts,” he said. “I also thank all those who sacrifice their lives for the independence and sovereignty of Lebanon.”

Sheik Nasrallah said: “This horrific massacre will not go without response.”

Israeli forces asked U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon to evacuate two more villages before sunset, but Mr. Annan said they were unable to do so.


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