By SAM F. GHATTAS, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 25 minutes ago
BEIRUT, Lebanon - Israel on Wednesday suffered its heaviest losses in Lebanon in its offensive against Hezbollah, with militants killing eight soldiers in a battle for a key town. A top Israeli commander said he expected the campaign to last "several more weeks."
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Officials confirmed that four U.N. observers died in an Israeli airstrike on their post Tuesday night.
With Israel facing fiercer than expected resistance in its campaign against the Islamic militants, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel wants to establish a 1.2 mile-wide strip in south Lebanon that will be free of Hezbollah guerrillas — ruling out a larger occupation.
In Rome, U.S., European and Arab officials holding crisis talks on Lebanon failed to agree on details for a cease-fire to end 15 days of fighting. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice faced intense pressure for Washington to change its stance and call for an immediate halt to the violence.
Rice insisted any cease-fire must be "sustainable" and that there could be "no return to the status quo" — a reference to the U.S. and Israeli stance that Hezbollah must first be pushed back from the border and the Lebanese army backed by international forces deployed in the south.
Olmert gave the first outline of Israel's new "security zone" in a closed meeting of parliament's Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee, according to participants.
Defense Minister Amir Peretz first raised the idea of a buffer zone Tuesday, but left somewhat unclear whether Israeli troops would patrol it or try to keep out Hezbollah fighters from a distance, by artillery fire and airstrikes.
Israeli soldiers patrolled a much larger "security zone" during an 18-year occupation of south Lebanon, but Olmert indicated the new buffer zone would be different. "We do not have any intention of returning to the security zone but want to create an area where there will be no Hezbollah," he was quoted as saying.
Olmert also reiterated Israel's call for an international force with muscle to be deployed along the border, as opposed to the U.N. force already there that has failed to prevent the violence.
Fierce fighting with Hezbollah guerrillas the key town of Bint Jbail killed eight Israeli soldiers and wounded 22 others, the Israeli army said.
Hezbollah spokesman Hussein Rahhal and Al-Jazeera gave a different toll, saying 13 Israeli soldiers were killed in the town. Another Arab broadcaster, Al-Arabiya, reported as many as 14 had been killed.
By either measure, it was the deadliest day in Lebanon for Israel since the fighting began July 12. On that day, Hezbollah forces crossed the border into Israel, killing three soldiers and capturing two. Five more Israelis were killed in Lebanon when they pursued the militants across the frontier.
Several other Israeli casualties were reported in Wednesday's fighting in the nearby town of Maroun al-Ras, the military said, without elaborating. Hezbollah later said its fighters killed a four-member Israeli intelligence unit operating between Bint Jbail and Maroun al-Ras, a border town captured by Israeli forces over the weekend.
Hezbollah said Israeli forces were trying to advance toward a hospital in Bint Jbail. Israeli forces had managed to seize a few points inside the town, but not yet its center, senior Hezbollah official Mahmoud Komati told The Associated Press.
The Israeli army said several Hezbollah fighters took cover in a mosque. Komati denied the allegation and suggested those inside were civilians, while Rahhal said they could be fighters who were praying.
Militants fired one of their largest barrages into northern Israel — 119 rockets that wounded at least 31 people and damaged property. The volleys came despite two weeks of Israeli bombardment of Hezbollah rocket launchers and positions.
Israeli warplanes staged 15 airstrikes in southern Lebanon. An evening strike leveled an empty six-story building in the southern port city of Tyre, security officials and witnesses reported.
One person was killed in a strike that destroyed the headquarters of the Shiite Amal movement in the town of Zefta, officials said.
At least 422 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Lebanon, according to the Health Ministry. Up to 750,000 Lebanese have been driven from their homes. At least 50 Israelis have been confirmed killed, including 32 troops, according to authorities.
The town of Bint Jbail has great symbolic importance for the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah guerrillas. It is the largest Shiite community in the border area, although most of its 30,000 residents are believed to have fled and was known as the "capital of the resistance" during Israel's 1982-90 occupation because of its support for Hezbollah.
An Israeli seizure of the town, about 2 1/2 miles from the border, would rob Hezbollah of a significant refuge overlooking northern Israel and force its fighters to operate from smaller, more vulnerable villages. The town is in a tiny pocket of about six square miles where significant Israeli ground forces have entered southern Lebanon.
Maj. Gen. Udi Adam, the chief of Israel's northern command, said he expected the offensive to continue "for several more weeks."
"In a number of weeks, we will be able to (declare) a victory," he said at a news conference.
About 100 foreigners — mostly Americans — who had been visiting relatives in the village of Yaroun fled to Tyre, and described a village ravaged by bombardment.
"It was worse than a nightmare. I saw dogs and cats on bodies that couldn't be taken from bombed-out houses. We ran from one building to another trying to escape the bombing," said Ali Abbas Tehfi, of Los Angeles.
"It didn't stop. It didn't stop even for a day. Everything is finished," he said. He said an unknown number of Americans were still trapped in the town.
The Israeli bombardment of a U.N. observation post in the southern Lebanese town of Khiam provoked a sharp exchange between the world body and Israel.
Olmert expressed "deep regret" over the deaths and said they were "mistaken." But he rejected a charge by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan that the direct hit on the position was apparently deliberate.
"It's inconceivable for the U.N. to define an error as an apparently deliberate action," Olmert said, adding that he ordered an investigation.
Three bodies were pulled from the ruins. Workers were still trying to reach the fourth, the U.N. observer force said.
One was identified as Chinese U.N. observer Du Zhaoyu, China's official Xinhua News Agency reported. China demanded that Israel apologize. The other three U.N. observers were from Austria, Canada and Finland.
The bodies of a Nigerian civilian worker for the U.N. observers and his wife were finally dug out of building outside Tyre where they were killed in fighting last week.
In the past two weeks, there have been several dozen incidents of firing close to U.N. peacekeepers and observers, including direct hits on nine positions, some of them repeatedly. As a result of these attacks, 12 U.N. personnel have been killed or injured, U.N. officials said.
Proposals for disarming the Shiite Islamic militant group and assembling an international peacekeeping force along the border were discussed at the Rome meeting.
Annan called for the formation of a multinational force to help Lebanon assert its authority and implement U.N. resolutions that would disarm Hezbollah.
After listening to an appeal from Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora for them to stop the killing, the officials said they had agreed on the need to deploy an international force under the aegis of the U.N. in southern Lebanon. Italian Premier Romano Prodi said in an interview with the AP that his country will commit troops if it has a U.N. mandate.
There was no agreement in Rome, however, on when a cease-fire could take place.
"Participants expressed their determination to work immediately to reach, with utmost urgency, a cease-fire that puts an end to the current violence and hostilities. The cease-fire must be lasting, permanent and sustainable," said Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema at the close of the meeting.
Israel, meanwhile, pressed ahead with its nearly month-old offensive against Palestinian militants in Gaza. At least 18 Palestinians, including three girls, were killed in airstrikes and artillery bombardment that also wounded more than three dozen.
About 50 Israeli tanks and bulldozers drove into northern Gaza, flattening orchards and greenhouses to deprive militants firing rockets of cover. Aircraft also blasted several houses of Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists after warning people to leave.
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