Death Toll of Qana Strike Rises to 56,· Israel Says Hezbollah Used Qana to Launch Rockets.· Stymied in Mideast, Rice to Head Home,· U.N. Convenes Emergency Meeting
Protesters Ransack U.N. Building in Beirut .· Pope Makes Appeal for Cease-Fire
Israeli Airstrike Kills 56, Sparks Fury,Death Toll of Qana Strike Rises to 56
Israeli missiles crushed several buildings where Lebanese villagers were sleeping Sunday, killing at least 56 people, more than half of them children, in the deadliest attack of the campaign against Hezbollah.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice decided to return early to Washington with her diplomatic mission derailed after Lebanese leaders told her not to come.

Lebanon's prime minister said his country would not talk to the Americans about anything but an unconditional cease-fire. Rice, in Jerusalem for talks with Israeli officials, said she was "deeply saddened by the terrible loss of innocent life" but stopped short of calling for an immediate end to the hostilities, saying: "We want a cease-fire as soon as possible."

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed "great sorrow" for the airstrikes but blamed Hezbollah guerrillas for using the area to launch rockets at Israel. Before news of the strike emerged, Olmert told Rice that Israel likely would fight on for another 10-14 days.

Later, Olmert and Rice discussed the conditions for a cease-fire, including the proposed deployment of an international force there, an official said on condition of anonymity because the talks were private.Israel claims success in attacking Hezbollah
Bombing Beirut, Hezbollah proves to be tough opponent


The United States has resisted world pressure to call for a halt to the fighting, saying it wants first to ensure a deal is in place that will eliminate Hezbollah guerrillas from Israel's border and bring an international force to southern Lebanon.

The missiles struck just after 1 a.m., leveling a three-story building in Qana where two extended families, the Shalhoubs and Hashims, had taken refuge in the basement from heavy Israeli bombardment in the area. Throughout the day, rescue workers dug through the rubble, lifting out bodies dressed in colorful clothes of women and children. At one point they found a single room with 18 bodies, police said.

"Why are they killing us? What have we done?" screamed Khalil Shalhoub, who was helping pull out the dead until he saw his brother's body taken out on a stretcher. The dead included at least 34 children and 12 adult women, security officials said.

Israel said guerrillas had fired rockets from near the building into northern Israel.

In Beirut, some 5,000 protesters gathered in downtown Beirut, at one point attacking a U.N. building and burning American flags, shouting, "Destroy Tel Aviv, destroy Tel Aviv" and chanting for Hezbollah's ally Syria to hit Israel.

At an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was "deeply disturbed" that his previous calls for cease-fire had gone unheeded. He pointed to the Beirut protests, saying, "People have noticed (the United Nations') failure to act firmly and quickly during this crisis."

Olmert said Israel "is not in a hurry to have a cease-fire" before it achieves its goals of decimating Hezbollah. He told Rice that Israel would need 10 to 14 more days to finish its offensive, according to a senior Israeli government official.

"We will not stop this battle, despite the difficult incidents this morning," Olmert told his Cabinet after the strike, according to a participant. "We will continue the activity and if necessary it will be broadened without hesitation."

The Lebanese government this week had put forward ideas on disarming Hezbollah and deploying an international force in the south. But after the strike, Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said any negotiations on a broader deal were off.

"We will not negotiate until the Israeli war stops shedding the blood of innocent people," he told a news conference, though he added that his government still supported the ideas it offered.

Saniora and Rice spoke by telephone after the strike, and Saniora said he told her not to make a planned trip Sunday to Beirut. Rice told reporters in Jerusalem she had called to notify him she wouldn't fly to Beirut, "because I felt very strongly that my work toward a cease-fire is really here, today."

A U.S. official later said she had decided to return home Monday morning to work on a U.N. Security Council resolution.

Israel said Hezbollah guerrillas had fired 40 rockets into northern Israel from Qana, wounding five Israelis, before the airstrike -- including some rockets launched from near the leveled building.

"We deeply regret the loss of any civilian life and especially when you talk about children who are innocent," Foreign Ministry official Gideon Meir told AP. But he accused Hezbollah of "using their own civilian population as human shields" and said the military had warned people to leave the area.

The attack drew immediate condemnation from the Arab world, with Jordan's King Abdullah II voicing his strongest criticism of his Israeli peace partner yet, calling it an "ugly crime." Israel promised an investigation.

In April 1996 more than 100 Lebanese civilians were killed in Qana in the hills east of the port city of Tyre, in an Israeli artillery shelling of a U.N. base. The civilians had sought refuge with the U.N. to escape Israeli bombardment and the attack sparked an international outcry that helped end an Israeli offensive.

Meanwhile, Israel launched its second ground incursion into southern Lebanon. Before dawn Sunday, Israeli forces backed by heavy artillery fire crossed the border and clashed with Hezbollah guerrillas in the Taibeh Project area, about two miles inside Lebanon.

Hezbollah said eight Israeli soldiers were killed, while the Israeli army said only that one of its soldiers had been moderately wounded.

Heavy artillery rained down on the nearby villages of Yuhmor and Arnoun as Israeli jets were seen in the skies overhead.

The incursion came after Israeli forces pulled back Saturday from Bint Jbail, the furthest point of their first major ground incursion across the border, launched a week ago. The incursion sparked heavy fighting with Hezbollah guerrillas, who put up a tougher resistance than expected and appeared to still be in the area after the pullback. Bint Jbail is further west along the border from Taibeh.

The United Nations World Food Program canceled an aid convoy's trip to the embattled south, after the Israeli military denied safe passage, the group said in a statement. The six-truck convoy had been scheduled to bring relief supplies to Marjayoun.

Israel launched its assault on Lebanon after Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid July 12 and killed eight others in fighting the same day.

Some 458 Lebanese, mostly civilians, were killed in the campaign through Saturday _ before the attacks on Qana. Thirty-three Israeli soldiers have died, and Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel have killed 18 civilians, Israeli authorities said, correcting earlier reports of 19 civilian dead.

More than 750,000 Lebanese have fled their homes in the fighting. But many thousands more are still believed holed up in the south, taking refuge in schools, hospitals or basements of apartment buildings amid the fighting -- many of them too afraid to flee on roads heavily hit by Israeli strikes.

In Qana, Khalil Shalhoub and several other residents said people were simply too terrified to take the road out of the village, which has been attacked repeatedly by rockets and bombs. Charred wreckage and smashed buildings line the roughly seven-mile road from Qana to Tyre, where a small amount of humanitarian supplies had arrived. European ships had picked up foreign citizens from Tyre's port, but there were no evacuations of Lebanese.

On Thursday, the Israeli military's Al-Mashriq radio that broadcasts into southern Lebanon warned residents that their villages would be "totally destroyed" if missiles are fired from them. Leaflets with similar messages were dropped in some areas Saturday.

A senior official in the Israeli air force said the village had been warned "several times" that it would be attacked because "hundreds of rockets have been fired from inside the village in the past two weeks, from the backyards, from the squares ... from as close as 50 to 60 (yards) from this building."

Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr disputed allegations that Hezbollah was firing missiles from Qana.

"What do you expect Israel to say? Will it say that it killed 40 children and women?" he told Qatar-based al-Jazeera TV.

07-30-06 15:09 EDT

Hezbollah chief threatens rocket attacks
Hezbollah's leader on Saturday threatened more attacks on central Israeli cities, a day after guerrillas for the first time fired a rocket powerful enough to reach the outskirts of Tel Aviv.

Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, speaking on Hezbollah's TV station, said he supported Lebanon's efforts to negotiate a peace deal, but suggested tentative promises for the guerrillas to disarm would be off if conditions aren't met.

Nasrallah also dismissed a new diplomatic effort by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to bring about cease-fire, saying the United States wants fighting to continue. His statement came as Rice arrived in the Mideast to visit Israel; a possible Lebanon stop has not been announced.

The bearded Shiite Muslim cleric, wearing his trademark black headdress, insisted Hezbollah fighters were winning the battle with Israel, now in its 18th day. Israel has not made a "single military accomplishment" in its offensive on Lebanon, he said, speaking on the group's Al-Manar television.

He claimed Israel suffered a "serious defeat" in ground fighting around a Lebanese border town after Israeli troops pulled back Saturday afternoon. Israel said they left Bint Jbail because they accomplished their mission of wearing down Hezbollah fighters after a week of heavy battles.

On Friday, a Hezbollah rocket hit outside the Israeli town of Afula, the farthest strike yet. Hezbollah said it targeted an Israeli military base, but the rockets fell in an empty field.

"The bombardment of Afula and its military base is the beginning ..., Nasrallah said. "Many cities in the center (of Israel) will be targeted in the 'beyond Haifa' stage if the savage aggression continues on our country, people and villages."

He was referring to his earlier threat to attack deeper into Israel than Haifa, which has been hit repeatedly in the recent conflict.

Nasrallah said Hezbollah was willing to cooperate with the Lebanese government. He did not mention a Lebanese peace plan calling for guerrilla disarmament specifically, but suggested Hezbollah would not disarm if the government backs away from conditions outlined in its proposal.

Most notably, the proposals demand a prisoner swap with Israel and the resolution of Lebanese claims on border land that Israel controls. Israel has ruled out a prisoner swap but has not said whether it would be willing to reconsider its hold on the Chebaa farms area.

The speech was Nasrallah's fourth taped TV appearance since fighting began, sparked by Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers July 12.

In Beirut, drivers stopped their cars and pedestrians stood in front of shops and cafes to watch the address. Fireworks erupted in the southern neighborhoods of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, after Nasrallah finished.

The wrath to come
In ambition and miscalculation, Israel's latest Lebanese adventure looks ominously similar to 1982,
In October 2000 Hizbullah guerrillas captured three soldiers on the Lebanese border with Israel. Israel's then prime minister, Ehud Barak, chose not to respond. With the Al-Aqsa Intifada less than a month old, he was wary of opening a "second front." In April 2002 -- at the height of the Israeli army's re-conquest of Palestinian West Bank cities -- Hizbullah killed several soldiers on the border. Barak's successor, Ariel Sharon, too, did not respond.

Instead he warned Syria while continuing indirect negotiations with the Lebanese resistance that led, eventually, to the release of 410 Arab prisoners in exchange for the bodies of the three dead soldiers and the release of the Israeli "businessman" Elhanan Tennenbaum. Even Sharon, it seemed, accepted the status quo on the Lebanese- Israeli border, buttressed by 10,000-12,000 Hizbullah missiles aimed at Israeli cities.

On 12 July 2006 Hizbullah guerrillas captured two soldiers and, in battle, killed eight more. Israel, in occupation of Gaza for the first time in a year, responded by unleashing its worst ground, air and sea assault on Lebanon, certainly since Operation Grapes of Wrath in 1996, and arguably since Operation Peace in the Galilee in 1982. Hizbullah hit back with rockets into Haifa and Tiberias.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert clearly has no problem fighting on two fronts. Like Samson, he willingly upturned the "balance of fear" that had kept the peace on Israel's northern border for the last six years. As Azmi Bishara wrote in Lebanon's As-Safir newspaper, "Hizbullah did not engage in 'adventurism' against Israel. Israel engaged in war against Hizbullah."

But why did it do so? Israel's argument that it is no longer prepared to negotiate the fate of "kidnapped" soldiers is the easiest to rebut. Asked on Israeli TV how the two Israeli soldiers would be released without negotiation, Israel's Foreign Minister Tsipi Livni answered, "we will bomb the Beirut airport." Asked how this would help, she answered, "we will bomb the roads leading to airport." Freeing prisoners is obviously not an Israeli priority just now, whether in Lebanon or Gaza.

Israel's priority rather is "eliminating Hizbullah's military power from the Lebanese and regional equation," says one Lebanese commentator. It is using two means. The first is the deliberate destruction Lebanon's national infrastructure -- roads, ports, power stations, etc. -- to compel the Lebanese government to deploy its army on the Israeli border and disarm Hizbullah -- in other words "the implementation of UN Resolution 1559 by force."

In the likely event of this not happening, the second means is to disarm Hizbullah by attrition -- targeting its arms stocks, rocket launchers and headquarters and regardless of the civilian cost. The alarming aspect of this second goal is that many Israelis believe it can be done, with one commentator predicting an end to the military campaign "within a week."

It is all eerily similar to the hubris that accompanied the first weeks of Israel's 1982 invasion. Then too there were predictions that the PLO would be vanquished "within a week." The PLO fought for over 100 days. Hizbullah is an indigenous movement, with a solid Shia constituency which views it as their only protector. The idea that Hizbullah can somehow be "removed from Lebanon" is an Israeli fantasy. "We will never leave, even if Lebanon is reduced to scorched earth," says Hizbullah cadre, Abdullah Kassir. He means it.

Israel's ambition is driven by the "regional equation." Since 2002, Israel has ploughed a unilateralist path in the Palestinian occupied territories with the encouragement of the United States, complicity of Europe and passivity of the Arab League. The only consistent resistance has come from Hamas and Hizbullah and their regional allies, Syria and Iran. By delivering Hizbullah a mortal blow in Lebanon, Israel believes it can "serve deterrence" on Tehran and Damascus without resort to a regional war. It also believes it can remove the last barrier to knocking over the Hamas government in Gaza.

This is particularly important for Olmert. A shibboleth of the Israeli right and many in the army is that Israel's flight from Lebanon in 2000 cleared the way for the Intifada. The same forces think the Gaza disengagement enabled the Qassam rockets and Hamas's electoral victory. The centrepiece of Olmert's political programme is some kind of territorial redeployment on the occupied West Bank. He knows that "realignment" cannot happen, domestically, if Hamas and the other Palestinian resistance forces are fighting in Gaza and Hizbullah remains armed and in place on the Lebanese border.

"We've decided to put an end to this saga and change the rules of the game where a terrorist organisation that is part of the government can push the region to an abyss," said security cabinet member, Isaac Herzog. He was referring to Hizbullah. He could just have easily been referring to Hamas.

This dangerous mix of Israeli self-righteousness and miscalculation suggests the latest assault on Lebanon could last a while. There are some, Iran and Syria apparently among them, who believe an internationally brokered ceasefire, followed by a prisoner exchange, could lead all back to politics and the negotiating table.

But Israel is not interested in a ceasefire, still less in politics. This is not 1996, when operation Grapes of Wrath was eventually tamed via "understandings" reached between Israel, Hizbullah, America and Syria's Hafez Al-Assad. This campaign is closer to 1982, when Israel believed it could recast Lebanon and thence the region in line with its own ambition. "Israel is not looking for an understanding with Hizbullah," said Israeli analyst, Guy Becher, on 16 July. "It is looking for victory."

C a p t i o n : UNITY UNDER SIEGE: Images of Beirut and Gaza grow eerily similar as the Lebanese and Palestinians face the most brutal rampage their lands have suffered in recent memory. Telling the world it has "the right to defend itself", Israel is in fact intentionally ravaging residential areas and key state infrastructure in overwhelming strikes designed to break the will of the two peoples. A cameraman films destruction in a residential area in east Beirut (left) while a Palestinian policeman stands by the destroyed Foreign Ministry building in Gaza (right)

Nations Can't Agree on Peace ???, Rice Calls for 'New Middle East'se-Fire Plan,
European and Arab officials holding crisis talks on Lebanon failed to agree Wednesday on details for a cease-fire to end the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas.
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, left, confers Wednesday with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan at a meeting in Rome,Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, left, confers Wednesday with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan at a meeting in Rome
failed to agree on details for a cease-fire to end the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas.
Despite the failure to reach a common position on the details of how to pursue a cease-fire, the conference participants agreed to humanitarian aid for the country and to hold a donors' conference.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States favored urgently ending the fighting but said there cannot be a return to a "status quo" of political uncertainty and instability in Lebanon.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the solution to the Mideast crisis should involve Iran and Syria. He also 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 a dramatic appeal from Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad 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 United Nations in southern Lebanon.

"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," Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema said.

He said many of the participants in the meeting appealed for an immediate and unconditional truce.

The United States and Britain opposed the push for a quick cease-fire, saying any truce should ensure that Hezbollah no longer is a threat to Israel and should ensure a durable peace.

The foreign ministers and other senior officials from 15 nations, as well as Annan and representatives from the European Union and the World Bank, agreed on a declaration expressing "deep concern" for the high number of civilian casualties in Lebanon, where government officials say hundreds of people have been killed.

The officials called on Israel to exercise "utmost restraint" and deplored the destruction of infrastructure in the country.

U.N.'s Egeland denounces Israeli strikes,The U.N.'s top humanitarian official on Sunday denounced the Israeli airstrikes that have devastated Beirut and southern Lebanon, saying civilians were paying a "disproportionate price" in the attacks targeting Hezbollah strongholds.

Jan Egeland inspected the destruction in south Beirut — a predominantly Shiite area that has suffered the brunt of the bombings. Israeli strikes hit the neighborhood hours before Egeland's arrival and six more missiles pounded it later, the first daytime attack there in days.

"It's terrible. I see a lot of children wounded, homeless, suffering. This is a war where civilians pay a disproportionate price in Lebanon and northern Israel. I hadn't believed it would be block by block leveled to the ground," he said. "A disproportionate response by Israel is a violation of international humanitarian law."

He spoke as Canadians, Australians and other foreigners continued to flee the fighting in Lebanon. U.S. Consul William Gill said most Americans who wanted to leave had done so and U.S. evacuation efforts were nearly complete. The first Filipino evacuees were welcomed home by their president and British officials said the last large group of Britons had left.

Egeland appealed for safe passage for aid and said the United Nations would begin a relief operation in the next few days. But he cautioned the fleet of trucks and ships that will bring in supplies need free access and security, which are lacking so far.

Egeland said the United Nations will release an international appeal for aid for Lebanon on Monday. "It will be a large appeal. It's got to be more than $100 million," he said, adding that the long-term figure needed to rebuild devastated infrastructure would be "in the billions."

"Not only the West, the Arab countries, the Asian countries, must come to the relief of the Lebanese in their hour of greatest need, they can only rely on us now," he told The Associated Press.

The humanitarian chief made his way around the piles of debris left by the bombardment in Haret Hreik, which houses Hezbollah headquarters and has been hit several times since the fighting began July 12. At one point, he looked down to see he was stepping on a school textbook buried in the rubble.

He stressed the need for an end to hostilities, telling reporters, "If it continues like this, there will be more and more civilian casualties."

A humanitarian crisis is brewing in the south and other parts of Lebanon.

The World Health Organization said the 600,000 people have been displaced by the hostilities. Lebanese Finance Minister Jihad Azour told Al-Arabiya television put the figure of people who have fled their homes at 750,000, nearly 20 percent of Lebanon's 4 million people.

Egeland, who met with the prime minister and other leaders to talk about aid, planned to travel Monday to Israel to coordinate the opening of aid corridors.

"I will ask for mercy for the civilian population,".

Israel has eased its blockade on Beirut's port to allow humanitarian supplies to pass through, but there appeared to be no letup in Israeli attacks on roads leading out of Beirut and along the route to Syria.

The need for relief was greatest in south Lebanon, where bombed-out roads and continuous airstrikes have isolated communities.

Egeland said the U.N. was setting up the relief operation but stressed that access and security were critical for the effort to work.

"The rockets going into Israel have to stop and the enormous bombardment that we see here with one block after the other being leveled has to stop," he said. There is no military solution. It is only a political solution."