Hezbollah Kills Up to 14 Israeli Troops

Israeli soldiers carry a wounded soldier on the Israeli-Lebanese border Monday July 24, 2006. Israeli ground forces pushed deeper into Lebanon on Monday, entering a Hezbollah stronghold amid heavy fighting that wounded at least 10 Israeli soldiers, the military said. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

July 26, 2006

By SAM F. GHATTAS

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Hezbollah inflicted heavy casualties on Israeli troops as they battled for a key hilltop town in southern Lebanon for a fourth day Wednesday, with as many as 14 soldiers reported killed.

Lebanese officials, meanwhile, confirmed that four U.N. observers had died were killed in an Israeli airstrike on their post Tuesday night.

With Israel facing fiercer resistance than expected 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 between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas. 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 outlined for the first time the dimensions of Israel's new "security zone" in a closed-door meeting of parliament's Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee, according to participants.

Defense Minister Amir Peretz first raised the idea of such a buffer zone Tuesday, but left somewhat unclear whether Israeli troops would patrol such a no-go area or try to keep out Hezbollah fighters from a distance, by artillery fire and airstrikes.

Israeli soldiers patrolled a much larger "security zone" during Israel's 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. The current crisis began July 12 when guerrilla forces crossed the border. The fighting left eight Israeli troops dead and two captured.

Despite two weeks of Israeli bombardment of Hezbollah rocket launchers and positions, the guerrillas fired one of their largest barrages in days into northern Israel - 119 rockets that wounded at least 31 people and damaged property.

Since the fighting began, 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 42 Israelis have been killed, including 24 troops, according to authorities.

There were conflicting reports about Israeli casualties in the heavy fighting at Bint Jbail, which Israeli forces have been trying to take for four days.

Hezbollah said its guerrillas ambushed an Israeli unit from three sides as it tried to advance from a ridge on the outskirts of the town. "The bodies of the soldiers remained on the ground amid the destroyed and burning vehicles," an announcer on Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV said.

The pan-Arab satellite station Al-Arabiya said at least 14 Israeli soldiers had been killed, while Al-Jazeera said 13 were killed and 12 wounded in the fighting. Hezbollah's chief spokesman Hussein Rahhal said 13 Israelis were killed.

The Israeli military said there were 20 Israeli casualties, but it would not say if any soldiers had been killed. If confirmed, it would be the largest death toll suffered by the Israeli military in a single attack since the offensive began two weeks ago.

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, a senior Hezbollah official, Mahmoud Komati, told The Associated Press.

The Israeli army said several Hezbollah fighters took cover in a town mosque. Komati denied the allegation and suggested those in the mosque were civilians, while Rahhal said they could be fighters who were praying.

Bint Jbail, a town of at least 30,000 - though most are believed to have fled - has great symbolic importance for the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah guerrillas. It holds the largest Shiite community in the border area 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 in the south.

The town is in a tiny pocket of about six square miles where significant Israeli ground forces have entered southern Lebanon - including the village of Maroun al-Ras seized over the weekend and the outskirts of the villages of Yaroun and Aitaroun.

About 100 foreigners - mostly Americans - who had been visiting relatives in Yaroun fled to the port city of 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
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Three bodies were pulled from the ruins, but 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 to be deployed 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 United Nations in southern Lebanon.

But there was no agreement 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 13 Palestinians, including a young girl, 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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AP correspondents Kathy Gannon in Tyre, Hamza Hendawi in Sidon, Sheherezade Faramarzi in Beirut and Katherine Shrader and Victor L. Simpson in Rome contributed to this story.

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Hezbollah claims victories in Wednesday's fighting