ISRAEL: Israel rejects United Nations calls for a 72 hour pause in fighting to enable relief workers to bring in emergency aid, as fighting enters the 18th day

Record ID: 395932

  • Title: ISRAEL: Israel rejects United Nations calls for a 72 hour pause in fighting to enable relief workers to bring in emergency aid, as fighting enters the 18th day
  • Date: 29th July 2006
  • Summary: WIDE OF EXPLOSION AMONGST HOUSES, SMOKE RISING MORE OF SMOKE BILLOWING ABOVE VILLAGE ANOTHER EXPLOSION VARIOUS SMOKE RISING, AUDIO OF SHELLING
  • Embargoed: 13th August 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: War / Fighting,International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA3DUGV4C0I8MFANXSOXNDOMHRG
  • Story Text: As fighting entered the 18th day, Israel continued to pound southern Lebanon while rejecting a U.N. plea for a truce to aid trapped civilians.
    At least 469 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Lebanon since the conflict erupted on July 12 when Hizbollah seized two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others in a cross-border raid.
    Hizbollah, which wants to swap the captured soldiers for Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, has killed 51 Israelis, 18 of them civilians hit by firing rockets into the Jewish state.
    On the northern Israeli border, tanks fired artillery at Lebanese villages, killing at least seven civilians, Lebanese medics reported on Saturday. In a separate development, Israeli forces pulled out of the Lebanese border town of Bint Jbeil -- a Hizbollah stronghold -- but may return, an Israeli military source said.
    U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Israel on Saturday (July 29) for talks with leaders to discuss the outlines of a U.N. Security Council resolution and the possible deployment of an international force in south Lebanon.
    Rice, who is set to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, said she expected her talks to be tough.
    Neither side showed much willingness for compromise.
    Israel dismissed a proposal by U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland for a 72-hour truce to let relief workers reach stricken civilians and deliver emergency aid.
    "There is no need for a 72-hour temporary ceasefire because Israel has opened a humanitarian corridor to and from Lebanon," Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner said, drawing a swift rebuke from France.
    Pazner said Israel was not blocking aid from reaching south Lebanon.
    "The problem is completely different," he said. "It is Hizbollah, which is deliberately preventing the transfer of medical aid and of food to the population of southern Lebanon in order to create a humanitarian crisis, which they want to blame Israel for."
    While Israel has let aid shipments through its blockade of Lebanon, international relief agencies say they have been unable to get Israel to guarantee safe passage to civilians in southern areas hardest hit by Israeli bombing aimed at Hizbollah.
    Hizbollah pledged on Saturday to deny the United States and Israel any political gains from the war in Lebanon.
    And in a softening of Israel's position, a senior Foreign Ministry official said Israel would not demand the immediate disarming of Hizbollah as part of a deal to end the fighting.
    The official said Israel would demand that the proposed peacekeeping force in south Lebanon keep Hizbollah away from the Israeli border and prevent the group from replenishing its stockpile of rockets from Syria and Iran.
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