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Jerusalem-bound: Condoleeza Rice (AP file)
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| By israelinsider staff and partners July 29, 2006 |
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Israel on Saturday rejected a request by the United Nations for a three-day cease-fire in Lebanon to get in supplies and allow civilians to leave the war zone.
Avi Pazner, a government spokesman, said Israel already has opened safe corridors across Lebanon for such shipments and that Hezbollah guerrillas were blocking them to create a humanitarian crisis.
"There is no need for a temporary, 72-hour cease-fire because Israel has opened humanitarian corridors to and from Lebanon," he told reporters. "The problem is completely different. It is Hezbollah who 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."
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mark Regev said: "Israel is committed and is acting on the ground to create humanitarian corridors. The solutions that Israel is proposing are effective and helpful for the problems that arose."
Jan Egeland, the U.N. humanitarian chief, on Friday called for a three-day truce between Israel and Hezbollah to evacuate trapped civilians and replenish supplies to areas cut off by the fighting. He said thousands of children, elderly and disabled had been stranded after more than two weeks of fighting, while supplies of food and medicines were dwindling.
Meanwhile, relief aid continued to arrive by air and sea on Saturday.
A U.S. Navy high-speed HSV-2 catamaran arrived at the Beirut port from Cyprus bringing 20,000 blankets, 1,000 tarpaulins, large medical kits and other materials for immediate distribution, said Cassandra Nelson, a spokeswoman for the international aid organization Mercy Corp. She said the materials will be sent to the mountainous Chouf area east of Beirut, where the group has assisted refugees. More aid was expected to arrive later and the group hopes to send it to southern Lebanon, she said.
Egyptian and Jordanian military transport planes also arrived at Beirut's airport with medicine, food and medical teams, while a third plane brought 40 tons of food and medical supplies from the United Arab Emirates.
At least 445 Lebanese, most of them civilians, have been killed in the offensive which began after Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and killed three others in a cross-border raid on July 12. Thirty-three Israeli soldiers have died in fighting, and Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel have killed 19 civilians, the Israeli army said.
Thousands of foreigners already have been evacuated from Lebanon by countries such as the United States, France and Britain, using planes and ships.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, meanwhile, was to return to Israel on Saturday to discuss U.S. President George W. Bush's call for multinational force to be dispatched quickly to Lebanon to help its government regain control of the southern part of its country from the Hezbollah militia.
She was to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem on Saturday night to talk about issues such as the makeup of the multinational force aimed at ending fighting in southern Lebanon and speeding up the delivery of humanitarian aid in the country.
The U.N. already has observers in southern Lebanon, but they and the Lebanese government have not been able to disarm militias such as Iranian-sponsored Hezbollah, as required by U.N. Resolution 1559.
Pazner said a new multinational force has to be given a real mandate.
"It has to be a force that has a clear mandate to prevent the Hezbollah from firing rockets into Israel and to prevent all terrorist attacks on Israel. It has to be composed of countries that are ready to send real soldiers in order to keep the peace," he said.
The new force can't be similar to the U.N. observers "who now do very little to prevent attacks by Hezbollah," he added.
Olmert met Saturday with Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and other senior security officials to discuss Israel's strategy in the Lebanese offensive, which has involved thousands of attacks by its air force on Hezbollah targets and infrastructure in Lebanon and ground fighting in several villages in southern Lebanon.
French FM "actively regrets" Israeli rejection
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy on Saturday criticized Israel's rejection of a 72-hour halt to fighting to evacuate injured, children and elderly from southern Lebanon.
"I actively regret" the refusal, Douste-Blazy told a news conference in Paris. He said he would immediately renew France's appeal for such a temporary truce through the United Nations.
The U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland called Friday for a three-day truce to let food and medical help reach the war zone in southern Lebanon and let thousands of civilians trapped in the heat of the escalating battle to get out.
Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner rejected the call Saturday, saying Israel had already opened humanitarian corridors in and out of Lebanon, and accusing Hezbollah guerrillas of blocking them to create a humanitarian crisis.
Douste-Blazy also reiterated France's opposition to any deployment of an international force in southern Lebanon not preceded by a cease-fire.
"For us, a multinational force should not precede a political accord but should follow it," he said. Otherwise, he added, it would have "no effectiveness."
He confirmed that France would present a draft resolution at the U.N. Security Council "in the next few days" reflecting France's "vision of a way out of the crisis."
Britain was also seeking a resolution, and the two countries were expected to discuss coordinating their positions at a meeting next week, a French official said Friday.
France, which ruled Lebanon between World Wars I and II and has maintained close ties to the country, has taken a leading role in working to resolve the current crisis.
French President Jacques Chirac pressed Friday for the rapid adoption of a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire. The United States, however, has steered clear of such a move, apparently hoping to give Israel more time to pound the Hezbollah militia into submission.
France, which holds the rotating Security Council presidency, is pressing for a meeting at the ministerial level next week.
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