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Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni at a previous cabinet meeting. (AP file)
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| By Associated Press August 13, 2006 |
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After a stormy debate Sunday, Israel's Cabinet approved a Mideast cease-fire, agreeing to silence the army's guns in less than 24 hours amid a last-minute push by the military to deliver a devastating blow to Hezbollah guerrillas.
Israel's Cabinet convened Sunday to approve a Mideast cease-fire, amid widespread criticism of the U.N.-brokered deal and the government's handling of the monthlong war against Hezbollah.
The 24-0 vote, with one abstention, came a day after the Lebanese government approved the agreement, and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah gave his grudging consent. The truce was to take effect on Monday morning, but the potential for new flare-ups remained high.
A heated debate erupted during the Cabinet session, with minister Ofir Pines-Paz criticizing the government's decision to order an expanded ground offensive in the days before the cease-fire is to take effect.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert immediately praised the Cabinet's decision, saying "Hezbollah won't continue to exist as a state within a state."
"The Lebanese government is our address for every problem or violation of the agreement," Army Radio quotes him as saying.
The session came as some 30,000 Israeli troops fought heavy battles with Hezbollah guerrillas in a last-minute push deeper into Lebanon, and a day after 24 soldiers were killed in the highest Israeli toll of the monthlong war.
The cease-fire was to go into effect at 8 a.m. Monday. After the halt in fighting, some 15,000 Lebanese troops and an equal number of U.N. forces are to deploy in coming days in south Lebanon and create a Hezbollah-free zone, from the Israel-Lebanon border to Lebanon's Litani River.
"When the Lebanese and multinational force enters, Israel will withdraw and not before," Israeli Cabinet minister Yaacov Edri said after the Cabinet vote.
Former Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz abstained in the vote, said a senior government official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the details of the meeting with reporters.
The Lebanese government approved the deal Saturday, and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah signaled grudging acceptance, but also warned that "the war has not ended."
The potential for more clashes after a cease-fire is high. Israeli troops will remain in Lebanon until Lebanese troops deploy there, and Israel's weekend push to the Litani River, some 30 kilometers (18 miles from the border) means scores of Hezbollah fighters are caught behind Israeli lines. Israel said it hopes Lebanese troops will start deploying quickly, within a week or two.
In the meeting, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert praised the cease-fire agreement approved by the U.N. Security Council on Saturday, saying it will prevent a return to the status quo in which Hezbollah ran a state-within-a-state in south Lebanon, participants said. "It's a good decision," Olmert said.
His defense minister, Amir Peretz, said tough questions would have to be asked after the war. "The war exposed many issues, both regarding the fighting and the home front, that require review and drawing of conclusions," he was quoted as saying. "But this is not the time. The central question of the cease-fire is how Hezbollah will implement it."
Speaking before Sunday's Cabinet meeting, Israeli Trade Minister Isaac Herzog said approval of the truce was expected. "We view the Security Council resolution favorably," Herzog told The Associated Press. "We plan to approve the resolution and of course enter into a cease-fire by tomorrow (Monday) morning."
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told ministers he met with the families of two Israeli soldiers held by Hezbollah -- their kidnapping July 12 had triggered the war -- and that he hoped the captives would now be freed. However, the truce is not linked to the soldiers' release.
Vice Premier Shimon Peres said that while Israel has to learn lessons from the war, "in my view, we came out of this with the upper hand, both politically and military."
Added Edri: "I don't think it would be correct to say it was an outright victory but on the other hand Hezbollah will think twice about attacking Israel next time."
Approval of the U.N. deal was likely, despite widespread misgivings about the cease-fire terms. The deal was seen at best as a draw with Hezbollah, and some felt Israel -- unable to subdue a guerrillas force -- had lost.
Neither the Lebanese army nor U.N. forces can be counted on to challenge Hezbollah and prevent the Iran-supplied guerrillas from disarming, military experts and commentators said.
The deal buys a period of calm, at best, and sets the region up for the next war with Tehran's proxy army, critics said. The truce will be "a time-out until the next confrontation, and maybe not even this," commentator Nahum Barnea wrote in Israel's Yediot Ahronot daily.
The Cabinet session was overshadowed by rising Israeli casualties. Twenty-four soldiers were killed Saturday and at least 73 wounded.
Hezbollah appeared to be fighting as fiercely as ever. The guerrillas shot down an Israeli helicopter, a first in the war, and killed five crew members. Other troops were killed by Hezbollah anti-tank missiles. The army said it killed more than 50 Hezbollah fighters.
The violence has claimed more than 900 lives: at least 763 in Lebanon -- mostly civilians -- and 147 Israelis, including 109 soldiers. On Saturday, 19 Lebanese civilians were killed in Israeli air raids, one of which blasted a highway near the last open border crossing to Syria.
The big expansion of Israel troop strength, including the army's biggest airlift of soldiers since the 1973 Mideast war, prompted Nasrallah to declare the fight far from finished. "The war has not ended. There have been continued strikes and continued casualties," he said Saturday.
Lebanon's Cabinet said Israel's military push presented a "flagrant challenge" to the international community after the U.N. resolution was issued.
U.S. President George W. Bush had an 8-minute phone call Saturday with Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora to discuss the truce. The White House said it is determined to vanquish the hold of Hezbollah -- and that of its Syrian and Iranian benefactors -- on the south.
"These steps are designed to stop Hezbollah from acting as a state within a state, and put an end to Iran and Syria's efforts to hold the Lebanese people hostage to their own extremist agenda," Bush said.
The anti-Syrian Saniora, whose government was extremely weak when the fighting began, appears to have emerged from the crisis considerably strengthened.
He prevailed in his insistence that policing of the cease-fire be done by Lebanese soldiers alongside an expanded U.N. force rather than by an ad hoc assembly of international troops, possibly from NATO.
French President Jacques Chirac has said his nation was ready to contribute troops to the U.N. force. Other nations, including Italy and New Zealand, also have offered soldiers.
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