UN gets draft resolution on Lebanon crisis

BEIRUT - Israel and Hizbollah exchanged missile strikes and fought gun battles today as the UN Security Council considered a resolution to end the conflict that has killed at least 800 people and ravaged south Lebanon.

The full 15-member Security Council received the French-US draft to review before sending it to their governments for any suggested changes. A vote could follow on Monday or Tuesday, France's UN Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere said.

Even if world powers agree on the UN resolution, getting the warring parties to stop fighting may not be easy.

A Lebanese Foreign Minister official, Nouhad Mahmoud, said "no" when asked if Beirut supported the text. The document does not call for immediate Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

A Lebanese government source said the cabinet had not rejected the resolution outright but wanted any resolution to stick to the terms of a seven-point peace plan that has been endorsed by the cabinet, including Hizbollah.

The plan calls for an immediate ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon, the return of displaced Lebanese to their homes, and the deployment of UN and Lebanese forces in the south, along with the disarmament of Hizbollah.

Israeli Tourism Minister Isaac Herzog said time was running out for Israel's military campaign.

"We have the coming days for lots of military moves. But we have to realise the timetable is getting shorter," he said.

The draft resolution calls for a "full cessation of hostilities based upon, in particular, the immediate cessation by Hizbollah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations".

A second resolution is envisaged a week or two after the first is adopted, setting down conditions for a permanent ceasefire and authorising an international force.

At least 10,000 Israeli troops are inside Lebanon trying to dislodge Hizbollah fighters from the border and stop them firing rockets into Israel.

ROCKET ATTACKS

Hizbollah rocket attacks killed three people in northern Israel and wounded five on Saturday, the 25th day of the war.

Hizbollah cabinet minister Mohammed Fneish said the guerrilla group would stop fighting when Israel ended its bombardment of Lebanon and withdrew its troops.

"Israel is the aggressor. When the Israeli aggression stops, Hizbollah simply will cease fire on the condition that no Israeli soldier remains inside Lebanese land," he said.

Israel warned residents of Sidon to evacuate south Lebanon's biggest city ahead of planned air strikes on what it said were Hizbollah offices and rocket-launching sites located there.

An Israeli army spokesman said leaflets dropped on Sidon, whose normal population of 100,000 has been swollen by refugees from fighting further south, had warned all residents to leave.

A local official in Sidon said Hizbollah's Shi'ite guerrillas were not present in the mainly Sunni Muslim city.

Traffic was normal in the city and there were no signs large numbers of people were planning to leave.

"Rocket launchers in Sidon? This is a joke, this is psychological warfare from the state of terrorism, I'm staying here and going nowhere," said Kamal Wehdi, a university professor who was jogging on the seafront.

Lebanon says a million people, a quarter of the population, have been displaced by the war launched after Hizbollah seized two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12.

The conflict has killed at least 734 people in Lebanon and 78 Israelis.

At least eight Israeli air strikes targeted north Lebanon on Saturday evening, four of them targeting bridges and flyovers.

Helicopter-borne Israeli naval commandos attacked Hizbollah guerrillas near the southern Lebanese city of Tyre overnight.

A senior naval officer, who declined to be identified, said eight commandos were wounded, two seriously, in the operation.

He said the commandos killed seven Hizbollah fighters in close combat. Hizbollah issued a statement denying seven of its men were killed in what it called a failed raid.

Lebanese security sources said four civilians and a Lebanese soldier were killed in the fighting.

Israel said the raid targeted guerrillas suspected of launching Hizbollah's longest-range rocket attack of the war -- a barrage on Friday that landed 80 km (50 miles) inside Israel.

The Israeli army also said one soldier had been killed and one wounded just inside Lebanon overnight when Hizbollah mortar rounds hit their vehicle. They had been hunting for rocket launchers across the border from the Israeli village of Metula.

Arab television stations said another Israeli soldier was killed and six wounded on Saturday in fighting in south Lebanon.

Israel has also launched an offensive in the Gaza Strip to recover another captured soldier and stop Palestinian rockets. Israeli air strikes killed five Palestinians, including two militants, in southern Gaza on Saturday.

- REUTERS