Israel, Hizbollah fight on as UN split on resolution

LEBANON: Israeli planes attacked targets across Lebanon and Hizbollah battled Israeli troops in the south of the country on Monday as the U.N. Security Council failed to agree on a draft resolution seeking to end 27 days of fighting.

Diplomats from the five permanent members the United States, China, Russia, Britain and France will meet later after failing to agree on whether to amend the draft to take account of Lebanon's demand that Israeli troops withdraw.

Meanwhile, there was no let up in the violence which has killed at least 765 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 94 Israelis. Both sides vowed to keep fighting.

Seven members of the same family were killed in the southern Lebanese village of Ghazzaniyeh when Israeli jets struck their house on Monday. Israeli jets also struck a southern suburb of Beirut and the eastern Bekaa Valley, both Hizbollah strongholds.

Hizbollah battled Israeli troops on several fronts with the fiercest fighting in the southern Lebanese village of Houla, where the guerrilla group said it had ambushed and killed four Israeli soldiers. An Israeli army spokeswoman said five soldiers were lightly wounded in Houla, but none killed.

The fighting follows the deadliest day so far for Israel, after Hizbollah rockets killed 12 soldiers and three civilians. Hizbollah says it will keep fighting until Israel stops bombing Lebanon and withdraws all its forces.

Lebanon has demanded the draft Security Council resolution drawn up by France and the United States include a call for a rapid withdrawal of Israeli troops from its soil.

China and Russia argued the text should be made more attractive to Lebanon. That prevented Paris and Washington putting the draft into final form which could have cleared the way for a Security Council vote on the resolution on Monday. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Sunday the resolution would not stop all the fighting in southern Lebanon but was a first step toward a lasting cessation of violence.

"I would hope that you would see very early on an end to large-scale violence," she said, but did not rule out "skirmishes for some time to come".

Israel views the U.N. draft favourably, a senior government official and Israeli media said, noting that it allowed Israel to respond to Hizbollah attacks after a truce and did not order Israel to withdraw its 10,000 soldiers from southern Lebanon.

Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon said Israel would keep attacking Hizbollah targets in Lebanon and its soldiers would stay there until the international force arrived.

"We are now in a process of renewed escalation. We will continue hitting everything that moves in Hezbollah but we will also hit strategic civilian infrastructure," a senior General Staff officer told the Haaretz newspaper.

Israeli air strikes have already caused more than $2.5 billion worth of damage to Lebanon's infrastructure, hitting roads, bridges, ports and airports as well as blockading the country by air and sea. But downtown Beirut, where government offices and parliament are based, has remained untouched.

Beirut, Monday, Reuters