UN ceasefire vote close, say diplomats

Israel grabbed strategic high ground in south Lebanon, but delayed a major push northward, as diplomats talked of progress towards agreement on a United Nations ceasefire resolution.

With Israeli troops closer to Beirut than at any time since the war began, diplomats said they were close to unlocking the stalemate over a UN effort toward a ceasefire.

The US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, said a vote was possible today.

The US and France have been trying to bridge differences over a timetable for an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.

Russia, increasingly impatient that diplomacy has taken so long, pushed for a temporary ceasefire in its own UN Security Council draft resolution introduced early today that would call for a blanket 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire.

Today, eight powerful explosions resounded across Beirut and local media reports said Israeli jets were pounding Hezbollah strongholds in the southern Dahieh suburb. The reports said a bridge was also hit in Akkar province, 60 miles north of Beirut.

Israeli ground troops took control of the mainly-Christian town of Marjayoun before dawn yesterday and blasted throughout the day at strongly fortified Hezbollah positions in several directions.

An Israeli soldier was killed and two were wounded in fierce battles with Hezbollah guerrillas, a day after the Israeli military suffered its worst one-day military loss, with 15 soldiers killed. More than 800 people have died in the month-long conflict, including 715 in Lebanon.

A huge explosion rocked the centre of the town and the surrounding countryside about sunset and a big fire could be seen raging from a vantage point in Ibl el-Saqi, about two miles to the east.

By taking Marjayoun the Israeli army was closer to Beirut than at any time since the fighting began July 12 after a cross-border raid in which Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed three.

At the same time, the army was still within about five miles of the Israeli border. Marjayoun, which sits near major road junctions in the south, lies due north of Israel’s Galilee panhandle that juts north into Lebanon.

Marjayoun was used as the command centre for the Israeli army and its allied Lebanese militia during an 18-year occupation of south Lebanon that ended in 2000. The high ground around Marjayoun, including the village of Blatt, overlooks the Litani River valley, one of the staging sites for Hezbollah’s relentless rocket assaults on Israel.

Diplomatic efforts had stalled as the Lebanese called for Israeli troops to start pulling out once hostilities end and Beirut sends 15,000 troops of its own to the south, while Israel has insisted on staying in southern Lebanon until a robust international force is deployed, which could take weeks or months.

“We’ve closed some of the areas of disagreement with the French,” Bolton said.

Suggestions that a new resolution was in the works also emerged.

“A new proposal is being drafted, which has positive significance that may bring the war to an end,” Israeli MP Otniel Schneller quoted prime minister Ehud Olmert as saying. “But if the draft is not accepted there is the Cabinet decision.”

The Israeli security Cabinet authorised Olmert to expand the current offensive in Lebanon, but Israeli officials said they would hold off to give diplomacy more time to work.

But defence minister Amir Peretz warned that Israel was ready to use “all of the tools” to cripple Hezbollah if efforts towards a ceasefire failed.

Lebanese prime minister Fuad Saniora met US ambassador Jeffrey Feltman twice and an aide to the Lebanese leader said new ideas for ending the fighting involved combining two possible resolutions into one over-arching document.

Broadly speaking, the US-French draft security council resolution called for a cessation of hostilities and the deployment of the Lebanese army into southern Lebanon to the Israeli border, in co-operation with UN peacekeepers who are already there. As the Lebanese start deploying, the Israeli army would begin withdrawing, according to council diplomats.

More than 800 people in Lebanon and Israel have died since fighting erupted - 715 on the Lebanese side and 121 on the Israeli side.