Israel Open to NATO Troops Along Border
BEIRUT — With deadly force, Israeli warplanes hit fleeing Lebanese civilians Sunday and Hezbollah militants lobbed rockets at townspeople across northern Israel, even as diplomatic efforts began to gain traction.
Israel for the first time signaled willingness to accept an international military force to quell the violence that has entered its second week, although there was no immediate consensus on its composition.
In a meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice before she departed for the region Sunday, Saudi Arabia pushed the Bush administration for an immediate cease-fire, a step President Bush and Rice have so far rejected.
Stunned at the destruction wrought in Beirut, the United Nations' top humanitarian official condemned the Israeli raids and pleaded for safe passage of emergency supplies for more than 700,000 Lebanese displaced by 12 days of sustained Israeli bombardment aimed at destroying Hezbollah positions.
Despite steady airstrikes, which on Sunday pounded the southern suburbs of Beirut, the port of Sidon and areas around the southern town of Tyre, Israel has not managed to silence Hezbollah rocket fire. Two people were killed Sunday in the Israeli city of Haifa and a dozen injured around northern Israel in repeated Hezbollah barrages.
In Lebanon, the civilian toll continued to mount. Caught in Israeli strikes on Sunday were a minibus and a convoy of cars attempting to flee villages around Tyre following Israeli warnings to evacuate. Three passengers in the minibus were killed and 13 wounded, reporters at the scene said. A fourth motorist also died, and a Lebanese news photographer was reported killed when an Israeli missile hit near the taxi in which she was traveling.
At least three other people were killed, including two boys, in bombing raids on the border towns of Manara, Meiss el Jabal and Blida, all near Tyre, a town 10 miles north of the Israeli frontier that Israeli army commanders believe Hezbollah uses to fire the rockets that reach Haifa.
Israel also attacked the port of Sidon early Sunday, destroying a religious complex linked to Hezbollah and wounding four people, reports from the zone said.
Jan Egeland, the U.N.'s top official for humanitarian relief, said civilians in Lebanon and Israel were "paying a disproportionate price," but said the punishment inflicted on the Lebanese was especially harsh.
