Cease Fires

After days of diplomatic wrestling, the U.N. Security Council approved a resolution Thursday night calling for an "immediate, durable and fully respected cease-fire" in the Gaza Strip that would lead to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Palestinian enclave. Arab and Western diplomats seemed unconvinced that their handiwork would silence Israeli guns or stop the militant group Hamas from firing rockets into Israel.

BEIRUT — Violence in Syria has continued amid a cease-fire, increasing concern that the country is descending into a civil war that could have frightening implications beyond its border, United Nations envoy Kofi Annan told the Security Council on Tuesday. The U.N.-backed peace plan, meant to end the bloodshed of a 14-month antigovernment uprising, remains the only chance to stabilize the country, Annan said. "If it fails … and it were to lead into a civil war, it will not affect only Syria, it will have an impact on the whole region," he said at a news conference in Geneva after his briefing.

India extended its 2-month-old unilateral cease-fire in Kashmir for another month, prompting a guarded reaction from rival Pakistan and scorn from separatist guerrilla groups. Pakistan urged India to resume deadlocked talks with the participation of leaders from Jammu and Kashmir state and allow a peace trip to Pakistan by a delegation of Indian-ruled Kashmir's main separatist alliance. India says it is up to Pakistan to take the peace process forward.

BEIRUT - More than a year after the uprising began, only 50 people were still around to protest in a Syrian town of burned buildings and pockmarked storefronts. But for the residents of Anadan who came together to call for freedom and dignity on the morningSyria'scease-fire began last month, it was as though the revolution had begun again. "We were willing to come out like it was our first day," said Abu Ghaith, an activist in the town near Aleppo that rebels seized and lost again to government forces.

Kurdish separatist rebels declared a "unilateral cease-fire" in attacks against Turkey and said they were ready for peace negotiations, but the guerrillas retained the right of self-defense. The government had no immediate response to the statement by the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party. Turkey has rejected several past cease-fires.

Warring rebels and militias in Congo, formerly known as Zaire, signed a cease-fire deal in the eastern town of Goma. The pact was signed by Tutsi rebels loyal to renegade Gen. Laurent Nkunda, President Joseph Kabila's government and several militia and armed groups from North and South Kivu provinces. Foreign observers welcomed the deal as a chance for lasting peace but warned that implementation could be difficult after the collapse of several previous cease-fires.

The military commanders fighting the savage civil war in Croatia agreed Thursday to stop fighting within 24 hours, paving the way for dispatch of up to 10,000 U.N. peacekeepers to Yugoslavia. The agreement to halt Europe's bloodiest fighting since World War II followed 14 truces that were shattered within hours of being reached. But the latest accord appeared to have a decent chance of being honored because local field commanders find it "fully acceptable," said U.N. envoy Cyrus R.

As NATO warplanes bombed Bosnian Serb positions, the Bosnian government Monday refused to join in a U.S.-brokered cease-fire because critical utilities had not been restored to this beleaguered capital. The postponement of the cease-fire came amid deadly shelling of civilian and U.N. targets, another wave of ethnic expulsions and continued fighting as Bosnia-Herzegovina's warring factions rush to consolidate battlefield gains.

A countrywide cease-fire brokered by the United States began early this morning in Bosnia, a tenuous but essential step toward finding a permanent settlement to the 3 1/2-year war here. The truce took effect just after midnight, two days later than originally scheduled but within the time frame international mediators had said was necessary for peace talks to move ahead. Representatives of the warring sides are scheduled to meet in the United States on Oct. 31. U.N.

For the warring factions that have committed themselves to yet another cease-fire in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the next seven days may be the toughest diplomatic trial of the year-old war. Serbian rebel forces are poised to take the last few government-held enclaves in the republic's east, making a final push tempting despite the agreement to hold fire. Bosnian Croats still covet exclusive control over several central cities they currently share with Muslim Slavs.

BEIRUT - The United Nations Security Council on Saturday authorized a full monitoring mission of up to 300 observers in Syria as the advance team visited the battered central city of Homs for the first time. Opposition activists said the bombardment of Homs, which has been shelled almost continuously for nearly three months, stopped before the monitors toured one of the hardest-hit neighborhoods, Khaldiyeh. State media reported that the team also toured the city's devastated opposition stronghold of Baba Amr, but activists could not confirm the visit.

BEIRUT - Syria and the United Nations reached a preliminary agreement Thursday on a monitoring mission to supervise a shaky cease-fire, as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon criticized the government of President Bashar Assad for failing to uphold the truce. "Despite the government's agreement to cease all violence, we still see deeply troubling evidence that it continues," Ban said at a news conference in New York. Since the cease-fire began a week ago, government forces have continued to shell cities and towns and open fire on protesters, and some rebel groups are fighting back as an uprising that has racked Syria for 13 months showed no sign of ending.

BEIRUT — Six United Nations observers arrived in the capital of Syria on Sunday night to begin monitoring a cease-fire even as violence continued in parts of the country, further fraying the peace plan. "They've arrived and they will start work tomorrow morning," Kieran Dwyer, a spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping department, told Agence France-Presse news agency. The monitors are part of an advance team whose task is to ensure the implementation of a six-point peace plan designed to end fighting and a brutal government crackdown in Syria's 13-month uprising.

BEIRUT - Two days into a fragile truce, and the question many are asking is, when is a cease-fire no longer a cease-fire? On the second day of a United Nations-backed peace plan to end violence and unrest in Syria's 13-month uprising, mass protests returned to the streets and in some places were met with gunfire, killing at least eight people, according to activists. In other towns, soldiers and security forces stationed nearby allowed protesters to gather, but the very presence of armed government forces was a violation of the plan.

BEIRUT - Just hours into a cease-fire between the Syrian government and the opposition, the truce was already on shaky ground as more than a dozen people were reported killed and there was no sign that government tanks and heavy weapons had been withdrawn from contested areas. A draft resolution for a United Nations advance monitoring mission could be voted on as early as Friday in an effort to end unrest in the 13-month uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad. Diplomats who met Thursday said a force as large as 200 could eventually be sent to Syria if both sides pledge to honor the peace plan.

Prospects for a cease-fire in Syria further dimmed Monday when fighting spilled over the border into Turkey and Lebanon, leaving at least three people dead, opposition activists said. An additional 160 people were killed within Syria, activists said, as forces loyal to embattled President Bashar Assad continued to shell buildings and shoot at residents of rebellious cities on the eve of a proposed halt to the hostilities. Government troops and tanks were due to be withdrawn Tuesday from cities and towns, but that seemed increasingly unlikely as the violence has only escalated in the last week and on Sunday the Assad government demanded written guarantees from all opposition groups, a proposal that the rebel Free Syrian Army dismissed.

Congolese rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba signed a cease-fire in Lusaka, Zambia, but said he would go back to war if a rival rebel group, the Rwandan-backed Congolese Rally for Democracy, or RCD, did not sign the truce within a week. The RCD has refused to agree to the cease-fire because of internal divisions. Approval of the truce by the RCD is important because it controls nearly 50% of Congo, and analysts say a cease-fire is impossible without its support.

BEIRUT -- Clashes and shelling were reported across Syria on Friday, even as the former secretary-general of the United Nations said he expected an immediate cease-fire by President Bashar Assad's forces. At least 45 people were killed nationwide in the violence, according to the Local Coordination Committees, a coalition of opposition activist groups. The killings, including 14 in the northeast city of Dair Alzour and 12 in the central city of Homs, took place amid large protests across the country by activists demanding action in the Arab world in support of their cause.

The toll on civilians from violence between the Israeli military and militants based in the Gaza Strip rose Monday as three Palestinians — a 15-year-old boy on his way to school and a father and daughter walking in the street — were killed by Israeli airstrikes, Palestinian officials said. Militants from Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees on Monday fired rockets into southern Israel, hitting an empty kindergarten and damaging a residential structure in the city of Ashdod, injuring an elderly woman and another person with shrapnel.