BEIRUT, July 29, 2006 – Israeli planes blasted south Lebanon for the 17th day yesterday as an unbowed Hezbollah launched a new type of missile at the Jewish state amid growing calls for a ceasefire in the escalating conflict. Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will return to the Middle East today to discuss a United Nations resolution to end the war. US President George W Bush told a Washington news conference yesterday, after talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, that an international force should be sent quickly to southern Lebanon to secure shipments of humanitarian aid. Blair said a UN resolution was needed as soon as possible to end hostilities. The two leaders met in Washington after a day that saw Israeli forces kill at least 14 people in Lebanon and Hezbollah launch new, longer-range missiles at Israel .

Meanwhile, UN humanitarian coordinator Jan Egeland said yesterday more than 600 people have been killed in Lebanon since Israel launched attacks against Hezbollah targets in the country on July 12. Also, an Israeli drone crashed into the mountains east of Beirut yesterday, prompting heavy Israeli airstrikes on the area to stop it falling into the hands of Hezbollah guerrillas, Lebanese security sources said. Israeli jets pounded the mountainous Barouk area where the unmanned drone fell as well as areas further to the east and south, closer to the Israeli border, they said. An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed the unmanned craft crashed following a technical difficulty.

Rice had said she would return to the Middle East only when the time was right for a lasting solution to end the crisis. The war erupted after Hezbollah seized two Israeli soldiers in a border raid on July 12. Israel , with support from Washington , wants the Shiite group to be driven from the border and disarmed. Rice was in Kuala Lumpur after visiting Lebanon and Israel earlier in the week and attending a conference in Rome that stopped short of calling for the violence to end immediately. Bush said she would return to the Middle East today.

"Her instructions are to work with Israel and Lebanon to come up with an acceptable UN Security Council resolution that we can table next week," he said. US officials said there was still a lot of work to do to get the two sides to sign on to conditions for a ceasefire. Issues on the table include the release of the two captured Israeli soldiers as part of a prisoner exchange, the creation of an international force on the border between southern Lebanon and Israel , and the disarming of Hezbollah.

Yesterday, aircraft repeatedly bombed villages near Lebanon 's southern port of Tyre and Israeli artillery fired hundreds of rounds across the border, killing 10 people including a Jordanian. Four people were killed in about 70 air strikes in the eastern Bekaa Valley , Lebanese security sources said. An Israeli military source said three Hezbollah guerrillas were killed in fighting in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil . Hezbollah fired scores of rockets into Israel , including two that the guerrilla group said were new, longer-range missiles, in a barrage that wounded at least six people, police said.

The longer-range rockets landed in open ground near the town of Afula , about 50 km from the Lebanese border. It matched the furthest that Hezbollah rockets had landed inside Israel since the conflict began. Hezbollah said it had fired new "Khaibar 1" missiles at Afula, fulfilling a pledge by its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah to extend its bombardment of Israel beyond the port of Haifa . Israeli media reported that a Hezbollah rocket hit a clinic in the northern Israeli city of Nahariya but caused no injuries. An Israeli shell exploded near an aid convoy in south Lebanon , wounding at least three people, witnesses said.

The convoy, organized by Lebanese civil defence workers, was evacuating stranded civilians from Rmeish village to Tyre .  Hundreds of Shiites had taken refuge in the Christian village, where some were reduced to drinking irrigation water. "We are with the resistance," Fatmeh Srour told Reuters.  "But we need supplies to remain steadfast. My three-month-old baby hasn't eaten for two days because there's no baby milk."
The UN Interim Force in Lebanon , the existing UN peacekeeping force in the south, said it had withdrawn eight unarmed military observers from two posts on the border. One of its observer posts was destroyed on Tuesday in an Israeli air strike that killed its four occupants. A second post was vacated earlier after an observer was wounded by Hezbollah gunfire in the border village of Maroun Al-Ras . Israel intensified its bombing a day after deciding to step up air raids and ground forays rather than launch an invasion.
Fierce fighting and the destruction of roads in the south have created terrifying conditions for civilians, and a UN official said the lack of clean water posed a fresh threat. Aid workers said it was impossible to get medical supplies and food safely to isolated villages because of Israeli bombing. "In effect there is no real humanitarian access in the south," said Christopher Stokes of Medecins Sans Frontieres.

Despite popular uproar over the stopover, British officials told London newspapers that more stopovers for arms deliveries were in the pipeline with government blessing. Setting a different pace, French President Jacques Chirac said yesterday he wanted the adoption of a UN resolution "as quickly as possible" calling for an immediate ceasefire. Despite Asian and European Union calls for a halt to fighting, including one by the Europeans' foreign policy chief Javier Solana, Bush again warned against what he called a "fake peace". His tough stance maintained the position against a quick truce adopted, against Arab protests, at an international conference in Rome on Wednesday.

Israel seized on the conference's failure to demand a ceasefire as a green light to press its offensive. But yesterday, that claim, already rejected by other delegates, was dismissed as "outrageous" by the United States , in Washington 's strongest open criticism of Israel during the conflict. "Any such statement is outrageous" said State Department spokesman Adam Ereli when asked about Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon's assertion that the Rome meeting earlier this week gave Israel "authorization".

Source: KUWAIT TIMES