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Israel rejects UN aid truce call as fighting continues in Lebanon

Bhuwan Thapaliya - 7/30/2006

Israel pulled thousands of its ground troops out of the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbail on Saturday. But despite the hiccups all over the world, Israeli missiles are deafeningly proceeding in Lebanon, and Israeli military sources have indicated that the fighting could intensify.

Alarmed by the damage such fighting has done, in recent days the United Nations have pulled together to find a diplomatic solution to the Middle East crisis. But confidence was badly shaken by the Israeli government's rejection of the United Nations proposed three day truce in southern Lebanon.

The united nations have tried to ease conditions by calling up for a three day truce in southern Lebanon, saying that children, the elderly and disabled peoples are trapped by the sudden Israeli assault and food supplies are running short, but Israel has rejected the a United Nations call saying that there was no need for a truce as a humanitarian corridor to the area had been opened, according to the media reports.

The diplomats are running out of time, as better weather promises to reignite the fighting and the trend towards peace deal is unsettling, because it implies that the hostilies may be there for a long time. There seems to be no avenues of escape. Yet, for all the anguish, transatlantic difficulties over Middle East are only one symptom of a deeper problem. The fact is that this war has shifted the strategic scenery in the West as well as the East.

Meanwhile, the only beacon of hope is the second visit of the US secretary of State in Israel. It has been reported by the New York Times that Ms. Rice is working to draft a United Nations Security Council resolution that would allow for the insertion of 15,000 to 20,000 international peacekeepers along the Lebanese border with Israel and along Lebanon’s border with Syria, to prevent the rearming of Hezbollah. So be it, if that is decided, for the Hezbollah who have been allowed to operate at their will for so long, the deal outlined in the document would be a crashing defeat.

Moreover, alarmed by the horrors of war, The US secretary of state is expected to talk to both Israeli and Lebanese leaders about proposals to deploy a multinational force, as part of what US President George W Bush calls a viable plan for ending hostilities. Publicly, at least, Mr Bush appears determined to stick to this policy. Indeed, he has few alternatives as the World leaders are due to discuss a deployment at a meeting at the UN headquarters in New York on Monday.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said countries which may be in a position to contribute troops would attend the meeting on the proposal, which is due for discussion by the Security Council later next week, according to the BBC report.

However, in a recent development, an Israeli air strike has closed the main border crossing from Lebanon into Syria, witnesses and officials say. Missiles hit the road between the two states' immigration posts, but on the Lebanese side, one BBC report stated.

And in a separate incident, a strike wounded two UN monitors in their observation post, the UN said, days after four were killed. Earlier, the UN deputy chief issued a warning over the four monitor’s deaths in an Israeli strike on a UN base, as per the media reports.

Meanwhile, Israeli officials have indicated to the BBC that Israel may be willing to stop fighting as soon as a UN resolution is passed next week but they stressed times and again that in order to implement the ceasefire there should be a guarantee that Hezbollah will not move back into positions close to the border.

However, the latest aggressive American diplomatic measure reckons that President Bush, after his meeting in Washington with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, had suddenly decided to give Israel much less time to nail the coffin of Hezbollah forces Lebanon. In the short term, this choice involves a decision about Israeli settlement in the West Bank. The idea of sealing off the Palestinians, perhaps behind a fence, appeals to US and Israel in these fearful times.

But there are dangers, too. Israel and America are rightly worried that, after all the efforts that will go into pulling Lebanon apart into its various military components will need strong political underpinning and much more effective channels of solidarity if Israel is to avoid being targeted again by the Hezbollah in the near future. Israel and America still have a lot of hard thinking to do.