Hezbullah Wants an Immediate Cease-Fire
Also see below:
Blair to Tell Bush: We Need a Cease-Fire [
PM Urged: Stand Up to Bush and Call for Cease-Fire [
Pushing For a Cease-Fire From Behind a Barrage of Katyushas
By Jonathan Steele and Ian Black
The Guardian UK
Friday 28 July 2006
Hizbullah wants an immediate ceasefire and is ready to swap the two abducted Israeli soldiers "in six hours" after it comes into force, according to officials from Amal, a Shia party allied to Hizbullah.
Hizbullah has entrusted Amal with negotiations for a prisoner deal, realising that it cannot be a direct partner to talks. Nabih Berri, Amal's leader, who is also speaker of the Lebanese parliament, met Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, on Tuesday in a clear sign that Washington sees him as a conduit to Hizbullah.
"Mr Berri says he can get the Israeli soldiers sent back in return for Lebanese prisoners in six hours after a ceasefire," Ali Hamdan, the head of Amal's foreign affairs bureau, told the Guardian yesterday.
"He wouldn't say that if he didn't have assurances from Hizbullah."
Some Israeli analysts have said that Hizbullah's call for an unconditional ceasefire is a reaction to Israel's ground offensive in south Lebanon which is making slow headway in spite of relatively heavy losses among Israeli forces.
But a ceasefire call has been part of Hizbullah's position virtually from the start of Israel's air attacks and before Israeli ground troops crossed the border in strength. Criticising the US rejection of a ceasefire, Mohammed Fneish, one of the two Hizbullah ministers in the Lebanese government, told the Guardian last Saturday: "Rice is not allowing a ceasefire in order to put Israel back into a position where it is the state that controls the whole Middle East."
The ferocity of Israel's reaction to the soldiers' abduction surprised Hizbullah, Mahmoud Komati, deputy chief of the Hizbullah politburo, has admitted.
Hizbullah's leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah has denied Israeli claims that more than 100 of his fighters have died. Israel claims the toll includes several senior commanders as well as the organisation's deputy secretary general, allegedly killed in an air strike on Tyre. Mr Komati said 25 guerrillas had been killed. Confirmation of either side's claims is impossible.
In spite of Israel's relentless air strikes Hizbullah continues to fire Katyusha rockets into Israel. Some 84 struck cities all over the north yesterday bringing the total since the conflict began to 1,400. Twenty Israeli civilians have been killed.
In his latest television appearance this week, Sheikh Nasrallah warned his viewers not to be taken in by Israeli claims. "I am stressing to you - we don't hide the number of our dead. If a large number of our men are killed - we wouldn't hide it but on the contrary we'd be proud of it ... You must listen to us and not to the enemy's psychological warfare," he said.
Hizbullah's call for a ceasefire make political sense for the Shia militia since it would mean the failure of Israel's effort to recapture its abducted soldiers without negotiations. It would also end the flight of thousands of refugees and make it easier for them to go home.
On this Hizbullah is fully in tune with the Lebanese cabinet. The government's line is that Israel must accept an immediate ceasefire, abandon the Sheba'a farms area it has occupied for almost 40 years, give Lebanon maps of the mines laid during Israel's previous occupation of south Lebanon, and pay compensation for the damage done by its relentless attacks.
Once a ceasefire is in place Hizbullah is "more than ready to sit down and talk" about disarming its forces Mr Fneish, told the Guardian. But he rejected any role for foreign powers in the issue.
"This is a matter for the Lebanese. Nobody can deny the national right to resist," he said.
Amal is emerging as a key player in the search for a new Lebanese consensus. It disarmed most of its militia after Israel withdrew in 2000 and says it has been helping Hizbullah to switch to being an entirely political party.
Professor Eyal Zisser of Tel Aviv University said Sheikh Nasrallah was facing a grave crisis. "It's not only a question of what weapons and capabilities Hizbullah has. Mr Nasrallah's ambition to turn a militia into a mass movement has been destroyed. Now he's fighting for his survival."
Meanwhile, Iran has denied an Israeli report that Sheikh Nasrallah is hiding in the Iranian embassy in Beirut.
Attacks on Israel:
Hizbullah has fired more than 1,400 rockets at northern Israel since the offensive began in Lebanon. Wednesday's total, 151, was the highest since the start of the fighting. Here is a daily list of rocket attacks, provided by the Israeli army:
July 13 - 125
July 14 - 103
July 15 - 100
July 16 - 47
July 17 - 92
July 18 - 136
July 19 - 116
July 20 - 34
July 21 - 97
July 22 - 129
July 23 - 95
July 24 - 83
July 25 - 101
July 26 - 151
Blair to Tell Bush: We Need a Cease-Fire
By Ewen MacAskill, Simon Tisdall and Michael White
The Guardian UK
Friday 28 July 2006
Drawn out Lebanon crisis will boost militants across Arab world, PM fears.
Tony Blair will press George Bush today to support "as a matter of urgency" a ceasefire in Lebanon as part of a UN security council resolution next week, according to Downing Street sources.
At a White House meeting, the prime minister will express his concern that pro-western Arab governments are "getting squeezed" by the crisis and the longer it continues, the more squeezed they will be, giving militants a boost. The private view from No 10 is that the US is "prevaricating" over the resolution and allowing the conflict to run on too long.
But diplomatic sources in Washington suggest the US and Israel believe serious damage has been inflicted on Hizbullah, so the White House is ready to back a ceasefire resolution at the UN next week. Today Mr Bush and Mr Blair will discuss a version of the resolution that has been circulating in Washington and London.
The draft peace deal involves two phases. In the first, Israel and Lebanon would agree a ceasefire and a small multinational force would be deployed on the border, allowing Israeli troops to withdraw. Then a much larger force of between 10,000 and 20,000 troops would be assigned to implement UN security council resolution 1559, agreed two years ago, under which militias such as Hizbullah would be disarmed and the authority of the Lebanese government forces extended to the country's southern border.
European officials are sceptical about disarming Hizbullah. But they believe that, if other countries in the region can be persuaded to contribute to the buffer force, it would give them a vested interest in addressing Hizbullah's threat to Israel.
A British official said the two-phase idea was raised by Britain at Wednesday's international conference in Rome and "the US are almost certainly going to push something through next week".
France, which holds the presidency of the security council, has drafted its own resolution which it wants to push to a vote early next week. The French plan calls for an "immediate halt to the violence", "a handover of prisoners to a third party enjoying the trust of the two belligerents", UN shuttle diplomacy in pursuit of a "general settlement framework", and the deployment of an international force in support of the Lebanese army. Controversially, it says a buffer zone should straddle the Israel-Lebanon border.
It is unclear whether Mr Blair will urge Mr Bush to do something the administration has decided to do anyway. The prime minister is intent on demonstrating that he has influence in the White House and Britain has its own policy. Polls this week showed public disquiet over his closeness to Mr Bush and the failure to act more decisively to end the bloodshed.
The US and Britain have stood against most of the rest of the world in refusing to call for an immediate ceasefire. Mr Blair has not changed his position on that, but a Downing Street source said he would urge the US to move faster in backing the resolution. "Collectively we have to step up the urgency of the search for a ceasefire."
With an eye on the Arab world, Mr Blair wants to ensure that Hizbullah and other militant groups such as Hamas do not emerge stronger from the crisis. He will reiterate to Mr Bush that the key to resolving the violence is resolution of the Palestinian issue.
No 10 dismissed the row over US military flights using Prestwick airport, Scotland, to send weapons to Israel without telling Britain as an issue of process, not principle.
PM Urged: Stand Up to Bush and Call for Cease-Fire
By Colin Brown
The Independent UK
Friday 28 July 2006
Tony Blair will face fresh pressure over the Middle East crisis today when he arrives in Washington to meet President George Bush. Senior Downing Street aides said the two leaders intended to show the world they were seeking an urgent end to the hostilities in Lebanon, despite the failure of the much vaunted Rome summit on Wednesday to deliver a unified call for a truce.
Israel's Justice Minister, Haim Ramon, added to the pressure yesterday, when he interpreted that indecision as a green light to continue the bloody assault on Lebanon.
"We received yesterday at the Rome conference permission from the world... to continue the operation," he told reporters.
The Prime Minister's visit takes place as 42 leading figures in politics, diplomacy, academia and the media put their names to a declaration urging Mr Blair to tell the President that Britain "can no longer support the American position on the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in the Middle-East". Their declaration, printed on the front page of today's Independent, calls on the Prime Minister to "make urgent representations to Israel to end its disproportionate and counter-productive response to Hizbollah's aggression".
After his stop-over in Washington, Mr Blair will fly on to California tonight to attend a conference with the media magnate Rupert Murdoch. An ally of Mr Murdoch, Irwin Stelzer, insisted Mr Blair was not Mr Bush's "poodle", but his "guide dog", particularly over the Middle East.
Downing Street officials said Mr Blair intended to respond to world criticism by showing urgency in seeking an end to the hostilities between Israel and Hizbollah. The Prime Minister and the President are planning to commit their governments to a lasting ceasefire by restoring the authority of the elected government against the unilateral action by Hizbollah.
Their joint appearance at the White House is likely to be met with scepticism. The Bush administration said this week it was seeking a "new Middle East", raising fears that the crisis in Lebanon was a proxy war between the US and Iran, Hizbollah's backers.
Senior officials in Downing Street said the Prime Minister supported the US strategy on the Middle East, which was agreed at the Sea Island G8 summit in 2004. Mr Blair is credited with persuading the President to pursue a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine problem. Mr Blair and Mr Bush will emphasise they are working behind the scenes to push for an urgent end to the violence on both sides in the Lebanon.
"Don't in any way underestimate the intensive nature of the diplomacy," said one senior aide to the Prime Minister. "There is a lot going on behind the scenes. We want to show that we are stepping up the search for a process that allows both sides to end the hostilities and there is urgency about that."
Mr Blair's influence on the US President, as part of the "special relationship" with America, was ridiculed after Mr Bush was heard saying "Yo, Blair" to him at the G8 summit in St Petersburg. In the recorded conversation, Mr Bush refused to allow Mr Blair to mount a diplomatic mission to the Middle East, preferring instead to send his Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.
Both leaders know that their time in office is running out, and officials said they saw eye to eye on four out of five of the key items on the agenda at today's meeting - the "war against terror", the need to spread democracy in the Middle East, restoring stability to Iraq, and the need to curb the nuclear ambitions of Iran. They are far apart on the collapse of the world trade talks, which is also on the agenda, but other tricky issues such as the controversy over the use of British airports for US arms shipments to Israel will be put to one side. "That is matter for Mrs Beckett [the Foreign Secretary]," said one No 10 source.
Downing Street has insisted that Mr Blair has privately used influence on the Bush administration over the war in Lebanon, rather than calling publicly for a ceasefire that could not be enforced. The Prime Minister's official spokesman said Mr Blair decided to "roll his sleeves up" and work behind the scenes, rather than act as a commentator on the sidelines.
Sir Stephen Wall, one of the Prime Minister's most trusted former advisers, said Mr Blair's approach was wrong. "There have been times on trade issues when the PM should have told Bush to get his tanks off our lawn," Sir Stephen wrote in the New Statesman. "There are still times when, as well as working quietly with Congress on climate change, we should speak up about the irresponsibility of the White House.
"There are times, such as the past two weeks, when a British prime minister should have been thinking less about private influence and more about public advocacy."
Day 16
- 600 may have died in Lebanon, says its Health Minister. Israeli planes attack trucks carrying medical and food supplies.
- Israel calls up 30,000 reservists, but cabinet decides not to expand its incursion into Lebanon.
- Hizbollah fires 48 rockets into northern Israel, wounding four people.
- Hamas rejects comment from Palestinian President that release of Israeli hostage is "imminent".
- Iran's President says Israel has pushed a self-destruct button.
- Security Council expresses shock and distress at Israel's bombing of a UN post but no condemnation.
- Al-Qa'ida's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri calls on Muslims to repel attacks on their countries.
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