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Israel Pushes On Despite Agreeing to Airstrike Lull

By CRAIG S. SMITH and STEVEN ERLANGER

Published: August 1, 2006

METULLA, Israel, July 31 — As Israel poured soldiers and artillery shells into southern Lebanon, it vowed Monday to press ahead with its war on Hezbollah and made a number of airstrikes after promising a 48-hour pause in its air campaign.

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Israeli forces on the Israeli side of the border with Lebanon today.

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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reading a statement today in Jerusalem.

“The fighting continues,” Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said. “There is no cease-fire, and there will not be any cease-fire in the coming days.”

Israel promised Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday that it would halt air operations for two days, except to respond to “imminent threats,” like rocket-launching teams, and to support ground forces.

Ms. Rice said she had accepted Israel’s explanation for resuming airstrikes barely 12 hours after the suspension was announced.

Before leaving Jerusalem, Ms. Rice said she believed that a cease-fire and a United Nations Security Council action on it were on the immediate horizon. “I am convinced we can achieve both this week,” she said.

On her flight to Washington, she appeared a little less assured, and aides said the timing had slipped to the end of the week. “I can’t tell you when to pack just yet,” she told reporters on board. “We’re working very hard to make it this week.”

Meanwhile, Hezbollah held its fire, with the Israeli Army counting only three mortar shells landing in Israel on Monday and no rockets, compared with a record 156 rockets launched on Sunday and about 100 daily before. More than a million Israelis are in bomb shelters.

Israel’s defense minister, Amir Peretz, told a special session of Parliament that the army “will expand and deepen its operations against Hezbollah.” He suggested that the fighting would not stop until a multinational force was ready with a mandate to use its weapons against Hezbollah if the group breached any eventual cease-fire agreement. He said Israel would demand outside supervision for the border crossings between Syria and Lebanon.

Israel said it began a 48-hour suspension of airstrikes in Lebanon at 2 a.m. Monday after it fired at a rocket-launching team in Qana on Sunday and killed dozens of civilians in a nearby building.

While bombs did fall across Lebanon on Monday, they came at a slower pace and struck at more limited targets, Israeli officials said.

“It’s reduced compared to regular days,” said Capt. Jacob Dallal, an Israeli Army spokesman, adding that the military was not bombing roads, bridges or structures that might interfere with civilian movements.

But he said the airstrikes were aiming at “immediate threats,” including rocket launchers and other weapons, as well as providing air support for ground troops. On Monday, Israeli forces hit a Lebanese Army jeep that Israel said it had mistakenly thought was carrying a senior Hezbollah commander, killing a Lebanese soldier and wounding three others.

The air force also destroyed a truck full of weapons near Lebanon’s border with Syria, the army said.

And the Israelis made a ground raid into Lebanon in the Aita al Shaab area. Hezbollah said its fighters were resisting the advance.

In an interview with Reuters on Sunday after the Israeli airstrikes on Qana, Khaled Meshal, a Hamas leader based in Syria, called for “an acceleration of the resistance in Lebanon and Palestine” and asked, “Is there anything left for our people except resistance to protect our women, children, land and honor in this Zionist-American age?”

Some Lebanese civilians took advantage of the bombing lull to move north out of southern Lebanon, and aid agencies drove convoys of food and medical supplies into the south. Lebanese rescue workers retrieved at least 49 bodies from destroyed buildings, Reuters said.

An Israeli Foreign Ministry official said Israel had agreed to the suspension and a 24-hour safe-passage period for civilians heading out of southern Lebanon as a way to “take the steam” out of Sunday’s bombing in Qana. But he also said the fight against Hezbollah would continue until there was a diplomatic solution that stopped the rocket fire against Israel and that deployed an international force on the border. “We couldn’t ignore Qana,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity, as is customary. “And if we want to continue to get the full cease-fire we want, with an international force, it was important to change the tone and the conversation.”

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Craig S. Smith reported from Metulla for this article, and Steven Erlanger from Jerusalem. Helene Cooper contributed reporting from Washington, Hassan M. Fattah from Beirut, and Mona el-Naggar from Cairo.

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