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Rice visits Lebanon as Hizbollah and Israel battle

Posted on: Monday, 24 July 2006, 09:14 CDT

By Sue Pleming

BEIRUT (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice flew unannounced to Beirut on Monday to seek a "sustainable" ceasefire in Lebanon, where Hizbollah guerrillas were battling an Israeli tank incursion in the south.

Rice met Prime Minister Fouad Siniora after her heavily guarded motorcade sped through Beirut from the U.S. embassy to the north where her helicopter had landed from Cyprus.

"Thank you for your courage and steadfastness," she told Siniora, who has repeatedly pleaded for an immediate ceasefire.

There was no immediate word the outcome of her meeting with Siniora, which lasted more than two hours, longer than planned.

On her way to the region, Rice said she wanted to create conditions for a sustainable ceasefire in a war that has cost 373 dead in Lebanon and at least 37 Israeli lives in 13 days.

A U.S. official in Rice's party said she would announce aid for Lebanon, where Israeli bombing has displaced half a million people and wrecked installations worth an estimated $1 billion.

The government said 110,000 refugees were being housed in 642 schools and other temporary shelters across Lebanon.

"I am deeply concerned about the Lebanese people and what they are enduring," Rice told reporters before starting talks with Shi'ite Muslim Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.

"I am concerned about the humanitarian situation," she said, without giving details of any American assistance.

Berri is a pro-Syrian politician who has liaised between Siniora and Hizbollah leaders since the war erupted.

Hizbollah said it had shot down an Israeli helicopter and hit five tanks, inflicting casualties in fierce battles that erupted after Israeli forces pushed north from a border village.

Arab television channels said two Israeli soldiers had been killed. Israel's army reported nine wounded. An Israeli military source said a helicopter had crashed, but was not shot down.

The tank thrust toward Bint Jbeil, about 4 km (2.5 miles) inside Lebanon, was one of several recent Israeli forays in search of Hizbollah fighters and rocket-launchers.

Israeli air raids killed at least three people and wounded 40 in south Lebanon. Bombs also hit a Shi'ite area of Beirut.

Hizbollah rockets struck Haifa, Nahariya and the border town of Shlomi, wounding at least four people.

Rockets have killed 17 Israelis since the start of the war, launched after Hizbollah seized two Israeli soldiers in a raid across the border on July 12. Twenty soldiers have also died.

CEASEFIRE DEAL

The United States, which blames Hizbollah and its allies in Syria and Iran for the crisis, wants any ceasefire deal to remove the threat to Israel posed by the Shi'ite group.

Hizbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who wants to swap the two soldiers for Lebanese and Palestinians in Israeli jails, said Israel's assaults would not stop cross-border rocket fire.

Israel, after initially dismissing the idea, now says it would be willing for an international force to dislodge Hizbollah from south Lebanon and take control of Lebanon's border with Syria to stop the guerrillas re-arming.

"It doesn't matter who runs the mission, it's just important that the mission is accomplished," Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres told Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper.

But just as Hizbollah has fought Israeli attempts to drive it from the south, it would surely resist military coercion by any international force, assuming one could be assembled.

Several European Union countries are ready to contribute to a peace force for Lebanon but problems remain in ensuring it can fulfil its mission, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said.

Siniora has said only a broad political deal will work.

This should include a prisoner swap and an Israeli pullout from the disputed Shebaa Farms area to create conditions in which Hizbollah could disarm and the Lebanese army take over.

Rice is also set to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas before discussing the crisis with European and Arab officials in Rome on Wednesday.

Israel's Lebanon offensive coincided with an Israeli military push into the Gaza Strip to try to recover a soldier captured by Palestinian militants on June 25.

Germany said it was hopeful for progress on the release of the release of the soldier after its foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, met regional leaders at the weekend.

Israeli shelling killed five people and wounded several others in the northern Gaza Strip, Palestinian witnesses said.

Israel has killed 118 Palestinians in a nearly month-long offensive in Gaza to free the soldier and halt rocket fire.

(Additional reporting by Jerusalem bureau)

Source: REUTERS

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