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Thursday, Dec. 19
The Indiana Daily Student

world

Hezbollah rocks Israeli soldiers in raid

Israel deals with effects of U.N. hits

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Hezbollah inflicted heavy casualties on Israeli troops as they battled for a key hilltop town in southern Lebanon for a fourth day Wednesday, with as many as 14 soldiers reported killed.\nLebanese officials, meanwhile, confirmed that four U.N. observers were killed in an Israeli airstrike on their post Tuesday night.\nWith Israel facing fiercer resistance than expected in its campaign against the Islamic militants, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel wants to establish a 1.2 mile-wide strip in south Lebanon that will be free of Hezbollah guerrillas -- ruling out a larger occupation.\nIn Rome, U.S., European and Arab officials holding crisis talks on Lebanon failed to agree on details for a cease-fire to end 15 days of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice faced intense pressure for Washington to change its stance and call for an immediate halt to the violence.\nRice insisted any cease-fire must be "sustainable" and that there could be "no return to the status quo" -- a reference to the U.S. and Israeli stance that Hezbollah must first be pushed back from the border and the Lebanese army backed by international forces deployed in the south.\nOlmert outlined for the first time the dimensions of Israel's new "security zone" in a closed-door meeting of parliament's Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee, according to participants.\nDefense Minister Amir Peretz first raised the idea of such a buffer zone Tuesday, but left somewhat unclear whether Israeli troops would patrol such a no-go area or try to keep out Hezbollah fighters from a distance, by artillery fire and airstrikes.\nIsraeli soldiers patrolled a much larger "security zone" during Israel's 18-year occupation of south Lebanon, but Olmert indicated the new buffer zone would be different. "We do not have any intention of returning to the security zone but want to create an area where there will be no Hezbollah," he was quoted as saying.\nOlmert also reiterated Israel's call for an international force with muscle to be deployed along the border, as opposed to the U.N. force already there that has failed to prevent the violence. The current crisis began July 12 when guerrilla forces crossed the border. The fighting left eight Israeli troops dead and two captured.\nDespite two weeks of Israeli bombardment of Hezbollah rocket launchers and positions, the guerrillas fired one of their largest barrages in days into northern Israel -- 119 rockets that wounded at least 31 people and damaged property.\nSince the fighting began, at least 422 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Lebanon, according to the Health Ministry. Up to 750,000 Lebanese have been driven from their homes. At least 42 Israelis have been killed, including 24 troops, according to authorities.\nThere were conflicting reports about Israeli casualties in the heavy fighting at Bint Jbail, which Israeli forces have been trying to take for four days.\nHezbollah said its guerrillas ambushed an Israeli unit from three sides as it tried to advance from a ridge on the outskirts of the town. "The bodies of the soldiers remained on the ground amid the destroyed and burning vehicles," an announcer on Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV said.\nThe pan-Arab satellite station Al-Arabiya said at least 14 Israeli soldiers had been killed, while Al-Jazeera said 13 were killed and 12 wounded in the fighting. Hezbollah's chief spokesman Hussein Rahhal said 13 Israelis were killed.\nThe Israeli military said there were 20 Israeli casualties, but it would not say if any soldiers had been killed. If confirmed, it would be the largest death toll suffered by the Israeli military in a single attack since the offensive began two weeks ago.\nHezbollah said Israeli forces were trying to advance toward a hospital in Bint Jbail. Israeli forces had managed to seize a few points inside the town, but not yet its center, a senior Hezbollah official, Mahmoud Komati, told The Associated Press.\nThe Israeli army said several Hezbollah fighters took cover in a town mosque. Komati denied the allegation and suggested those in the mosque were civilians, while Rahhal said they could be fighters who were praying.\nBint Jbail, a town of at least 30,000 -- though most are believed to have fled -- has great symbolic importance for the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah guerrillas. It holds the largest Shiite community in the border area and was known as the "capital of the resistance" during Israel's 1982-90 occupation because of its support for Hezbollah.\nAn Israeli seizure of the town, about 2 1/2 miles from the border, would rob Hezbollah of a significant refuge overlooking northern Israel and force its fighters to operate from smaller, more vulnerable villages in the south.\nThe town is in a tiny pocket of about six square miles where significant Israeli ground forces have entered southern Lebanon -- including the village of Maroun al-Ras seized over the weekend and the outskirts of the villages of Yaroun and Aitaroun.\nAbout 100 foreigners -- mostly Americans -- who had been visiting relatives in Yaroun fled to the port city of Tyre, and described a village ravaged by bombardment.\n"It was worse than a nightmare. I saw dogs and cats on bodies that couldn't be taken from bombed-out houses. We ran from one building to another trying to escape the bombing," said Ali Abbas Tehfi, of Los Angeles.\n"It didn't stop. It didn't stop even for a day. Everything is finished," he said. He said an unknown number of Americans were still trapped in the town.

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