Beirut – Diplomatic efforts to end the bloodletting in Lebanon moved to the fore Monday, with Israel for the first time signaling willingness to accept a cease-fire based on a pullback of Hezbollah guerrillas from the volatile frontier and the release of two captured soldiers.
Britain and the United Nations called for deployment of a peacekeeping force, a proposal Israel said would not stop Hezbollah attacks but would hamper the Jewish state’s ability to strike back.
Even Iran and Syria, Hezbollah’s mainstays, appeared to join those searching for a way out of the raging 6-day-old battle between Israeli forces and the Shiite Muslim group, which has left Lebanon’s infrastructure in ruins and has terrorized Israelis living under a hail of rocket fire.
Tehran called for a cease-fire, followed by a prisoner exchange, and Syria also promised to aid mediation efforts.
More than 200 Lebanese, almost all civilians, have died, along with 24 Israelis, half of them military personnel, since the fighting flared Wednesday. Monday’s salvos included dozens of Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israeli communities including the port city of Haifa. Israeli airstrikes killed at least 48 people across Lebanon.
Tens of thousands of Lebanese and foreign residents have fled Lebanon, while U.S. officials began preparations for the first large-scale evacuation of U.S. citizens today, in a commercial cruise ship under escort by a U.S. destroyer.
Adding impetus to efforts to resolve the crisis, the Bush administration announced that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would travel to the region in coming days.
Israel’s apparent softening of its stance on truce terms, which included quietly dropping a demand that Hezbollah be disarmed and dismantled, was conveyed by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to his Italian counterpart, Romano Prodi, senior aides to Olmert said. But Israel is insisting that the guerrillas pull back about 20 miles from the frontier.
Israel was cool to the idea of an international peacekeeping force in south Lebanon to bolster what has been a small and largely ineffectual United Nations contingent that Israel says has done little or nothing to challenge Hezbollah’s control of the border zone.
And there was widespread skepticism in Lebanon that Hezbollah, or Party of God, would agree to Israel’s cease- fire conditions. The Shiite militia has insisted that it will consider only direct negotiations with the Jewish state and that it will release the Israeli soldiers only in exchange for Lebanese and Arab prisoners being held by Israel.
Lebanon has suffered mightily under Israeli airstrikes. Fewer midday explosions were heard in Beirut than in previous days, but Israel continued to hammer roads and highway bridges, as well as Hezbollah offices and residential buildings.
Israeli warplanes struck a bridge that links the southern port city of Sidon to Beirut, killing at least 10 people in civilian vehicles, according to Lebanese media reports. Local news reports said nine more bodies were found in the rubble of a rescue headquarters bombed over the weekend in Tyre, bringing the death toll in that blast to 25.
A Hezbollah-funded school and homes of Hezbollah officials were struck in the Bekaa Valley, according to media reports. Beirut’s port and southern suburbs continued to be pounded.
Hezbollah also kept up its attack, aiming dozens of rockets at Israeli towns and cities, deeper into northern Israel than before.
Israeli authorities on Monday extended a state of emergency in northern Israel, which has been hit by about 800 rockets since the fighting erupted.
In Beirut for meetings with Lebanese officials, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s special political adviser said he was prepared to give Israel “concrete ideas” to broker a cease-fire.
“We have made some promising efforts on the way forward,” Vijay Nambiar said.
Talk of a cease-fire also came from an unexpected quarter: Iran, which the U.S. and Israel accuse of being the guiding hand behind Hezbollah. Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki, in Damascus for consultations with Syrian President Bashar Assad, opened the door to prospects of a cease-fire, which he said could be followed by an exchange of prisoners.
“A cease-fire could be pronounced which would be followed by an exchange,” Mottaki said, referring to “dozens” of Lebanese prisoners and an estimated 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
Iran and Syria did not specify truce terms but said they would continue to work to mediate the crisis.
