Israel tacitly rejected Lebanese calls for a cease-fire, insisting that first and foremost its soldiers kidnapped and taken to Lebanon must be returned. The soldiers were kidnapped by Hezbollah gunmen who crossed the United Nations sanctioned border, attacked a patrol and made away with the two soldiers.

Eight soldiers were killed there and in subsequent rescue attempts, and the clash sparked the intensive fighting now in its second week.

The inner Political-Security Cabinet said Wednesday: "The intensive fighting against Hezbollah will continue, including strikes against its infrastructure and command centers, its operational capabilities, its war materiel and its leaders with the goal of bringing the abducted soldiers back to Israel, halting the firing of rockets at Israeli communities and targets and to remove this threat from them."

The fighting has been heavy. Israeli air force Brig. Gen. Omri Tamir told United Press International he believed the force has carried out more than 2,000 sorties. Many were designed to hit specific targets, and others were 'hunting' jobs, waiting for a rocket launch, spotting the launchers' location and attacking them. The navy has been blockading the ports and the artillery has been pounding southern Lebanon.

Nevertheless, Hezbollah is still on its feet with functioning command, control and communications systems. Rather than fire rockets into Israel almost randomly, it moved to few but coordinated bombardments in which three to seven rockets were typically fired at one site. In recent days Hezbollah has seemed to focus on Israeli cities, probably because they are bigger targets. Wednesday they fired some 140 rockets and Katyushas, one of which killed two brothers, aged three and nine, in the Israeli-Arab town of Nazareth.

Another force ambushed an Israeli unit seeking a Hezbollah border position and killed two soldiers.

According to the Cabinet's statement, a diplomatic solution should include: "First, the unconditional release of abducted soldiers Udi Goldwasser and Eldad Regev and their return to Israel."

In releasing this statement, the inner cabinet pointed to its long-term goal of weakening Hezbollah to a point where the democratically elected Lebanese government could assert its sovereignty.

Israel's two other demands for a diplomatic solution are: "A halt to the firing of rockets" and "The full and complete implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559, including the disarming of all armed militias, the extension of the sovereignty of the Lebanese Government over all its territory and the deployment of the Lebanese Army along the border with Israel."

earlier related report

UK Parliament Pushes For ME Cease-Fire

by Hannah K. Strange
UPI U.K. Correspondent

London (UPI) Jul 20, 2006

British parliamentarians called on the government to push for an immediate and comprehensive cease-fire in the Middle East, during an emergency debate on the Thursday.

Meeting as United Nations Security Council members gathered in New York to discuss a response to the crisis, parliamentarians from across the political spectrum urged ministers to end their resistance to a cease-fire proposal, regardless of the position of the United States.

The demands follow reports that Washington has granted Israel a window of opportunity to inflict maximum damage on Lebanese Hezbollah before international pressure for a cease-fire becomes irrefutable.

"It's clear the Americans have given the Israelis the green light. They (the Israeli attacks) will be allowed to go on longer, perhaps for another week," a senior European official told the Guardian newspaper Tuesday. Diplomatic sources were quoted as saying there was a clear time limit for the Lebanon offensive, partly dictated by fears that an extended conflict could spiral into a broader regional crisis.

A primary objective of such a strategy — which Washington has flatly denied — would be to deliver a blow to Syria and Iran, both accused by Britain and the United States of sponsoring the Hamas and Hezbollah attacks.

Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs Spokesman Michael Moore said that if such an endorsement had been given by the United States it would be "utterly deplorable," adding: "For us to go along with that would be a disgrace."

Even if inaccurate, the perception of U.S. and U.K. support for the Israeli offensive would be deeply damaging to efforts to bring peace and stability to the Middle East, he said.

Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett declined to comment on whether Britain would back calls for a cease-fire, contained in a French proposal to be discussed at the Security Council meeting. Neither would she discuss the U.S. position, saying only: "It is not the wish or the desire of this government for these events to continue for a second longer than is necessary."

However the conflict could be brought to an end immediately if Hezbollah returned the kidnapped Israeli soldiers whose seizure prompted the Israeli retaliation, she suggested.

"Those who hold the levers in their hands are those that hold the kidnapped soldiers."

Negotiating a cease-fire would be time-consuming and complicated, she said, whereas releasing hostages was simple and would have an immediate effect.

Beckett said Israel did have a certain "window of opportunity" in which to take actions to defend itself, as there was broad international recognition that the crisis had been precipitated by a "wanton act of aggression on the part of Hezbollah."

Source: United Press International