United Nations: The United Nations made an urgent appeal for European countries to quickly provide troops as Lebanese soldiers pressed on with a historic deployment to the south.
"The next few days are going to be very challenging to make sure that we meet this commitment to 3,500 troops, or 7,000 boots on the ground in 10 days from now," said UN Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown.
Israel's UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman yesterday raised objections to including countries that do not have diplomatic relations with the Jewish state in the planned UN force.
Malaysia and Indonesia which have no diplomatic ties with Israel, have each offered to send 1,000 troops to Lebanon.
US President George W. Bush, meanwhile, said it could take time for the people of Lebanon and the world to view the war between Israel and Hezbollah as a loss for the militant group. "The first reaction of course of Hezbollah and its supporters is to declare victory. I guess I would have done the same thing if I were them," he said after a meeting with his economic advisers.
Qana buries its dead
A woman cries over a picture of her loved one as Lebanese buried yesterday at least 250 people killed in Israel's war
with Hezbollah, hailing the victims as martyrs and showering their flag-draped coffins with flowers. Around 5,000 mourners thronged the funeral procession in the village of Qana, where the 27 victims of an Israeli strike, more than half of them children, were buried.
