Region | Lebanon
UN peace draft favours Israel
While the United States and France yesterday agreed on a UN draft resolution that favoured Israel, Hezbollah says ceasefire acceptable only if Israel halts attacks and pulls out of Lebanon.
- Gulf News Report
- Published: 23:34 May 3, 2009
- An armoured personnel carrier destroyed in an Israeli raid in the port-city of Tyre.
- Image Credit: Reuters
Dubai: The United States and France yesterday agreed on a UN draft resolution that favoured Israel.
The draft called for a "full cessation of hostilities" in Lebanon and gave Israel the right to respond to Hezbollah attacks while withholding that right from the Lebanese group.
Sources said the wording of the draft was a major victory for Israel.
The draft vowed to work "on a permanent ceasefire for a long-term solution," but officials and observers remained sceptical. It does not give a time for a cessation of hostilities.
In Beirut, a Hezbollah Cabinet minister said his group would accept a ceasefire only once Israel halts attacks and pulls all its soldiers out of southern Lebanon.
"We will stop [fighting] on condition that no Israeli soldier remains inside Lebanese land," Energy Minister Mohammad Fneish said.
The United States and the United Kingdom welcomed the draft and said "we have the cessation of hostilities ... within the next couple of days".
As the full UN Security Council reviewed the draft, Israel and Hezbollah fighters traded fire on the ground and a Hezbollah rocket attack killed three Israelis.
The Israeli army warned residents of Sidon to evacuate the city ahead of planned air strikes on what it said were Hezbollah offices and rocket-launching sites located there.Helicopter-borne Israeli naval commandos attacked Hezbollah guerrillas near the southern Lebanese city of Tyre overnight.
A naval officer said eight commandos were wounded in the operation.
He said the commandos killed seven Hezbollah fighters in close combat. Hezbollah issued a statement denying seven of its men were killed in what it called a failed raid.
- With inputs from Agencies
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