U.N. Shocked by Strike on Border Post

Israeli warplanes bombarded a U.N. post in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, killing four observers in a strike that Secretary-General Kofi Annan termed “apparently deliberate.”

The bombing capped a violent day that included the death of a 15-year-old Israeli girl from a Hezbollah rocket in a northern Galilee town, and renewed Israeli airstrikes in and around Beirut.

United Nations officials said their observation post near the village of Khiam took a direct hit late Tuesday in an Israeli airstrike. Four members of the mission were killed. Their names and nationalities were not immediately released.

Annan flew to Rome to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and diplomats from European and Middle Eastern nations about the Lebanon crisis. He said he was “shocked and deeply distressed” by what he said was the “apparently deliberate” targeting of the post by the Israeli army.

Annan said he had received personal assurances from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that U.N. positions would be spared, and the U.N. force commander for south Lebanon, Gen. Alain Pellegrini, had been in repeated contact with Israeli officers to ensure the post’s protection.

American officials labeled the attack “a terrible tragedy” and said they were told by the Israelis that it was an accident.

There was no immediate statement from the Israeli military, but Israel’s ambassador to the United States said the incident was under investigation, and reacted sharply to Annan’s allegation that the strike was deliberate.

“I think this kind of rhetoric is deplorable, it’s outrageous, and I hope he will apologize for that,” Ambassador Daniel Ayalon said on CNN’s “The Situation Room.”

He accused Hezbollah militants of positioning rocket launchers beside U.N. sites, a practice that has been reported by U.N. officials in recent days.

Hezbollah commander Sheik Hassan Nasrallah expressed new defiance late Tuesday. In a televised address, he said his organization would not submit to “humiliating” conditions imposed by the international community for a cease-fire, and threatened attacks even deeper into Israel.

Referring to a “new period” in the 2-week-old conflict, he said Hezbollah would strike beyond the port of Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city, where scores of rockets have been falling by the dozens.

“We will choose the time when we will move beyond -- beyond Haifa,” Nasrallah said.

The U.N. deaths came as Western nations were set to meet today in Rome to discuss a possible cease-fire, response to the growing humanitarian crisis in Lebanon, and a possible international peacekeeping force.

The Bush administration did not budge from its stance that Israel should be allowed to deal a more decisive blow to Hezbollah before any cease-fire. Rice, in Jerusalem, stood by Olmert as he pledged to “carry on the fight” against the Shiite Muslim militant group.

Before she left for Rome, Rice visited the West Bank city of Ramallah, and again turned aside calls from the Lebanese for an immediate cease-fire. She said an “enduring” peace was more important and possible only with the disarming of Hezbollah.

“It is time for a new Middle East,” she said, with Olmert nodding approvingly at her side. “And to those who do not want a new Middle East, we say we will prevail, they will not.”

“Israel is determined to carry on the fight against Hezbollah,” Olmert said. “We will stop them. We will not hesitate to take the most severe measures against those who are aiming thousands of missiles and missiles against innocent civilians for one purpose -- to kill them.”

Henry A. Crumpton, the State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism efforts, said Tuesday that he believed the Israeli response was “in some ways just beginning,” noting that Israel’s military has made only limited progress in degrading Hezbollah’s capabilities.

Ground fighting continued Tuesday, with Israeli armor and infantry battling guerrillas for control of the Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil. By the end of the day, field commanders said they had seized the town, the largest in the border region and considered by Israel to be a Hezbollah headquarters.

The Israeli military said 20 to 30 Hezbollah gunmen were killed in the fighting around Bint Jbeil on Tuesday. An Israeli soldier was wounded in a fresh gunfight around Maroun el Ras, a hilltop village about 1 1/2 miles north of the border, near the Israeli community of Avivim.

Returning troops described a tenacious adversary.

“There are places I’ve been that were pretty smooth. This is not one of them,” said Assaf Oppenheimer, a 20-year-old medic, who has marched into Lebanon a couple of times now. “They’re putting up a hell of a fight.... They might be terrorists, but they’re an army.”

Israeli forces were also expanding their attack to other stretches of the border. Army convoys could be seen hauling tanks and bulldozers to a number of areas that have not yet seen large concentrations of forces. Israeli artillery shelled Lebanese villages north of Metulla, at the northern tip of the upper Galilee. Anticipating Hezbollah reprisals, Metulla officials told residents to leave or seek refuge in bomb shelters.

Across the valley from Metulla, the Lebanese village of Kfar Kila appeared all but abandoned. Laundry hung on the balconies of multistory concrete apartment buildings, some painted the color of maize. The streets and surrounding two-lane country roads were empty, and a string of yellow Hezbollah banners fluttered in the breeze.

Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said his forces were continuing to carve out a “security strip” that he said Israel would maintain as a no-go zone until the eventual deployment of multinational forces -- something that is far from decided.

Olmert’s office also said Israel would allow planes to carry humanitarian aid to Beirut’s airport, which was shut by bombardment on the first day of the offensive.

Olmert said Israel would open a ground corridor for aid between Israel and Lebanon and would allow relief shipments by sea through Beirut, Sidon and Tyre.

Despite Israel’s ground offensive, heavy shelling and airstrikes, Hezbollah fired more than 90 rockets over the border into northern Israel on Tuesday, one of which killed a 15-year-old girl in the village of Maghar, a Druze community near the Sea of Galilee. Three others were wounded, one of them seriously.

Sixteen rockets plunged into the port city of Haifa, which has come under regular attack for more than a week.

The military says Haifa is being targeted from the southern Lebanon city of Tyre, which has been pummeled daily by Israeli warplanes.

After a two-day respite, Beirut was pounded by new airstrikes Tuesday. At least four heavy blasts echoed over the city, and gray and black clouds billowed from its southern edge, where a predominantly Shiite, pro-Hezbollah community has suffered massive damage in the bombardments.

A longtime observer of the battle between Israel and guerrilla fighters in the south of Lebanon said it would be extremely difficult for the Israelis to uproot Hezbollah.

“They’ve been preparing for this for years,” said Timur Goksel, a former U.N. official in southern Lebanon. “They are scattered all over south Lebanon and they also studied the mistakes of the Palestinians.”

Goksel said one of those mistakes was stockpiling weapons in central depots. Now, he said, weapons are hidden throughout the southern border of Lebanon, from caves to closets in homes.

“And they work in very small units, sometimes no more than 20 fighters,” he said.

“They are local guys who know the local terrain. This is why the Israelis are having their problems.”

Ellingwood reported from the Israeli-Lebanese border, and Richter, traveling with Rice, from Jerusalem. Times staff writers Laura King in Jerusalem, J. Michael Kennedy in Beirut, Peter Spiegel in Washington, Walter Hamilton at the U.N. and Tracy Wilkinson in Rome contributed to this report.

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Diplomacy and fighting proceed

As diplomatic efforts continued to grind along, Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters kept up their air and ground strikes and rocket attacks, respectively.

Israel

Northern Israel remained under attack, with at least 70 rockets fired at targets that included Haifa, Kiryat Shemona, Nahariya and Tiberias.

Lebanon

Israeli ground forces engaged in heavy fighting with Hezbollah fighters in Bint Jbeil, gaining control of the city and reportedly killing a Hezbollah commander. Israeli forces also continued to attack targets elsewhere, including Tyre, Nabatiyeh and Beirut. Four U.N. observers were killed in an Israeli airstrike.

Gaza Strip

Palestinian guerrillas fired rockets into the southern Israeli town of Ami-Oz, wounding at least one person. Israel launched airstrikes against buildings that the military said were being used to store munitions for the militant group Islamic Jihad; eight people were wounded.

Diplomatic efforts

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice continued her Middle East mission, meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. She arrived in Rome for a meeting today with European and Arab leaders that was to include discussions about mustering a possible international force to police the border area of Lebanon.

Humanitarian concerns

Olmert said Israel would allow transportation of aid to all parts of Lebanon. Besides letting assistance flights land at Beirut airport, Israel would allow aid to enter through the ports of Beirut, Sidon and Tyre. Some aid agencies, however, said they were still unable to bring in help.

Evacuations

The U.S. announced that the last scheduled evacuation of Americans would take place today; as many as 300 Americans could still be stranded in the middle of fighting.

Sources: The Associated Press, Reuters, BBC, Times reporting