Lebanon Conflict Speeds Scramble to Find Peace

Secretary of State Warren Christopher on Saturday launched a round of shuttle diplomacy aimed at bringing about a cease-fire in Lebanon as the United States struggled to prevent other governments from undercutting U.S. influence in the Middle East.

The peace efforts took place as fighting in southern Lebanon spread to the highways, with Israeli gunboats firing cannons at civilian cars on the country’s main coastal road.

Undaunted by 10 days of Israeli air attacks and artillery barrages, Hezbollah fighters launched 72 Katyusha rockets in 24 hours at northern Israel, U.N. officials said.

“There is no sign of a cease-fire here,” said Hassan Siklawi, a U.N. worker barred by intense Israeli shelling from reaching two isolated villages in southern Lebanon with humanitarian supplies.

Christopher arrived in the Syrian capital on a day when President Hafez Assad was also welcoming to town senior officials from France and Italy, as well as Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny M. Primakov and Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati.

As if to dramatize the American plight, soon after landing here Christopher found that his scheduled meeting with Assad had to be delayed because the Syrian president was tied up talking to Primakov.

Most of the other governments represented here were pursuing their own agendas for bringing about a cease-fire.

U.S. officials acknowledged, for example, that French Foreign Minister Herve de Charette is putting forth a peace plan independent of the American proposal--one that would reportedly require an Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

Christopher and his aides made little effort to hide their irritation that the United States will have to fight to maintain center stage in the diplomacy.

“The United States, we believe, has the capability to put together a cease-fire because of our credibility in the region,” State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said.

A U.S. official distributed to reporters a quote from Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres saying that of all would-be peacemakers, the United States is “the one with the real power.”

Christopher himself, talking to reporters in The Hague on Friday, cited “the particular background that I have, the relationship with the parties”--apparently finding it necessary to point out his long experience as a mediator in the Middle East.

While Iran is considered Hezbollah’s chief international sponsor, the Islamic militant organization’s freedom to operate in Lebanon is due to Syria, which controls its smaller neighbor.

An estimated 35,000 Syrian troops are garrisoned in Lebanon, and Assad is considered key to any peace deal there.

On Saturday, U.N. peacekeeping troops counted 500 shell explosions and 80 bombs or rockets dropped by the Israeli air force over the green countryside from which Hezbollah has been launching its rockets into northern Israel.

But the most dramatic escalation was the cannon fire from two Israeli missile boats directed at an exposed three-mile strip of coastal highway between the small beach town of Rmaile and Sidon, a provincial capital and sprawling port 20 miles south of Beirut.

The Israeli boats two miles offshore appeared to fire on any moving vehicle on the highway. Lebanese police said at least 150 rounds were fired.

Warned of the danger by police, very few drivers risked the trip.

“I wouldn’t advise it,” said one northbound motorist after making it through.

One car was struck and exploded in flames moments after it set off from Rmaile. The occupants escaped and ran into a field for cover, police said. Two other drivers panicked under fire and crashed. A third civilian car was hit, seriously wounding the driver, a Lebanese policeman said.

It was the third day the boats had fired at the road, but Saturday’s shooting was more systematic, and it effectively cut off Beirut from the major southern cities of Sidon and Tyre.

Lebanon denounced the shootings, but Israeli officials said the action was necessary to block convoys bringing supplies to Hezbollah fighters.

The firing extended to inland routes. Riding in taxis from Beirut, a group of journalists attempted to evade the coastal guns by taking a detour over narrow mountain roads. But as soon as they began to descend into Sidon, the gunboats fired two volleys at them, forcing them to turn back.

The highway’s closure added to the sense of isolation among the estimated 50,000 civilians who have stayed in southern Lebanon despite the warfare washing over their region.

“All I want is for everyone to come back home and we all try to resume our natural life,” said car dealer Mohammed Hijaizi, who has been hunkered inside his Tyre apartment building since the outbreak of fighting April 11. “I am tired and sick and disgusted by the life I have to live right now.”

At least three people in southern Lebanon died in Israeli air attacks Saturday, police and military officials said. They included a school principal killed in an air raid and two Lebanese soldiers whose outpost was hit by air-to-surface missiles.

No casualties were reported in Israel from Saturday’s Katyusha attacks, but some buildings were damaged when rockets fell in the northern coastal town of Nahariya.

Since “Operation Grapes of Wrath,” as the Israeli military campaign is known, began April 11, 460 Katyusha rockets have been fired by the Hezbollah fighters.

The fighting has killed at least 136 and wounded more than 300 on both sides, according to Lebanese, U.N. and Israeli figures. Most of the casualties were Lebanese civilians.

Many in Lebanon were hoping Christopher’s efforts could help bring a halt to the fighting.

His shuttle diplomacy began two days after Israeli artillery shells, fired in response to a Hezbollah rocket barrage, struck a U.N. compound where 800 Lebanese civilians were sheltering.

U.N. officials say at least 75 people died, but Lebanese hospitals say the toll is closer to 100. Israel has apologized for the bombardment, which it laid to human error by gunners aiming for Hezbollah positions a short distance from the U.N. base.

A mass funeral for victims of the attack was planned for Monday, and Lebanon called for a minute of silence across the Arab world at midday.

As laid out by the secretary of state and other top U.S. officials, the Clinton administration has two immediate goals in the Middle East.

The first is to bring about a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah.

“There clearly is some difficult terrain to go over,” the secretary of state told reporters as his plane was preparing to land here. “I don’t take it for granted that we can get a cease-fire. I expect some difficult discussions over the next 24 or 48 hours.”

Christopher said his broader goal is to obtain a more binding version of the 1993 agreement he worked out between Israel’s armed forces and Hezbollah.

Under that unwritten agreement, Hezbollah was to refrain from targeting civilians inside Israel, and Israeli forces were to refrain from attacking southern Lebanon.

U.S. officials say the deal has broken down over the past few months because Hezbollah forces resumed attacks on Israeli civilians.

After meeting with the Syrian president for more than 2 1/2 hours Saturday night, Christopher said Assad has “a strong interest in a cease-fire.”

He also said Assad agrees with the United States that the 1993 agreement on southern Lebanon should now be broadened and put into writing.

The United States communicates with Hezbollah through Assad, but it does not deal with Iran, the principal sponsor of the militias.

Mann reported from Damascus and Daniszewski from Rmaile. Times staff writer Marjorie Miller in Jerusalem contributed to this report.