Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit says Arabs disappointed by talks BEIRUT: Israel said Thursday a world meeting on Lebanon had authorized it to wipe out Hezbollah in the south of the country and vowed to step up its air offensive after nine elite troops were killed. Yesterday in Rome we have in effect obtained the authorization to continue our operations until Hezbollah is no longer present in southern Lebanon, Justice Minister Haim Ramon told army radio, referring to Wednesday s 15-nation conference in the Italian capital. But with the conflict now in its 16th day and more than 400 people killed, world powers were still at odds over how to end it, with Washington infuriating Arab opinion by blocking calls at the Rome meeting for an immediate ceasefire. Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit said Arab countries were disappointed at the Rome talks failure to agree on a demand for an immediate ceasefire in the Middle East, the official MENA news agency reported Thursday. The Rome conference failed to meet Arab demands, he was quoted as saying on his way back from the crisis talks, convened after two weeks of Israel s punishing offensive against Lebanon. Abul-Gheit nevertheless acknowledged that the conference had been a step forward in the direction of a ceasefire. The whole world is being held hostage by just one country: the United States, said one Arab diplomat, who asked not to be named. The only ones who could really put pressure are the Europeans, and they take things lying down these days. Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora despaired for his war-ravaged people, telling diplomats in Rome that his country was being cut to pieces. Washington also prevented adoption of a UN Security Council draft resolution critical of Israel, after its warplanes killed four UN observers in a raid in a south Lebanon town that UN chief Kofi Annan said was apparently deliberate. Ramon said Israel no longer regarded as a civilian area the border town of Bint Jbeil, around which the nine soldiers were killed in fighting with Hezbollah militants on Wednesday in Israel s biggest single-day toll. Everyone who is still in south Lebanon is linked to Hezbollah, we have called on all who are there to leave, he said ahead of an emergency cabinet meeting. Maximum firepower has to be used, he said. We have to exploit the advantages that we have over Hezbollah with the air force and artillery and be cautious when we use ground troops. Shortly afterwards, the security cabinet decided to intensify air strikes on Lebanon and restrict its more risky ground operations to setting up a few kilometer border buffer zone, army radio reported. And in its first reaction to Israel s dual assaults on Gaza and Lebanon, Al-Qaeda s second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri warned the network would carry out attacks against Israel and its US backers in revenge. We cannot watch these rockets raining down their fire on our brothers in Gaza and Lebanon and remain inactive and submissive, Zawahiri said in a videotape aired Thursday by Arabic television channel Al-Jazeera. Everyone who took part in the crime must pay the price ... The whole world is an open field for us. Like they attack us everywhere, we too attack them everywhere. Israeli warplanes meanwhile carried out new air strikes on Hezbollah strongholds in south Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley to the east of the capital, killing a policeman and six other civilians. And despite the offensive aimed at freeing two Israeli soldiers captured on July 12 and ending rocket fire, Hezbollah launched 40 rockets into northern Israel on Thursday, damaging buildings but causing no casualties, the army said. Warplanes also fired more than 400 missiles overnight at the hilltop town of Khiam where the four UN monitors were killed on Tuesday. At the insistence of Beijing, which had a national among the dead peacekeepers, the UN Security Council was to resume deliberations Thursday on a resolution or statement on the deaths. But agreement looked elusive after Washington rejected even a draft condemning any deliberate attack against UN personnel without any specific reference to the Khiam raid, diplomats said. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice flew into Malaysia for a meeting of Asian foreign ministers at which she was set to receive a hostile reception. The 10 southeast Asian ministers plus China, Japan and South Korea had issued a statement Wednesday condemning the apparently deliberate raid on the UN post. However, a rift opened with Britain, hitherto the United States most steadfast ally, after it emerged that Washington had used a Scottish airport as a staging post for new arms deliveries to Israel to sustain its bombing campaign. I am not happy about it, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said of the stopover by U.S. aircraft delivering GBU28 laser-guided bombs to Israel. I have already let the United States know that this is an issue that appears to be seriously at fault ... that we will be making a formal protest if it appears that that is what has happened. Rice, meanwhile, insisted there had also been agreement in Rome on the need for a multinational UN-mandated force for Lebanon. The UN plans to hold a troop contribution meeting at the end of this week or next week, she said. In a flickering sign of some relief for Lebanese trapped by the air and sea blockade Israel imposed at the start of the conflict, a Jordanian plane carrying UN humanitarian aid landed at Beirut airport. And the UN Children s Fund UNICEF announced that a first convoy of humanitarian aid for children had arrived in Tyre, the scene of heavy Israeli bombardment. Much of southern Lebanon s infrastructure lies in ruins from Israeli bombing and food, fuel and medical supplies have been disrupted with some 800,000 Lebanese displaced. The UN food body has warned of a major food crisis. Tens of thousands of foreigners have also fled, with Americans completing their final evacuation Wednesday. Most have been pulled out by land or sea with the airport closed to commercial traffic because of Israeli air strikes.
