JERUSALEM / WEST BANK: U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice meets wiith Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas

Israel agreed on Tuesday (July 25) to allow aid airlifts to Lebanon but said it was determined to pursue a war against Hizbollah that key ally the United States has sanctioned despite a heavy civilian death toll. After meeting U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said both agreed that disarming Hizbollah and deploying an international force in its place in southern Lebanon were key to resolving the two-week-old crisis. Israel said it would hold a "security strip" inside southern Lebanon until that force arrived. Israel imposed an air and sea blockade and bombed Beirut airport runways after Hizbollah killed eight of its soldiers and abducted two others in a July 12 cross-border raid. Lebanon says Israel's bombardment has displaced a fifth of its population. Most of its dead are civilians. But Olmert said Israel had to press on with its offensive as Hizbollah rockets rained on northern Israel. "We are using the basic elementary rights of self defence against terrorist organisations close to the south and in the north and we will have to continue to fight against these terrorist organisations. We will fight against Hizbollah. As you know, we are not fighting the Lebanese government and we are not fighting the Lebanese people. The Lebanese government, I hope, will make efforts to distance themselves from Hizbollah and from the terrorist organisations and once doing it they will find in us partners for all kinds of accommodations that would make life for the Lebanese easier and better and certainly will help facilitate an arrangement that will end the war," Olmert said. A statement from Olmert's office stated that Rice had agreed with Israel that any resolution of the crisis had to include the disarming of Hizbollah, its removal from Israel's border and deployment of an international force to ensure it cannot menace the Jewish state. Rice, who spelled out the truce terms to Lebanese leaders during a visit to bomb-battered Beirut on Monday (July 24), said it was time for a "new Middle East". "What we can do to begin to really lay the groundwork for an enduring peace in this region. The people of this region - Israeli, Lebanese and Palestinian, have lived too long in fear and in terror and in violence. A durable solution will be one that strengthens the forces of peace and the forces of democracy in this region," she said. Rice, who arrived in Jerusalem after her trip to Beirut, also held talks with Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz to discuss the continued military operation. She later met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah. The Palestinian leader said he was willing to stick to the peace process and called on Israel to refrain from escalating violence in the region. "Violence is the natural result of the absence of peace. Therefore we should put forth more effort in order to empower the peace-makers in the region, far away from the dictation and the settlement activities and the walls and all the policies of creating realities on the ground. What is needed now is an immediate ceasefire and to put out the fire and from our side we will invest every effort to continue working towards reciprocal and simultaneous calm with the Israeli side and from there to revive the political process," Abbas told reporters. Rice said there was a need to remain focused on establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel despite the current crisis in Lebanon. She also reiterated the need for lasting peace in the region. "I know that this is an extraordinarily difficult time for the Palestinian people as well as for other innocent peoples in the region, including of course the Lebanese and innocent Israelis and we need to get to a sustainable peace in this region. That is really the problem. There must be a way for people to reconcile their differences and to move forward toward peace," Rice said. Israeli-Palestinian relations hit a new low last month when gunmen from the Gaza Strip killed two soldiers in Israel and abducted a third. That prompted an Israeli offensive which has left at least 115 Palestinians dead, but failed to secure the soldier's release or halt rocket fire by militants. Abbas, who has been struggling to salvage peacemaking amid resistance from the Hamas Islamists who run the Palestinian government, voiced hope that the soldier would be returned and Israel would be prompted to release Palestinian prisoners. Israel has ruled out any prisoner swap. Rice will attend a conference in Rome on Wednesday (July 26) on the Lebanon crisis, before heading to Malaysia for talks with Asian leaders and then a possible return to the Middle East.

ITN Source | July 25, 2006

Tags:. .halt. .sanctioned. .enduring. .therefore. .imposed