Olmert OK's ground offensive while backing peace proposal

JERUSALEM -- Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel authorized the military yesterday to expand its ground operations against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, but will ask his Cabinet tomorrow to accept a proposed UN Security Council resolution for ending the fighting, according to government officials.

Olmert's decision to increase ground combat came as Israeli public criticism of both the government and the military leadership escalated, with a new poll indicating that only 20 percent of Israelis surveyed believe they are winning the war and one of the nation's most prominent newspapers declaring in a front-page headline: ``Olmert must go."

Government officials said Olmert told the military to begin preparations for accelerating ground operations at about 5 p.m. yesterday after seeing a draft of the proposed UN resolution that he said he could not accept.

``What really triggered this decision was that apparently the Lebanese government -- under the pressure of Hezbollah -- managed to change the draft of the UN resolution in the afternoon," said Avi Pazner, a senior Israeli government spokesman.

But Olmert did not reverse the orders to the military after agreeing to a revised draft circulated later in the evening, according to a senior Israeli official.

``Right now the military has the green light," the official said.

Israeli government officials said the directive could be rescinded tomorrow, depending on the cabinet actions. It is unlikely the military could escalate ground combat operations significantly before tomorrow because of the time required to move troops into new positions in the hilly terrain of southern Lebanon where Hezbollah fighters are putting up fierce resistance.

In Lebanon, Israeli warplanes yesterday evening strafed a column of cars and trucks evacuating people out of the southern Lebanon town of Marjayoun, killing four people and wounding more than 23, according to George Kettaneh, head of the emergency rescue unit of the Lebanese Red Cross.

Before they were hit, a group of about 350 soldiers and Lebanese police from the Marjayoun barracks began a carefully orchestrated evacuation with peacekeepers of the United Nations International Force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, early yesterday, according to international relief workers and General Adnan Daoud, who accompanied the convoy from Marjayoun. He said Interior Minister Ahmad Fatfat had insisted that civilians wishing to evacuate be allowed to accompany the convoy.

``When the shelling began, contacts were made with UNIFIL to put an end to the intense strafing," said Kettaneh of the Red Cross.

``We don't know of anything that was attacked there, we're still checking," an Israeli military spokeswoman said last night.

Israeli troops engaged in gun battles across a thin strip of territory along the Lebanon border where they have been fighting for weeks.

Hezbollah fired 124 rockets into Israel, slightly injuring five people. The number of rockets landing in Israel has steadily declined from more than 200 a day earlier in the week.

A half-dozen booms echoed across Beirut at dawn, then sporadically again during the early part of the day as Israeli warplanes hit the southern Beirut suburbs where Hezbollah leaders used to have their offices and homes, along with many of their Shi'ite supporters. The area has been almost vacated of its residents, however, because of repeated bombings over the past month of war.

Israeli jets also bombed north of the capital, taking out a bridge in the Akka region and hitting roads near a border crossing into Syria at Abudiyeh. Lebanese media reported 11 persons were killed and the crossing was closed.

The bombings were part of a campaign to close down Hezbollah's resupply operations, preventing munitions and other supplies from reaching fighters in the south. Syria has been the principal conduit for weapons and other equipment allegedly supplied to Hezbollah by Iran.

The southern ground battles again centered on Marjayoun, a Christian town occupied without resistance by Israeli forces Thursday. Israeli forces attacked surrounding Hezbollah guerrillas with artillery and airstrikes along roads between Marjayoun and Khiam, a Shi'ite-inhabited town where Hezbollah fighters remain entrenched. Hezbollah's al-Manar television said a number of Israeli soldiers were killed and wounded in the clashes when an advancing 60-ton Merkava tank was destroyed.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said she could not confirm the reports of soldier deaths.

Hezbollah said its militia sank an Israeli warship off Tyre in southern Lebanon, identifying it as a Super Dvora patrol boat. The 12 crew members were killed or wounded, the Shi'ite Muslim movement said. It was the third time Hezbollah has reported hitting an Israeli warship with guided missiles. The Israeli military, which denied any of its ships were struck yesterday, has acknowledged only one was hit, shortly after the war began July 12.

Meanwhile, the unity evident in Israeli society and government in the early days of the conflict appears to have shattered.

``If Olmert runs away now from the war he initiated, he will not be able to remain prime minister for even one more day," the daily newspaper Haaretz wrote in a front-page analysis. ``You cannot lead an entire nation to war promising victory, produce humiliating defeat, and remain in power."