WORLD / Middle East

Israel halts air attacks in south Lebanon
(AP)
Updated: 2006-07-31 09:53

In Qana, workers pulled dirt-covered bodies of young boys and girls - dressed in the shorts and T-shirts they had been sleeping in - out of the mangled wreckage of the building. Bodies were carried in blankets.

Two extended families, the Shalhoubs and the Hashems, had gathered in the house for shelter from another night of Israeli bombardment in the border area when the strike brought the building down.

"I was so afraid. There was dirt and rocks and I couldn't see. Everything was black," said 13-year-old Noor Hashem, who survived, although her five siblings did not. She was pulled out of the ruins by her uncle, whose wife and five children also died.

Israel apologized for the deaths but blamed Hezbollah guerrillas, saying they had fired rockets into northern Israel from near the building.

Rice called the Qana bombing "awful" and said she wanted "a cease-fire as soon as possible." It appeared to be her first real call for a quick end to the bloodshed.

President Bush repeated his call for a "sustainable peace" in the Middle East and said: America mourns the loss of innocent life, those tragic occasions when innocent people are killed."

Before the suspension of airstrikes was announced, Olmert told Rice the campaign to crush Hezbollah could last up to two weeks more.

"We will not stop this battle, despite the difficult incidents this morning," he told his Cabinet after the strike, according to a participant. "If necessary, it will be broadened without hesitation."

The U.N. Security Council met in an emergency session and approved a presidential statement that expressed "shock and distress" over Israel's attack on Qana but stopped short of condemning it.

After news of the deaths emerged, Rice telephoned Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and said she would stay in Jerusalem to continue work on a peace package, rather than make a planned visit to Beirut on Sunday. Saniora said he told her not to come.

Rice decided to cut her Mideast trip short and return to Washington on Monday morning.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who earlier supported the U.S. stance, said Washington must work faster to put together the broader deal it seeks.
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