Update: Israel Suspends Air Raids For 48-Hrs
Ankit Gupta - All Headline News Staff Writer Jerusalem, Israel (AHN) - Before the suspension of airstrikes was announced, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told US Secretary of State Condoleezza 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. "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. Saniora said he told her not to come. Rice decided to cut her Mideast trip short and return to Washington. 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. But Saniora said talk of a larger peace package must wait until the firing stops. "We will not negotiate until the Israeli war stops shedding the blood of innocent people," he told a gathering of foreign diplomats. But he underlined that Lebanon stands by ideas for disarming Hezbollah that it put forward earlier this week and that Ri |
