A Lebanese flag flies over cars driving past a collapsed building in a Hezbollah stronghold suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, Aug. 12, 2006, that was destroyed following Israeli air strikes. Israeli warplanes struck several targets in north, east and south Lebanon early Saturday, killing at least two people and wounding several others. The attacks came just hours after the U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution calling for an end to the war. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev)

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By RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI, aug 13, Associated Press Writer , JERUSALEM – After a stormy debate Sunday, Israel’s Cabinet approved a Mideast cease-fire, agreeing to silence the army’s guns in less than 24 hours. The Israeli military embarked on a last-minute push to devastate Hezbollah, rocketing south Beirut with at least 20 missiles. The 24-0 vote, with one abstention, came a day after the Lebanese government approved the agreement, and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah gave his grudging consent. The truce was to take effect Monday morning.As the vote took place, Israeli shells slammed into the hard-hit Dahiyeh suburb, a Hezbollah stronghold just south of Beirut, Lebanese television stations said. Al-Arabiya said several buildings were destroyed.

Earlier Sunday, Israeli warplanes fired missiles into gasoline stations in the southern port city of Tyre, killing at least ten people in those and other attacks. Fierce ground fighting involving 30,000 Israeli troops continued in the south, where Israel lost 24 soldiers Saturday, including five on a helicopter shot out of the air by the Lebanese resistence. In Jerusalem, a heated debate erupted during the Cabinet session, with minister Ofir Pines-Paz criticizing the government’s decision to order an expanded ground offensive in the days before the cease-fire is to take effect. 

Anthony Shadid, Washington Post Foreign Service, Sunday, August 13, 2006; Page A01, HASBAYA, Lebanon, Aug. 12, Israeli troops entered Marjayoun at 3:30 a.m. Thursday. They had first seized Burj al-Molouk. Next was Qleia. The last, along a road stretching from the border, was the capital of the province, a faded, once-prosperous town that unfurls up a hill overlooking a valley carpeted in olive trees and the imposing, wizened peaks of Mount Hermon, known here as Jebel al-Sheikh."They came with the tanks, of course," said Fouad Hamra, the town’s mayor.

Residents said the 400 or so families in the town of Marjayoun stayed indoors, some too fearful to look out their windows to the street. Even a loud voice might draw notice, they said. The Israeli presence was ghostly — some heard voices, a few saw the soldiers themselves, most knew of their presence by word of mouth, news broadcasts and the sound of fighting that went on outside their doors."People didn’t dare leave their homes," said Hikmat Farha, a 53-year-old resident now staying in a Beirut suburb.Nearly everyone has now departed the Christian town, where houses of cream stone and red-tiled roofs sit tucked in a southern corner of Lebanon, perched unfortunately along the Israeli border. Some left in the early days of the month-long war, when Israeli forces laid siege to Khiam, a Shiite Muslim town across the valley, where fighting still raged Saturday. Most, like Hamra, left Friday in a harrowing convoy of hundreds of cars that plied a moonlit road and was attacked by Israeli aircraft. Six people were killed and more than 30 wounded

Michael Winfrey BEIRUT, Aug 13 (Reuters) – Relief agencies sent convoys towards southern Lebanon on Sunday, hoping a planned truce between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas would mean rapid improvement in the humanitarian crisis there. Frustrated by heavy fighting and a ban on movement imposed by Israel’s army, aid workers say they have been unable to bring food, water and medicine to an estimated 100,000 people trapped south of Lebanon’s Litani River. But they said they could reach the area on short notice if a truce resulting from last week’s U.N. Security Council resolution to end the war takes place on Monday as planned.

"We expected better access immediately after the resolution, so we are a bit frustrated, but we expect the access to be much better after the ceasefire," said U.N. spokesman Khaled Mansour. "I would expect we would be able to run convoys south of the Litani as of tomorrow (if it takes hold)." The U.N.’s World Food Programme said it sent two convoys to the southern city of Sidon and one should proceed on Monday to Tyre, a port south of the Litani cut off from the north when Israel bombed the last main crossing a week ago. Spokesman Robin Lodge said U.N. peacekeepers were to rebuild the crossing over the river, a rocky cut a few metres wide and as many deep crossing Lebanon about 20 km north of the Israeli border.

Published: Thursday, August 10, 2006, Sonia Verma reports from Beirut on how violence has caused thousands of young, university-educated professionals to leave Lebanon, possibly for good. BEIRUT – These are the trades 28-year-old Ziad Hawwa is willing to make to leave Lebanon: His swanky Beirut bachelor pad for an indefinite couch surf; the company of his elderly mother for a secure paycheque so he can support her from afar; his brand new Honda Civic for a one-way cab ride out of the country at a cost of $1,500."If I look to the future I see black," said Mr. Hawwa, nursing a bottle of mineral water in an eerily empty cafe near the pharmaceutical company where he still shows up for work in pressed khakis and a blue button-down shirt.