JERUSALEM (Reuters)- Israel will not demand the immediate disarming of Hizbollah as part of a deal to end the fighting in Lebanon, a senior Israeli official said on Saturday. Israel’s position could make it easier to reach agreement with Western powers and the Lebanese government on the proposed deployment of a peacekeeping force in Lebanon. Hizbollah would almost certainly reject a force whose mandate called for its disarmament.

"Disarming Hizbollah will not be part of the mandate for the (peacekeeping) mission for now," a senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters. "However it is supposed to strengthen the Lebanese army, the responsibility of which will be to implement  UN security council.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said Israel saw the full implementation of resolution 1559 as "the only real way to solve the problem in Lebanon."Asked if Israel was demanding Hizbollah’s immediate disarmament, Regev said: "Hizbollah has to be disarmed as soon as possible."France has emerged as the potential leader of a multinational force but has ruled out deployment until a ceasefire and political agreement have been reached, Western diplomats say.

BEIRUT, Lebanon – Hezbollah’s leader on Saturday threatened more attacks on central Israeli cities, a day after guerrillas for the first time fired a rocket powerful enough to reach the outskirts of Tel Aviv. Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, speaking on Hezbollah’s TV station, said he supported Lebanon’s efforts to negotiate a peace deal, but suggested tentative promises for the guerrillas to disarm would be off if conditions aren’t met.Israel has not made a "single military accomplishment" in its offensive on Lebanon, he said, speaking on the group’s Al-Manar television.

Nasrallah announced that Israel suffered a "serious defeat" in ground fighting around a Lebanese border town after Israeli troops pulled back Saturday afternoon. Israel said they left Bint Jbail because they accomplished their mission of wearing down Hezbollah fighters after a week of heavy battles.On Friday, a Hezbollah rocket hit outside the Israeli town of Afula, the farthest strike yet. Hezbollah said it targeted an Israeli military base, but the rockets fell in an empty field.

"The bombardment of Afula and its military base is the beginning …, Nasrallah said. "Many cities in the center (of Israel) will be targeted in the ‘beyond Haifa’ stage if the savage aggression continues on our country, people and villages."

BEIRUT, 29 July (IRIN) – Lebanon is facing an environmental crisis after an Israeli air strike on the Jiyeh power station, about 20km south of Beirut caused 10,000 tonnes of oil to spill into the Mediterranean sea. The air strikes on 13 and 15 July hit the power station’s fuel tanks and the leaking oil was pushed north by winds, and a thick sludge now coats much of the Lebanese coastline. At least 80km of the 200km coastline is affected. Officials at Lebanon’s environment ministry say that the clean-up operation will take at least a year to complete and at an estimated cost of more than US $ 130 million.

"It is about 10,000 tonnes of oil, but because of the security situation we cannot go into the sea to see what the real situation is," said a spokeswoman at the ministry, who requested anonymity. There are fears that more oil could spill into the sea due to a fire at the facility that began on Thursday and now threatens a undamaged tank that contains 15,000 tonnes of oil. The fire at the facility has created a thick cloud of black smoke that has polluted the air over Beirut and its suburbs. Government officials say although the fire poses a environmental hazard in the long-term it is less damaging than a spill into the sea. "It’s good in a way because air pollution is the better of the two evils," the spokeswoman said.

DAY 15, BEIRUT (Reuters) – Israel launched a heavy air and artillery bombardment of south Lebanon on Thursday after nine Israeli soldiers were killed in the Jewish state’s worst 24 hours for casualties in a 16-day-old conflict against Hizbollah. Israeli warplanes destroyed communication masts north of Beirut and attacked three trucks carrying medical and food supplies to the east, security sources said. They said two truck drivers were killed. Israel accuses Lebanon’s eastern neighbor Syria of supplying Hizbollah guerrillas with weapons.

Callie Lefevre, I am one of the many American students evacuated from Lebanon in the last week. I’ve been asked to write about the experience, which I do gladly but with the significant caveat that the reader understands that my experience was nowhere near as tragic and intense as the experience of the average Lebanese in Beirut at this time. For me, even before war broke out, my stay in Lebanon had a sense of unreality–of being so remote from my usual experience that I imagined myself more a character in a fiction than Callie Lefevre in reality. In its opening chapters, it was a wonderful, romantic story, slightly more exciting than the usual study abroad story because of the greater potential for discovery and adventure in the Middle East. But even when the story turned somewhat frightening and sad, it was still a story, more or less. I always held within me the comforting knowledge that my home stood waiting for me, on a little undisturbed cobblestone street in Philadelphia, if only, like Dorothy, I could get back to it. Beirut is not my permanent home, and its concrete and glass high-rises that have become piles of grey rubble don’t house the memories of my childhood or of aunts and uncles opening their doors to holiday feasts. To see a pile of grey rubble and know that it was your home, to see the body of a seven year old girl in little blue pajamas and know that it was your younger sister (who yesterday smuggled a baby chick into the car so it would be safe from the bombs) is real experience on a very different plane than the one I occupied

DAY 14 – BEIRUT (Reuters) – Hizbollah vowed on Wednesday not to accept any "humiliating" conditions for a truce with Israel, as the Israeli killing of four U.N. observers piled pressure on an international conference in Rome to end the 15-day conflict.United Nations, Secretary General Kofi Annan demanded an Israeli investigation into the "apparently deliberate targeting" of a U.N. post in southern Lebanon where an Israeli air strike killed the four U.N. military observers on Tuesday.Lebanon and its Arab allies will plead at the Rome conference on Wednesday for an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war against Hizbollah guerrillas, but the United States will insist a lasting solution needs to be agreed first.

Israel, with apparent U.S. approval, has said it would press on with its campaign against the guerrillas. It also said it planned to set up a "security strip" in Lebanon until international forces deploy.Arab leaders and Annan want the Rome meeting, due to start at 0800 GMT, to call a quick halt to the war, which has killed 418 people in Lebanon and 42 Israelis since July 12. But U.S. Secretary Condoleeza Rice, who arrived in Italy late on Tuesday after visiting Beirut and Jerusalem, says she prefers to get conditions right for "a durable solution."Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said the conflict with Israel had entered a new phase and that Israeli incursions into southern Lebanon would not stop Hizbollah rocket fire into northern Israel.

DAY 13, JERUSALEM, July 25 (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice meets Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Tuesday for talks on the war in Lebanon with little immediate prospect of a ceasefire with Hizbollah guerrillas. On a stopover in Beirut, battered by two weeks of Israeli bombing, Rice put forward truce proposals similar to Israel’s own demand for Hizbollah to pull back from the border to allow an international force to deploy, Lebanese politicians said.

"Any peace is going to have to be based on enduring principles and not on temporary solutions," Rice told reporters in Jerusalem before dinner with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. Despite the diplomacy, Israeli forces battled Hizbollah in southern Lebanon and planes kept up daily air raids. At least 378 people in Lebanon and 41 Israelis have died in the conflict, ignited by Hizbollah’s capture of two soldiers on July 12.

While saying she has no plan for Middle East shuttle diplomacy, Rice’s schedule this week resembles just that. She headed to Jerusalem after a surprise visit to Beirut and will also visit Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah. Among issues on the table are an international force for south Lebanon and getting Hizbollah to move back from the border as well as return the soldiers it seized in a cross-border raid.

TIME, The journey to Tyre in South Lebanon from Beirut, normally a one hour drive, has become a white-knuckle tear through twisty mountain roads and a bombed-out coastal highway that takes five hours.

We left for Tyre this morning after loading up on food and water for several days. Other correspondents have told us the situation is grim there, and that we need to bring our own supplies. We also considered bringing our own fuel, because the Israelis have reportedly bombed most gas stations in the area, so a black market for fuel has developed. Five gallons of gas now cost $50