10 die in Israeli attack in south Beirut

Lebanon conditionally agrees to deploy 15,000 troops to border

BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- An Israeli strike hit a south Beirut street on the edge of the city's mostly Christian eastern district Monday evening, killing five people and wounding 24, security sources said.

The strike hit a building near a mosque in the upscale southern suburb of Shiyah, officials with the security forces told CNN.

It was not clear whether the blast was the result of an Israeli airstrike or shelling from warships off the Lebanese coast. The Israel Defense Forces has not said what it was targeting.

Video of the scene, aired on Lebanese TV, showed rescuers digging for survivors in the rubble of the collapsed building.

The strike came shortly after Israel warned residents south of Lebanon's Litani River to stay off roads after 10 p.m., Israeli military sources said.

The warning came in a message broadcast through the media, sources said.

Earlier Monday, an Israeli airstrike killed at least seven civilians near the southern city of Sidon, Lebanese officials said.

The IDF in recent days had dropped leaflets on Sidon, urging civilians to evacuate.

Israel is attempting to establish a buffer zone between Israel and the Litani -- about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of the border -- to halt the Hezbollah cross-border rocket attacks into Israel.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said Monday that one person was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the southern village of Houla, not 40 as he had earlier reported.

"The massacre in Houla, it turned out that there was one person killed," Siniora said. "They thought that the whole building smashed on the heads of about 40 people. ... Thank God they have been saved."

Siniora had earlier told Arab foreign ministers in Beirut that the attack "was a horrific massacre ... in which more than 40 martyrs were victims of deliberate bombing."

Siniora said he had based the initial tally on unspecified information that he had received. He offered no other explanation for the error.

Lebanese media are reporting 65 survivors were pulled from the rubble, more than half of them children.

Siniora said the Houla incident showed Israel has "the intention to kill" civilians.

The airstrikes, which pummeled Houla's Hamamir neighborhood near the main mosque, destroyed at least six homes and caused fires to engulf the area, a law enforcement source said.

The IDF said it is checking the reports on Houla, noting that it has warned residents for the past two weeks to leave.

Israeli commandos Monday raided an apartment complex in Tyre, Lebanon, that they had attacked two days earlier, AP reported. Five people were feared dead in Monday's attack.

Israeli commandos also landed on a hilltop south of Tyre, Lebanese security officials told AP. About 30 commandos fought Hezbollah in close combat in a bid to destroy rocket launchers, the officials said.

Israeli warplanes struck the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, shortly before dawn.

Two Israeli soldiers were killed by an antitank missile Monday in fighting near the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil, the Israeli military reported.

Israel also said it had shot down a Hezbollah drone on Monday.

Open debate for Security Council, Arab League

The violence came as Lebanon's government said a U.S.- and French-backed plan for ending the nearly month-old conflict fell short of its expectations.

The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday will hold an "open debate" with an Arab League delegation on cease-fire proposals.

Siniora said the delegation should tell the council not to adopt a resolution "that cannot be implemented and does not take into consideration the interests of Lebanon."

Specifically, the plan does not demand Israeli troops withdraw immediately from Lebanon or clearly address territorial issues like Israel's occupation of the disputed Shebaa Farms territory near the Syrian border, Siniora adviser Mohamad Chatah said.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem voiced his country's opposition to the U.N. draft resolution, saying it contains "a true injustice to Lebanon."

President Bush said Monday all involved parties "aren't going to agree with all parts of the resolution."

But he said the resolution must block Hezbollah's ability to act as a military force in Lebanon. (Full story)

Bush also said Syria and Iran must end support for Hezbollah.

The draft U.N. resolution calls for "the immediate cessation by Hezbollah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations."

A second resolution would later establish an international peacekeeping force that would help Lebanon's army take control of the country's southern border, where Hezbollah has held sway since the Israeli withdrawal in 2000.

Lebanon's government has agreed to deploy 15,000 troops to southern Lebanon with U.N. support as long as Israeli troops withdraw, a government spokesman said late Monday.

The government earlier ordered any former soldiers who have left the service in the past five years back to active duty.

Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said Monday stopping Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israel can be achieved by diplomatic means, but while negotiations continue the Israeli military has been told to proceed "without taking into consideration the emerging diplomatic process."

Monday marks the 27th day of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. So far the conflict has resulted in 97 Israeli deaths, including 35 civilians, the IDF said; in Lebanon, security forces put the death toll at 716, most of them civilians.