Cease-fire negotiations move slowly
Christopher goes to Israel with latest proposal
April 22, 1996
Web posted at: 9:45 p.m. EDT (0145 GMT)DAMASCUS, Syria (CNN) -- With dwindling hopes for a quick cease-fire agreement between Hezbollah and Israel, U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher left the latest U.S. proposal with Syria's president Monday and flew to Israel to present the plan to Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres.
Day 12 of the reciprocal fighting across the Israeli-Lebanese border was more of the same -- Israeli air strikes pounded suspected Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon and gunboats fired at the main coastal road into the south to cut off supplies to the region. And security sources in Beirut said that Israel has begun to pound Palestinian bases near the capital.
Hezbollah continued to launch Katyusha rockets into northern Israel. The Israeli army said that two Israeli soldiers were injured by the Hezbollah rockets in Kiryat Shmona.
Israeli officials Monday told U.N. peacekeepers that Hezbollah guerrillas continued to use sites near U.N. bases to launch their rocket attacks. Last week, Israeli gunners shelled a U.N. position, killing more than 100 Lebanese refugees. Israel said its forces had been aiming at a Hezbollah rocket site near the base.
The only quiet in Monday's near constant bombardment came not from a lull in the shelling, but from the Lebanese people themselves. Lebanon proclaimed Monday a national day of mourning for the over 150 civilians killed in the attacks. A two-minutes period of silence was observed.
Christopher, in his third day in the Middle East, told reporters as he left Damascus that he had met with Syrian President Hafez Assad for "two substantive and intense sessions" lasting more than five hours.
"We focused on the restatement of the 1993 understandings (a U.S.-mediated unwritten accord between Israel and Hezbollah to avoid attacks on civilians)," said Christopher. "In the morning meeting I took forward some United States' ideas with respect to those understandings. This afternoon we had reaction from the Syrian side."
Christopher is scheduled to meet with Peres on Tuesday. Christopher and his counterparts from France and Russia are all in the Middle East attempting to broker a cease-fire agreement.
French Foreign Minister Herve de Charette has also put a cease-fire proposal on the table, calling for Syria and Iran to join Western powers in enforcing the agreement. But while the Arab countries have expressed support for the French plan, Israel wants only the U.S. to mediate.
While the diplomats shuttled between Middle Eastern capitals, however, Israel and Hezbollah continued their attacks, with each claiming they would stop if the other did first.
Peres, speaking in the Israeli parliament said that the Israeli bombardment, called "Operation Grapes of Wrath," "is not limited in time but is detailed in its goals." Driving Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon is chief among those goals -- clashing directly with Hezbollah's goal of ending Israeli occupation of the region.
CNN Correspondents Brent Sadler and Steve Hurst and Reuters contributed to this report.
Related stories:
- Lebanon mourns casualties of cross-border fighting - April 22, 1996
- Differing agendas complicate cease-fire negotiations - April 21, 1996
- Christopher optimistic about Mideast cease-fire - April 21, 1996
- Fighting rages for 10th day on Israel's border - April 21, 1996
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