Israeli Airstrike Hits U.N. Outpost

A Lebanese man who fled the fighting listens to news of the crisis from a shelter at an old courthouse in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon. (By Kevin Frayer -- Associated Press)

"At the end of the day, the international community realizes we are doing a dirty job on its behalf" against Hezbollah, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly on the talks.

The official said the deployment of a multinational force was "in the cards," mainly because Israel remembers "the trauma" of its 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon that ended in May 2000.

But the official said composing such a peacekeeping force would take time given that key questions remain unanswered, including which countries would take part and what the force's mandate would be. The official said any multinational force must be able to confront Hezbollah, something the current U.N.-led observer mission in southern Lebanon has not done.

"One of the big issues on the table is that a cease-fire has to get it right," said Mark Regev, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman. "You cannot have a cease-fire that allows for an immediate rearming of Hezbollah."

After meeting with Olmert, Rice traveled to Ramallah in the West Bank for a largely symbolic meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who demanded an immediate cease-fire along Israel's second front in the Gaza Strip. The fighting there began June 25 when the military wing of the governing Hamas movement and two smaller armed groups captured a 19-year-old Israeli soldier in a raid on an army post just outside Gaza.

Abbas has been pressuring Hamas to endorse a two-state solution to the conflict, something Rice said was still viable in the form of the U.S.-backed peace plan known as the "road map." Before the Gaza crisis began, Abbas had called for a referendum on a document that endorses a future Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. The vote was scheduled to be held Wednesday, but has been left behind in the violence.

"Israeli aggression in the West Bank and Gaza Strip must stop immediately so we can strengthen the truce and start a political process that aims to end the occupation," Abbas said.

[Israel on Wednesday sent tanks into Gaza and launched airstrikes, killing two fighters, from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, in Gaza City, the Reuters news agency reported, citing medics. Palestinian officials said a total of seven people were killed overnight.]

To protest Rice's visit, Palestinians organized a general strike that shuttered Ramallah's commercial districts. Shortly before she arrived in a convoy of bulletproof vans, hundreds of Palestinians marched through nearly empty streets, carrying placards calling on Rice to "go home." Others waved Lebanese flags.

"The United States has no credibility," said Khalida Jarrar, a Palestinian legislator from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian, a radical nationalist faction with a Marxist orientation. "What's happening in Lebanon makes the U.S. image look worse and worse."

Wright reported from Jerusalem and Ramallah. Correspondents Jonathan Finer in Avivim, Israel, Edward Cody in Beirut and Anthony Shadid in Tyre contributed to this report.